Soil for a SOG, limited options at hydro store

RL420

Well-Known Member
Sorry if this isnt the best spot to post this, but i know you guys know your soils :P


Im starting a perpetual sog in a 4x7x9 room split into flower/veg rooms.

My hydro store has the following soils:

Roots organics(camo looking bag)
FFOF
Pro-mix

Which of these or a combination of these would result in a decent soil for my SOG? It would also be good to mention they dont have a ton of the amendments you guys add, but they do have castings and guano for sure.
 

grownbykane

Active Member
a little more information would help... do you plan to feed liquid nutes or are you creating an add water only super soil? are you staying 100% organic or going with chemical ferts? i personnally build super soil out of the roots, i veg with straight roots. i had moderate succsess when i tried ffof. a close friend of mine uses pro-mix and gets some pretty serious yields. any of those 3 can be a good choice, but they all need to be treated very differently.

kane
 

RL420

Well-Known Member
a little more information would help... do you plan to feed liquid nutes or are you creating an add water only super soil? are you staying 100% organic or going with chemical ferts? i personnally build super soil out of the roots, i veg with straight roots. i had moderate succsess when i tried ffof. a close friend of mine uses pro-mix and gets some pretty serious yields. any of those 3 can be a good choice, but they all need to be treated very differently.

kane
I havnt bought any liquid nutes yet. Planned on using the Fox Farm's line though.


I run ffof and i love it, how long are you gonna veg?
not vegging long, im going to basically be putting rooted clones into 12/12 in this dirt.
 

grownbykane

Active Member
if you are using the full line of fox farm nutes, any of those 3 can be made to work. i would choose roots first (you will be able to let them go a few weeks without any nutes), my second chouse would be pro-mix (you will be using nutes more or less from the get go for best results), and ffof as a third choice (i got lots of bugs in mine, and it can be too hot to put seedlings/clones directly into). of course this advice is only based off what i have seen in person within my close group of grower friends and my own garden, so i am sure there will be more than 1 valid opinion. also, growers in my circle all run about 2 month veg times, so running a shorter/zero veg regimne may produce results very different from mine.

kane
 

Deeproot

Well-Known Member
yeah i would use roots for your application, ffof is pricey and you will going through quite a bit of soil running a sog
 

RL420

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the info guys, so basically i can use roots organic the entire cycle with some added liquid ferts without issue?
 

kushking42

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the info guys, so basically i can use roots organic the entire cycle with some added liquid ferts without issue?
5 gallon pots filled with roots would take a clone from start to finish with no food. and if it did need food, a top dress with worm castings would be sufficient. a 3 gallon pot might work as well.
 

really comfy slippers

Active Member
Roots Organic with no nutes? Reallllyyyyy? Hmmm I have my G13 PE in there now, vegging out. Haven't fed her yet either but she is looking great.. I planned on feeding her this week.
 

kushking42

Well-Known Member
Roots Organic with no nutes? Reallllyyyyy? Hmmm I have my G13 PE in there now, vegging out. Haven't fed her yet either but she is looking great.. I planned on feeding her this week.
keep in mind o.p. wants to flower clones. so thats 8-9 weeks total life. with 5 gallons of soil that should be plenty.
 

whitey78

Well-Known Member
5 gallon buckets of soil are defeating the purpose of a SOG grow no? I think SOG and I think small pots, last year I did some 2L soda bottle growing with coco coir and botanicare nutes, worked really well but it was expected that I was going to be watering every day.

Organic soil/nutrients dont go well with small pots, it can work but it will be just that, a lot of work. 5's are kinda big in my opinion for a sog but 3's will work fine and still give you a day between waterings, any smaller than that and you will water/feed every day, and with a bunch of plants that shit gets old real quick, I have some monsters running in 5's right now and mixing up nutes every 2 days is getting old fast.
 

kushking42

Well-Known Member
5 gallon buckets of soil are defeating the purpose of a SOG grow no? I think SOG and I think small pots, last year I did some 2L soda bottle growing with coco coir and botanicare nutes, worked really well but it was expected that I was going to be watering every day.

Organic soil/nutrients dont go well with small pots, it can work but it will be just that, a lot of work. 5's are kinda big in my opinion for a sog but 3's will work fine and still give you a day between waterings, any smaller than that and you will water/feed every day, and with a bunch of plants that shit gets old real quick, I have some monsters running in 5's right now and mixing up nutes every 2 days is getting old fast.
you answered your own question. these plants only need tending once a week. a plant that is alive for 9-10 weeks needs all five gallons. rootbound plants that are too big for there pot suck. check out my tent grow. (5 gallon tall) pots 64 plants per tent. 128 plants in veg room that will be transplanted into 5's two weeks before harvest so they can slide right in. how is this not sog? Not to mention that i dont have to mix nutes because they have a relatively large pot for the plant full of organic nutes

i use outdoor pots that range in size from 200 gallons to 1000. im a firm believer that plants that have robust thriving root zones throughout the entire life of the plant produce more and have better resistance to disease and pests and yield more. my best plants grown in s.s. are always my smallest. i like to take a fully rooted 1 gallon pot and transplant into the 10 gallon and immediately switch to 12/12. these plants never run out of food, get rootbound, need top feeding or frequent irrigation. bigger pots: mo' betta

my tent grow: https://www.rollitup.org/subcools-old-school-organics/520353-10-kw-two-tents.html
 

whitey78

Well-Known Member
Dude, I dont care what you say you do with your 128 plants but anyone who transplants a plant 2 weeks before harvest or immediately switches from a transplant into 12/12 without letting his plants settle into their pots hasnt a clue what their doing period and shouldn use phrases like "robust thriving root zones" because if thats what you are doing to your plants, meaning you have any, they are far from thriving.

And yes you have a nice setup, however I dont see it being used to its full potential anytime soon.
 

kushking42

Well-Known Member
Dude, I dont care what you say you do with your 128 plants but anyone who transplants a plant 2 weeks before harvest or immediately switches from a transplant into 12/12 without letting his plants settle into their pots hasnt a clue what their doing period and shouldn use phrases like "robust thriving root zones" because if thats what you are doing to your plants, meaning you have any, they are far from thriving.

And yes you have a nice setup, however I dont see it being used to its full potential anytime soon.
calm yourself, the plants that are on deck (in other words the next round of clones) get transplanted two weeks b4 the current flowering plants harvest. please dont get into a pissing match with me as you will get wet. follow along and read my thread because you apparently didnt read anything. the op wants to flower clones. thats not how my setup works. these tents will produce 10# a piece. how much more potential is there? thats a rhetorical question in case you were wondering.
 

RL420

Well-Known Member
well guys if it helps, i only have 1 1/2 gallon pots, maybe i should return them to hydro shop and get 3 gallon square ones instead? Infact, i DO NOT want to water everyday, for me this will be impossible. Any suggestions? I have enough room under my 400 to run a comfortable 6 but was going to do 8/
 

whitey78

Well-Known Member
128 5 gallon pots just doesnt seem smart or in any way efficient but its your way, my bad. So how many grams per watt is that setup producing? I just think its a little foolish to think your not wasting money on nutrients when using that much soil, maybe you have a hook at a soil producer or something. I know for a fact a 2CF bag of soil only fills 2.5 to 3 - 5 gallon pots properly so.....how many bags of soil is that to fill all those pots? 50 bags of soil would get you roughly 125 - 5 gallon pots.... I pay $28 a bag for FF or roots so it would cost me about $1400 to fill that many 5 gallon pots... I've used SOG method in a 4x4, 1 block of coco and couple bottles of botanicare nutes which cost me a total of about $100 total for the whole grow and produced halfway decent buds on my first go around. You must also be pretty resourceful and have somewhere to get rid of your used soil which itself is a royal pain in the ass. It looks to me and everyone else that you're a fool with a bunch of money, and you know what they say about fools and their $...

To the OG poster, if you are going to veg for 2 weeks and then flip a 3 gallon pot will be more than enough. If you want smaller pots you can use smart pots all the way down to 1 gallon without having to be worried about being root bound with that low of a veg time however I would recommend at least 2 gallon smartys at the minimum. Smart pots air prune the roots as they break through the sides of the pot and then start growing sub-roots off of that never getting bound. I'd suggest finding some of them and if you dont wanna fully invest in them at least get a couple to try out side by side, but they will require more watering that a normal hard pot but I cant say what your plants are going to be like, in your soil mix, these are all variables you'll have to figure out as you go along, but a 3G should be more than enough. I do agree with the dude above about bigger root zones and all that as they do produce bigger buds but once you get a few grows under your belt you wont need anyones advice and you will know what you need.


I went through a phase where I wanted to do a (smaller) SOG grow and set my garden up for that and actually started buying everything to go that route but kinda started seeing things different once I started learning about supersoil and larger plants etc.. not to mention once you go over 99 plants you will be charged with a federal crime if leo happens to stop by and you arent legal. But 4 plants per 1000/4x4 space is where I'm headed with supersoil. I run a 4x8 with 2 1k lights for flower, and a 4x4 for veg which doesnt work well for bigger plants let me be honest, but once I get my cycle going I'll be pulling 4 plants per month out of one side of my tent with a 2 month veg period on them. Its taken 18 months of nothing but reading and screwing up to get where I am so be ready for some let downs and mishaps, no one is a pro overnight, some people are I guess.

I would say just start growing and get your feet wet but try to not fall into the bullshit with snake oil products and all that, which is what I like so much about supersoil. You mix the shit up once a year or whatever and add nothing, water your plants and thats it. Drop them into that monster pot and for 4 months do nothing but train and water said plants, no mixing up nutes, no transplanting once they are in the big pots, no nothing....just buds growing without much work from you other than making sure the environment is right. Personally I think using properly mixed supersoil will make you a better grower simply because you dont have to think about any other bullshit aside from when to water and how much basically. At the moment I do not use supersoil just because I'm closing up my garden for the summer this month and I had a ton of bullshit products that I wasted my $ on to use/give away before I switch over, but at the moment I have to keep excel sheets to keep track of what and when I feed and all that bullshit, and I'm only working with 12 plants.
 

kushking42

Well-Known Member
i pay $9 per bag of roots. to fill both tents it costs less than $400 for medium and nutes!!! 10 kw produces 20# of organic goodness. you produce garbage botanicare buds please dont compare the 2.
 

whitey78

Well-Known Member
i pay $9 per bag of roots. to fill both tents it costs less than $400 for medium and nutes!!! 10 kw produces 20# of organic goodness. you produce garbage botanicare buds please dont compare the 2.

I'm glad soil is cheap for you, but pure blend pro isnt a bad product, but again...... if you knew anything about growing period you'd know that. But it all goes back to what I said, your an idiot with a bunch of money trying to show off thinking it makes him cool. So long troll, I wish you the best in your money blowing en-devours and be sure to keep a journal to show us all how its done.
 
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