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Quest For The Best Nutrient Solution: Organic Vs Salts


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Well, that is not fully true actually.  Sliding scale comparisons and unspecific references allow the facts to be deceiving when not understood fully. 

 

Heavy metals.

 

Arsenic

Cadmium

cobalt

mercury

molybdenum

nickel

lead

selenium

zinc

 

Now, in general, one must look close at WHAT metals are at higher levels, is it detrimental, and at what amounts it becomes good or bad. If ya read my long post on pg 5, I show that zinc content is higher in organic grown products. This of course makes sense in that fertilizers such as fish/kelp are high in zinc content.  Zinc is an essential nutrient for plant growth. Zinc is also on essential nutrient for human survival. ;-) 

 

Essential mineral elements:

 

Nitrogen

phosphorous

potassium

calcium

magnesium

sulfur

boron

chlorine

iron

manganese

zinc

copper

molybdenum

nickel

 

Beneficial elements:

 

silicon

sodium

cobalt

selenium

 

Essential NonMineral Elements:

 

Hydrogen

Oxygen

Carbon

 

 Then ya go into macro/micro issues and cations and anions.

 

 Those are essential.

 

 To say organic fertilizers are high in heavy metals is very decieving in that sometimes it is totally beneficial for certain metals (zinc) to be higher in value.  Unlike some of those classified metals are very detrimental (arsenic,mercury etc).  There are vast differences amongst fertilizers in this area and no one fertilizer speaks for any other fertilizer even if both are blood meal, GH koolbloom or Growbig or etc etc.

 

 One of the industrial problems with chem/salt ferts is that yes, sometimes they are stripping metals from their concoctions as much as possible. Leaching it out.  Here is the big problem, it isnt about you, it is about them.  These highly concentrated leftovers of heavy metals and pollutants are not being dealt with post industrial use. You can look at the surveys around almost all chem/salt based factories and see DISTINCT differences in soil content andmetal contents in the local waters.  -_-

 

That is a problem that is kept from the eyes of the users who are only thinking about themselves and their faucet int he kitchen.

 

But back where i was,... some organic ferts do have higher zinc and sometimes higher nickel, it is the other categories, the more dangerous ones, where chemical/salt ferts become questionable.  So,.. yea,... good topic, but deceptive.

 

And again i will say as i always say,... it is about preference.  YES there are differences and fighting to ignore it is silly. Understand it and embrace it.  There are ways to improve flavonoid production in hydro environments. IMO i see the best hydro as medium organic(thus why i say sliding scale comparisons) and that should be understood.  But yea,... it is a sharing of information so people can make informed choices.  I try to stay away from corporation funded studies and total greenpeace nonsense on ANY of these topics and dig into the science as best as possible.  But once ya understand everything ya need to know, ya realize we understand very little about organic chemistry still. :-) 

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Certainly it is regarded as such by those that choose it, but some choose "hydro" for the health reasons; who is right? The answer is that it is all preference and taste, and has nothing to do with health at all. Have you really never met a healthy person that only consumes store-bought/commercially grown produce? The absolute healthiest people I know pay no attention to the organic designator, but to the actual nutrient content of their food.

for sure you are correct.

 

the fact that grow stores have routinely sold illegal chems under the counter, display and sell "FOR Ornamental Use" only products, to boost weights and profits in their cannabis growing stores, make large profits on all kinds of dangerous insecticides, and even convinced some here that using these industrial poisons is actually acceptable on indoor medicinal marijuana should be viewed with wide opened eyes to the end users of the bottled nutrients, -made by people in their garages often, people that "believe" that some things are healthy, and profitable maybe. 

 

I aint selling nothing. I love hydro, and would still be using it, if I could have located just ONE commercially available organic feed that did not leave a user wanting. I couldn't, so I made my own organic fertilizer. Nope, no worms for sale, or dirt here, just a share of techniques, no pitch, or book either.

Some in the thread say "organic is better" some say "salts are no different". so what. the orgs will keep there org patients, and the salts will keep their salt patients. The two consumers are different types, and wont affect the others' habits or suppliers. until the demands of one or the other are greater...

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And to be fair,... I used dead pigs and cows and they and the farms they live on cause a lot of environmental damage... ;-)

 

Albeit I am cleaning up the dead by products of it for a good thing,...  blood/bone has plenty of issues as well environmentally.

 

 So plant based nutrients are generally becoming more favourable,.. cottonseed, kelp etc.

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Mal- I am referring to the cadmium, lead, arsenic, etc. The non-plant essential & simultaneously harmful to human heavy metals.

 

Here is a link to WA's website, it has a pretty comprehensive list of commonly sold fertilizers, both organic & chemical based. You can look up any brand, alphabetically linked.

 

http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilizers/FertDB/Product1.aspx?ltr=

 

 

It's pretty well established that these potentially harmful metals can be found in most fertilzers (to varying degrees), plants uptake & store them in their tissue, and that mj is particularly good at doing so. There are many influences on which & how much of the metals are bio-available, but higher doses in fertilizer applications have a higher measured level of build-up in plant tissue. And organic sourced feeds seemingly have higher levels of metals vs chem based.

 

The only question I have is the over/under. At what point could the levels of metals present in our nutrient feeds have a negative impact on human health? I don't know this answer, so the varying degrees of diff between varying nutrient sources might be inconsequential. Don't really know, and don't believe anyone else does either, at least not any definitive academic answers.

 

But yes, we are adding heavy metals to our mj, just at differing rates based on nute regiments & sources. Does it matter? Don't know.

Edited by Indigro
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I got  flustered in my quest for a clean responsible organic fertilizer available to the public. So much so, I bought thousands of dehydrated baby worms and began with a dozen trays full of my recycled soil. they quickly ate all of that, multiplied and grew. Along with the root balls and used soil (their only diet for several years) I began feeding dried garden trim, like fan leaves, small sticks. Soon as they dried out they were safe to feed to the worms. The bins tripled, a 4x4 tray was filled with them, and the worms tally in around 100,000. they recycle all of my garden waste and turn it into new dirt for me every day. Every plant pot has at least a dozen incidental worms in it all the time. The worms use 1/4 of the water the garden uses daily. The tea is always bubbling and used weekly in between spring watering.

 

Today I fear that in such a closed environment that whatever bad thing is accumulating is in a "sink" forever. that's bugs me. I test my spring water yearly, and pretend that's the only area of possible concern. Maybe the bales of peat moss originally, or the bag of happy frog (seedlings/clones=worm dirt is too hot for the babies)  yearly?

 

not gonna worry too much of it though, as I read of Floramites and Eagles, and nobody getting sick, I'm guessing the bio security of my little secret sealed rooms is safe, enough and  it's been able to avoid all of those mold and mite issues strangely. I count my lucky starz!  those issues would crush me.

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I'm with ya indigro. :-)

 

 I always tell people know what you are using and all fertilizers are different.  I mean, even GH has varying amounts from bottle to bottle on these things.  One bone meal is different than another bone meal etc.

 

 But at the point you understand that, you are smart enough to make your own decisions in what ya do/use. :-)

 

As far as W. Ag,..... it is definitely a great resource and I wish more places kept such nice testing results posted and easily accessible.  I just wish they would test more often and more products. ;-) But ya know,... regulation, oversight, big government.

 

I would suggest reading up on chelation, bioavailability, phosphate salts and their effect on cation and forming insoluble metal chelates that collect int he plant. :-)

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I noticed what that sounded like and edited afterwards.  Solid info on the washing.  Things break down into inert ingredients over time.   I don't know how long or what but closed systems are tricky.  A slight rinse and test every once and a while and you should be fine.

 

And the thread is Quest for best nutrient solution: organic vs. salts.  That leaves it quite open to explore different techniques as different ferts would do better or worse in different grow techniques.  Obviously Grassmatch's system only works with organics.  I think there is a lot of great info except the argument parts.  Things are what they are and nothing is perfect.  Obviously we've figured that you can only use salts in hydro and organics in a recycle system and have shown downfalls and upsides of each.

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I wouldn't give soil with chem salts in it to an organic garden as it would mess with the juju. Probably wouldn't kill too much microlife and would be washed out with the rain but then anything left over would wash into the water supply.  I try to be over anal about these things.  Probably too much but that's the way I am.  I have seen nice gardens in "waste" soil from salt ferts. I think if I didn't recycle the soil I'd start mixing my own from native soil and amendments.  Just put it in a black compost bucket and it'd kill most everything.  Maybe cool compost first to kill off pathogens then hot compost.

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So the solution to pollution is dilution?  Sorry, couldn't resist.  I know when it's diluted it isn't pollution, it's a fertilizer and many other things are toxic only if concentrated.

Yes but the higher concentration nute env isn't that salty in an organic env. is it? or acidic?

Sorry, I should really take a chemistry course now that my interest is perked. 

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Holy crap.  Do all tomatoes use that much water or is hydroponics just use more.  A gallon per plant per day.  Mine use 1/4 of that.  I know they are different but does salt ferts and organic use the same amount of water or is it the greenhouse thing that increases use? 

Now I know why our aquifers are being depleted.  Didn't think they used that much.  Seems that organic farming in the fields with lots of organic matter to hold the rain water would be more forgiving than pulling all that water from the common city system or out of the aquifers.

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Water uptake is closely related to plant size and grow room temperature. My aero uptakes twice as much solution at 80 F than at 75. You can use this to either retard uptake or encourage it, depending on the momentum your plants have at the time. Knowing this can help you feed the amount you have determined the plants need by closely inspecting the plant growth. Sorry, no link.

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Plants often uptake the water out of the solution and leave the nutes behind. A good way to see this is to check the ppm after your solution has lowered in the reservoir. The ppm will usually rise. If your plants are not heavy eaters then you should add water to get the ppm back down where it was before the water uptake. No link.

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It is because of the greenhouse in Arizona.

Sometimes you do things just because you can I guess.  Didn't see it was in AZ.  Well that explains the water situation in Az.  No wonder my friends there limit the showers and watch water consumption, they need it for their tomatoes.

 

As for knowing how much to feed when, I let deficiencies tell me that.  I'm not trying to maximize nutrients as i think lack(borderlining it) of them is a way to better meds.  I get good enough yields to not want to maintain "optimal" growth.  Just my preference.  And I do soil, so buildup is something I'd worry more.  Just taking the opposite approach of less is more.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chem D

SVF OG Kush

Original Diesel(Headband)

Scud- SFC's cross of Kyle Kushman's Strawberry Cough and Original Diesel

trying to figure out what these 4 'winners' have in common, and what separates them from the other 96 also-rans.  are these 4 specially suited in some way to K.I.S.S.?

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trying to figure out what these 4 'winners' have in common, and what separates them from the other 96 also-rans.  are these 4 specially suited in some way to K.I.S.S.?

What they have in common is that they were gifted to me by SFC. I have grown out many many strains from the seed banks and none earned a spot in the plant count next to these 4. I have cage fought these 4 against any and all comers and all the newbys lose in every type of growing set up and every type of fertilizer. The old elite strains are the best as far as I can tell so far.
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Rarely needed and often over used. Most organic recipes call for it even though it's not always needed. Just goes to show you neither method, organic or salts, holds the franchise on messing up a plant.

 

 

Only problem is organic lacks the burning sensation in the mouth and throat.  At least mine does! 

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Only problem is organic lacks the burning sensation in the mouth and throat.  At least mine does!

Problem? BOTH my organic grows AND my salt fertilizer grows do not burn anyone's throats. What's your point? That's YOURS are specialer? lol My point was that you can grow great cannabis either way, you can mess it up either way. You can post pretty pictures of messed up plants either way. And you can tell the growers who have a chip on their shoulder that THEIR method is better, and the ones that just want to be inclusive to all growers techniques with an open mind. We need to be inclusive to all great methods so that we can have a bountiful Michigan harvest that includes all kinds of grows. Pat each other on the back for a good job done, not toss handfuls of crap at each other's ways of doing things when there are so many ways to grow cannabis right.
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Problem? BOTH my organic grows AND my salt fertilizer grows do not burn anyone's throats. What's your point? That's YOURS are specialer? lol My point was that you can grow great cannabis either way, you can mess it up either way. You can post pretty pictures of messed up plants either way. And you can tell the growers who have a chip on their shoulder that THEIR method is better, and the ones that just want to be inclusive to all growers techniques with an open mind. We need to be inclusive to all great methods so that we can have a bountiful Michigan harvest that includes all kinds of grows. Pat each other on the back for a good job done, not toss handfuls of crap at each other's ways of doing things when there are so many ways to grow cannabis right.

 

It's not personal, Restorium2.  I do experience a difference between true organic plants and all the hydro bud I have ever sampled.  Maybe there is someone growing the perfect hydro but I haven't found it.  The difference can be very subtle, but that telltale taste is still in there no matter how slight.  If there is no difference how do I always seem to know if a sample is hydro or organic?  By "true organic" I don't mean quasi-organic nutes with ammonium nitrate and things like that by the way.       

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It's not personal, Restorium2.  I do experience a difference between true organic plants and all the hydro bud I have ever sampled.  Maybe there is someone growing the perfect hydro but I haven't found it.  The difference can be very subtle, but that telltale taste is still in there no matter how slight.  If there is no difference how do I always seem to know if a sample is hydro or organic?  By "true organic" I don't mean quasi-organic nutes with ammonium nitrate and things like that by the way.

Can you describe this 'telltale' a little better and maybe we can narrow down the ingredient your taste buds are searching for?
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