Quest For The Best Nutrient Solution: Organic Vs Salts

[pic book]

For first time in a while i'm not producing my own but "acquiring" meds and it has been quite disappointing, as the acrid greasy aftertaste of like 19 of 25 samples from gorgeous-pic-perfect-top-shelf to gnarly-underfinished, leaves me spitting for hours.  What advice do you have for the dozen+ growers who provided the samples? ( I've remained silent out of gratefulness just

to have anything).

[Norby]

Thanks Zap, I appreciate the explanation. 

[pic book]

I would like to agree that if anyone wants to grow good cannabis then follow all the above post but if someone wants to grow great cannabis PM me

i'm a student on a quest to learn how to grow great cannabis.  Sorry, the system says you cannot receive any more PMs.

[pic book]

Plants can be overfed so much that no amount of flushing will correct the issues.

So it is not a matter of what ppm's you pour into a pot but the duration of your pour that determines how much salts accumulate?

[pic book]

go organic and mix all amendments into the medium

'sf organics' is a liquid fish fert applied at the rate of a teaspoon per gallon of water.  are you saying unless fed drain-to-waste there's gonna be harmful nute build-up in the pot?

[pic book]

top-feeding of salt-based nutrients without sufficient runoff can cause salt-buildup, and severe increases in solution concentration in the root zone, which require frequent flushing, really leaching, during the cycle to avoid buildup.

 

 

flushing=pouring a small amount of water into the plant over time at cycle end?

leaching=pouring lots of water into the pot over the course of the whole grow?

[pic book]

zap:  if you feed any organic nutes (liquid or granular) with lots of sugar, you get nute build-up in the pot that flushing may not alleviate and you'll taste the nutes in the smoke?

[Norby]

I erased my questions because I had too many.  Don't want to overload Zap.

 

Anyone else though or if Zap has time.

 

So does the different taste come from a different nutrient profile that theoretically could be synthesized or is the taste coming from unusable substances in the microlifes poop that are able to be uptaken by the plants and stored in the plant tissue which normally wouldn't be thought of adding to fertilizers.

 

Also you were saying chelating things makes it able to be uptaken by the plant and build up in the tissue. Is it possible to add things to bulk up the plant in weight that wouldn't be wanted? And would this also lower the cannabinoid ratio to weight?

 

So the terpene profile and cannabinoids are mostly genetic while env. conditions (heat, humidity and handling) are more responsible for lower levels rather than feeding?  Does that mean that feeding still affects the cannabinoids and terpenes if overfed?  Like gensing, if it's given all the nutrients it needs will it produce less cannabinoids?  You said overfeeding affects the quality but didn't quantify if it was only buildup of salts or if overfeeding lowers the ratio of cannabinoids to plants material.

 

Just trying to figure out why some people grow under nearly the same conditions, the same strain and come out with 12% THC where as TGA and I get closer to 25%.

[Restorium2]

The answers to all of those questions are strain specific. Generally, the healthier a plant is the better medicine it produces. You can look at a bud and see what it's made of so bulking up a plant to add weight will show when you look at the buds. You want to see large calyxes and not a lot of leaf fluff. That's usually the difference between bad bulk and good bulk. I always look to the calyxes to judge a bud. Tiny little calyxes and the bud is weak. Big juicy looking calyxes and the buds are awesome. I don't even need to test at a lab to tell me what's good and what's bad, you can see it with your eyes if you know what to look for.

[Restorium2]

Norby's Question;

Just trying to figure out why some people grow under nearly the same conditions, the same strain and come out with 12% THC where as TGA and I get closer to 25%

 

 

If the buds looked the same and tested different then I would suspect the testing. You would be surprised at how easy it is to mess up a test. 

Edited June 15, 2014 by Restorium2

[Restorium2]

Most of the good 'advice' is so strain specific that it's really hard to give out generalized good advice.

 

Strains are not always identified properly so it's hard to even give strain specific advice.

 

Look at the calyxes; BigBud has beautiful huge juicy calyxes BUT the THC is low. A BigBud bud with weak looking calyxes is super worthless. It's all relative to the strain.

 

One strain can use upwards of 1000 ppm at times during the bud cycle. Other strains stunt at that ppm. 

 

One strain I have likes hydro better than soil, another likes soil better than hydro. They all like aero but the nutes need to be different in aero than hydro.  PH needs to be different too depending on strain and grow technique.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Restorium2

[Norby]

If they are the same strain.

  I know what you mean by looking at the calyx for trichome area coverage  But I've had week looking sativas with small calyx' and small trichomes which knocked my socks off.  They just didn't get big calyx or large trichomes but had many trichomes but didn't look frosted like an incica with larger calyx'.The calyx size depends on the strain, not the quality?  Unless your talking early picking causing weakness, then the calyx will be smaller because it hasn't had time to swell, correct?

[Norby]

Ya, I figured that wouldn't be just from overfeeding and there may have been issues with early harvest or too high heat and humidity.  I just wanted to figure out all the variables that go into the quality(I know that's somewhat or even moreso subjective) and amount of cannabinoids present.

 

Thanks, Great answers! just what I was looking for.

[Restorium2]

If the strains being grown vary that widely, a drain to waste system feeding the same nutrient solution to all plants at the same amounts and frequency would not be suitable.

I have one aero set up with 6 different plant sites on it with an 18 gallon container. When I put strains to grow together on this set up the strains need to be compatible to the same grow conditions. I have strains that grow well together and some that do not.

[Restorium2]

Ya, I figured that wouldn't be just from overfeeding and there may have been issues with early harvest or too high heat and humidity.  I just wanted to figure out all the variables that go into the quality(I know that's somewhat or even moreso subjective) and amount of cannabinoids present.

 

Thanks, Great answers! just what I was looking for.

An early over feeding can stunt a plant for weeks and it will not ever produce like it should. You can stunt a plant with heat too. I find that too high of a grow room temp makes the calyxes smaller. Humidity is a little more forgiving. When to switch to flower is a HUGE factor in what your plant produces. I have one strain that if I miss the one week window to switch to flower it totally messes up the end product. Too early and it produces half, too late and it produces half.

[Restorium2]

Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. You would need two (or more!) reservoirs and drip manifolds if you were doing drain-to-waste with strains like that. I am glad I haven't had to deal with that. How many different general nutrient profiles do you have in your garden, and is the main variation need for nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium?

I have one grow room with all soil plants. I have another with two aero systems. I have a third room with DWC buckets(hydro).

 

I use a combo of organic and non organic nutes for the soil grow. I use GH nutes for the hydro and the aero. I only run 4 strains right now after trying about 100 others that were weak. They were only good for learning experiences and not that great for meds.

 

I start out going exactly by the instructions with the nutes and it's just trial and error from there. 5 years of trial and error. A dozen kinds of nutes and a lot of great advice from the plant store owners. I'm settled in with Fox Farms for soil and GH for liquid and aero grows. I find these nutes fool proof and they produce great meds cycle after cycle.

[Restorium2]

I ALWAYS flush my hydro and aero for at least 10 days before harvest. ALWAYS.

 

On soil, I taper off the nutes down to 1/4 strength by the end.

[Restorium2]

At one week to 10 days the nutrient solution needs to be changed(hydro and aero). You will chase the PH too much after that. You can also go by the amount you have topped off with. When you have added the amount that the res holds it's time to change it out. After watching closely how this works I know by watching the PH when it's time to switch out the res solution. It's usually right around a week.

 

Anyone try organic in hydro? It's a mess. You can make it work, plan on baby sitting. Not worth it.

[trichcycler]

I hydro'd from birth. I love hydro growing. I even love the water messes that inevitably happen. I love the control it offers me over life, almost egotistically. I loved shopping, and researching, and experimenting with every brand of nutrient solutions I could find. I loved some of the results, others not so much. Sometimes the manufacturers own quality controls are allowed huge variances from one pallet to another, and I didn't love the results of that. I found the "formulation" and dilution along with an amazing profit margin to be very  much American. I loved that the bulk of these shelf brands of cannabis growing nutrients are very simply available at the cattle feed farm store in huge bottles, barrels, and bags. They're used on all farms in most places. They are made mostly by pharmaceutical companies(ahem) but oh well. These fancy labels just dilute, sometimes thousands of times, then mark up, sometimes thousands of times, their watered farm store purchase, with the rest being mostly hype.

 

When I stopped loving hydro so much, and then saw results myself with years of side by side in my same garden areas. Let me say my hydro product was among the best I had ever sampled in my life and I had no complaints, but I did maintain 7 35 gallon reservoirs, and one 50 gallon res full time in my compliant and progressive/perpetual garden.

I compared the same tissue cultured stains next to each other and saw obvious differences that were consistent with each weeks plantings. Let's start with genral health. One thing I see is the strength of each plant, with two gallon dirt pot plants growing branches they can always support, unlike many hydro two gallon plants, which would make branches that most always needed added support. The dirt grown leaves were harder, crispier, darker, and the flowers were always left with more complete terpene profile, according to my bias tests. Remember, I really really wanted hydro to be my forever choice, even though it was less work overall, the expense was much higher in hydro than dirt, but I was willing to eat the costs for the "ease" of production.

 

If a farmer raised a cow on an I.V. line with every nutrient the cow needed provided with necessary sugars protein, carbohydrates and a complete mineral liquid feed for a year I bet the meat would taste different than if that cow had to search out the foods it was compelled to "need" at a particular moment, and exercise its roots during the never ending search for water and broken down food. Thin of harvested meat right off the nipple, very similar.  Is not bad in any way to the palate , but it is different.

I believe that this plant searching for its own desired naturally broken down composted foods, while receiving messages from subterranean animals, fungus webs etc, rewards the end user, at least the one seeking out a complete more pronounced plant expression(s), with a finished product superior to any hydro I've tried. I'm not sure I could tell the difference with a toke here or there, but side by side chronic use by patients over the years is good enough proof for me. Heck, I don't even need to know the shy's or how's of the matter. Discerning patients are smart, they shop for their local produce grown organically most often, and shop at the market in the same way. Mine often buy their meat from a butcher, rather than the supermarket, and their vegetables roadside, or home grown, to avoid the commercial fertilizing programs they fear are very vulnerable to profit geared funny business. We've already seen it in the past with mj specific growing aids, illegal, unhealthy, and yet on the market and widely used at the time. It will continue, and then China will begin producing it instead, melamine, lead, chromium.........here we go.

 

I don't grow hydro any longer. I love the choice I made to grow using organic feeds and techniques. Its harder work, but less expensive. The results are the ones my patients demand, and I agree. As a patient I would only be interested in using cannabis grown with organic techniques today, even hydro organic.  The farther away from commercial farming fertilizers, the better. 

 

peace out

 

but that's just me

Edited June 15, 2014 by grassmatch

[Dlo]

I remember bubblegrower doing a DJ Short Blueberry organic hydro journal on this site years ago. I remember it turning out great. 

 

Where did all the grow journals go?

Edited June 15, 2014 by Dlo

[Restorium2]

If a farmer raised a cow on an I.V. line with every nutrient the cow needed provided with necessary sugars protein, carbohydrates and a complete mineral liquid feed for a year I bet the meat would taste different than if that cow had to search out the foods it was compelled to "need" at a particular moment, and exercise its roots during the never ending search for water and broken down food.

Plants pick and choose what they want out of nutrient solution. It's not like an I.V. See Lucas Formula.

 

 I have let this pass by a few times posted here and it just makes you pay by ignoring these type of analogies. Then people assume they are a correct analogy. I think it'a a terrible analogy designed to bolster organic soil grows over hydro grows. I think it stinks.

 

NASA does a aero grow with GH nutes because they believe it's the closest thing to how plants grow NATURALLY in the rain forest. Not because they want a cow on an IV.

[Restorium2]

I remember bubblegrower doing a DJ Short Blueberry organic hydro journal on this site years ago. I remember it turning out great. 

 

Where did all the grow journals go?

I would like to hear about the nutes. Anything organic plugs up my sprayers and jacks around the PH.

[Restorium2]

Grassmatch on Soil vs Hydro; The results(soil)) are the ones my patients demand, and I agree.
 
My outlook; Depends on the grower. If your patients don't like hydro, the guy who supplied them hydro failed miserably. Once they tried correctly grown hydro they would throw rocks at the last guy who supplied them the bad stuff. He was just a bad hydro grower if you can kick his butt like that with soil grown cannabis. He should have kept trying until he got it right.

[trichcycler]

my savvy patients have been with several different growers of both hydro and organic soil, including both from me. jury is in. their preference remains, as does mine. not selling any promo, or even care of others' choices really, good thing I only have 6 people to satisfy at a time.

 

 

......... if a cannabis grower cannot immediately see the differences in between side by side hydro salt growing plants, and organic soil growing ones of the same strain, and know the taste differences instantly...I have no interest in discussing intricate details like taste, smells,potency, terpene profiles or expressions with them at this time, no offense t anyone of course, but no sense on clogging this thread with 101 growing.

 

I've grown and sampled the majority of what the Tude offers, plus more from other sources,and only had two  strains that I called junk so far. Interesting you had a hundred. Could be many variables involved, including personal choices and expectations. I'm sorry they failed for you, I know how much that sucks in the garden after the investment.

[Restorium2]

......... if a cannabis grower cannot immediately see the differences in between side by side hydro salt growing plants, and organic soil growing ones of the same strain, and know the taste differences instantly...I have no interest in discussing intricate details like taste, smells,potency, terpene profiles or expressions with them at this time, no offense t anyone of course, but no sense on clogging this thread with 101 growing.

 

Then you will die ignorant and still be a bad hydro grower. lol