I upgraded to hydro and went back to soil and soiless. Hydro is more upkeep, and you now need to control the environment of your reservoir, pain my ass! Maintaining pH in a DWC system is a bummer, every fucking day. When I skip days, I regret it. Some people like to drift their pH... I've never heard of such a ridiculous theory in my whole life. Stressing the ever-loving shit out of your plant with constantly inconsistent and uneven nutrients is not going to do anything but decrease yields. Stress can cause more frost, but this is bad information, and does not belong on this site.
Anyways, pH is a very big deal! I called Fox Farm and VermiCrop today, and they they explained that although a soil grow with pure organic nutrients is best at a higher pH, but even still, most Organic nutrients are only 35% (or some shit like that) Organic, as mandated. And a pH of 5.8-6.3 is best. They say the best idea is to follow the instructions on your nutrient chart that came with the product. Throw that fucking fox farm nutrient line in the garbage, post it up on Craigslist, or start a vegetable garden with it, it's a load of bullshit, and I feel like I can confidently say that it is not for cannabis cultivation.
Hydroponic gardening will only increase the speed at which you will veg, it will not speed up flowering. Usually the only thing that can do that is very expensive flower boosters that contain hormones, enzymes, and a bitch load of nutrients, and even then, the amount of time you cut vs the cost of the booster is a debated subject. It doesn't cut that much time, some of them don't do jack. If you are doing a SOG, a perpetual garden, or whatever, veg time means nothing. Soil and soiless medium is really easy to work with, control pH, and soiless is very clean, you can also very easily create beneficial life in your soil or soiless medium. It's fucking beautiful, in my opinion.
Despite what I say I know you will venture out into hydroponics, and I encourage it. It's all about knowing how to work with what you have. Sometimes people find hydro to be much simpler, and never go back to soil. It boggles my mind, I rather just mix up fresh nutrients once or twice a week and know it's going to be okay until the next mix. Some people rather make a mix and keep it, top it off for a month or two, and switch to flower, and then top it off until flush, and that is hydroponics. Doing that shit drives me nuts though, even if it's more efficient.
ALSO: Organic Farmers: The best advice I got from the VermiCrop customer service rep was; Add your nutrients and/or teas to your reservoir, and do not correct the pH. Adding pH buffers changes the balance of nutrients, and can kill a lot of the life growing in your solution. In the next 30 minutes to 24 hours, the organic life should naturally alter the pH to it's correct levels. "The tea knows my friend!" the rep explained, it should work with your plant, for your plant. If not, you should adjust your solution/tea, or consider changing to a premade one. The rep didn't have to tell me how good the VermiT is, I'm already a believer, I use it a lot up until late flower. I haven't used it in a while though, even though I am currently using their VermiSoil in like 3 of my plants.
If you have been growing for a long time and do not agree with this, I highly recommend some research and an experimental grow before contesting, I think the results will BLOW YOUR MIND!
