Ok, Meangreen you finaly got me to switch to Organics. I have always supplemented with Bat Guano and teas, Chicken Shit, etc, but I bought my first bag of Fox Farm "Ocean Forest" today and a box of Bat Guano. I also have some Nitrozyme that I use to foilar spray my vegging ladies. What else do I need??? I am not putting anything together till I get your input buddy. I need to know what percentage of Perlite and vermiculite to add if any, and how much of whatever else I need to add to the mix prior to transplanting. I will be taking rooted clones and puting them into 1 gallon pots for vegg, then moving them into 6 gallon pots for flowering. I also have some sunshine #2 that is supposed to be Organic aside from a wetting agent. I also picked up some soil called 4 corners. 50% Earth worm shit and 50% Spaghum peat moss. So help me out on this if you would. My strains love nitrogen, and occasionaly need an Epsom salt foilar bath for the Mag. Indica dom Strains and very bushy. Thanks in advance. Med. H
I grow in Ocean Forest soil as well and it is awesome. I add 10% perilite to my 3 gallon containers, but OF is very well aerated on it's own and doesn't really need the added perilite. No vermiculite will be needed at all with this soil. I'm not sure that you will have to ammend the soil with any nute boosting supplements due to it's high organic nutrient levels, it already has bat guano, sea bird guano, Norweigan sea kelp, worm casting, crab and fish meal, and all sorts of other goodies. I find that most strains I grow don't need nutes until thier 3rd - 4th week of vegging in OF soil. I grow mostly indica dominant strains just like you.
When I use to use FF OF I added 20-30% perlite as well as a 1/3 cup of Epsom salts to the 1.5 cubic ft bag as 9/10 times I used this soil I ran into Mg deficiencies by the 4th week.Personelly I wont spend the $ on OF any more as it is alot cheaper to buy 3.8cuft bails of Pro Bx soiless and make my own.Check your PM messeges and we can go from there on getting you some proven recipes for making your own soil and saving some $.FF OF is still the best store bought in my opinion but not worth paying for if ya make your own.
IMHO, the reason why you ran up against MG deficiencies is because you used Epsom salts unecessarily. The build up salts cause a nute lock. I only say this because I have never had any Mg issues when using this soil, especially considering the nutes I use cover all the bases for the plants needs. It is already full of nitrogen which breaks down into salts. OF soil doesn't need any ammendments and the only time I here of people having problems is when they try to ammend the soil. Adding 30% periltie probably made it so the it was tooo aerated and the soil wasn't retaining much moister wich can cause Mg deficiencies as well. I only pay $20 for a bag of OF soil, so I don't think that is too expensive. Of course these opinions just come from my experiences and my experience has been that OF soil is the best organic soil available for growing. I have never had problems, maybe I am just lucky?
Lets rule out adding Mg as a lockout prob as I did this after repeated probs with the OF soil.Never in my long history of soil growing have I ran into problems with lack of moisture retention from adding 20-30% perlite in any circumstance,especially considering I have used both drainless containers as well as drainable.I could agree with ya that yes you have been lucky so far,but I feel its either the strains you have grown or lack of strains thus far in your endeavors that just dont give you broad enough experience to date with OF,I am not knocking your experience but as to date in the little over a year I would guess I have gotten to know ya you have never had any significant amount of soil in use at any given time with your stealth/closet grows to merit enough experience with to base your opinions on.I am not here to debate OF with ya,I will agree with ya once again it is perhaps the best retail organic soil on the market,but for short cycle crops only,and it makes to much sense to make 4 times the amount of better soil for twice the cost of OF and then still have enough amendments to do it again with only the cost of another bail of Pro BX.Go with what works.Peace Guysmiley,whats up with Weedtalk,cannot access and that Wednesday of arrival never happened to as of today!!
I think the bandwidth has been exceeded...Gecko is taking care of it. I have been growing for over 4 years now and have been using OF for 2 years. I don't think I could be getting lucky grow after grow. I have used MG, Pro mix, and many other soils. I have even used BOG's mixture and I have found that my grows became more productive when I started to use OF soil. I guess what works for some doesn't work for others. The size of the grow means nothing and you know that, so to judge my ability, or lack there of, by garden size is silly. I have grown everything from sativa dominant to indica dominant, so my spectrum isn't limited. I didn't have good, luck with pure sativa or sativa dominant plants. I do very well with indica and indica dominant plants, but sativa dominant strain are hell for me. I think I care for them to death, I'm not sure...I just know that my indica grows thrive and my sativa grows SUCK. Any suggestions as to why that maybe? I know that you grow sativa dominant strain quite often.
I am not at all knocking your ability based on grow size,but what I am saying is how in any 6 month period of time I will throw out more used soil then you have probly used in 4 years and by this I am refering to your amount of time and experience in using,making,and experimenting with soils has been minimized by the size of your grows and therefore your experiences/opinions will far differ from that of mine and that is is based entirely on amount of soil you have physically used up.One can grow 20 of the same strain in the same soil and all will not respond the same.The reasons for lack of success with sativa/sativa doms is indoors is generally caused by lack of light and penetration there of,they require far more par output then most indicas ever will as well as completely different nutritional needs.I have found that sativa doms without enough lite grow poorly indoors due to nutrient needs not being met from to low of light levels dis-allowing the plants wanted/required uptake of nutrients regardless of whats available thus slowing down plants typical growth rates resulting in poor health. One can overcome this by adding alot of side lighting as to keep light levels up in a typically taller and denser(deeper) canopy that overhead lighting simply cannot reach.Lack of container depth with much deeper root growth requirements for sativa/sativa doms is another potential downfall for success.
I always used 7-8 gallon containers for my sativa's but I just don't produce well with them. I will try some more sidelighting the next time. They aren't horrible grows, just not as productive as my indica's, they never look as healthy as my indicas. Thanks for the tips....
