Good ole' trial & error... On the error side again; What went wrong with this soil batch?

[Ecompost]

I listened to the interviews on KIS Organic's podcasts and they were helpful. I think that podcast#17 is the one where they are talking about the Soil Savvy test and how it is different from a saturated pasted test. The guy from the Soil Savvy test sounds like the scientist from The Simpsons and it's kind of hard to follow, but there is great info. I think that that main idea of the podcast is that the Mehlich 3 test is a chemical extraction and it will give you the total amount of nutrients. The saturated paste is paste extraction and it will show what is soluble. The Soil Savvy test is a gel extraction and it is supposed to be more accurate than the saturated paste extraction at showing what is available and it accounts for nutrient lock-out.

Your looking pretty good to be honest!

https://www.kisorganics.com/pages/podcast

If you live in the USA and grow Organic, go to Woodsend Labs to get tests done. You can also get the guys to give you a CO2 burst rate test among other leading edge tests
https://woodsend.com/

this doesnt just say yeah you have NPK Blah... it also says you have the microbial activity to access it

 

[Ecompost]

Logan Labs is popular and they are a little more user friendly than Spectrum Analytic. Make sure that you tell them that you want a weighted scoop for a soiless medium. They will weight the scoop ONLY if you ask them to, it tripped me up for a while. It's $25 for a Mehlich 3 and another $25 for Saturated paste.
http://www.loganlabs.com/soilless-media.html

Soil Savvy is $30 but it comes with pre-paid postage and lab fees. They send a kit and you fill their container that has their gel and it sits in the gel for 5 days before they test it. They say that it is much more accurate than a Saturated Paste test, but you should get the Mehlich 3 and Soil Savvy for a complete picture. I've been winging it with only the soil savvy lately, but I am about to start getting the Mehlich 3(Logan Labs) & Soil Savvy.
https://unibestinc.com/products/#soilsavvy

Soil Savvy Gel. They have a patent on this stuff.
View attachment 4185465

Again I think for Organic, Woods End Labs is the best

https://woodsend.com/

 

[Ecompost]

If an OP ever wants me to leave a thread I always respect that.
Sorry I misdirected the conversation @NewGrower2011.

I'm out!

Edit:
Need to add.
@Crab Pot
I was putting myself out there to help someone who is difficult to deal with and needs help.
You stumble in with a bullshit comment because you want to redirect the conversation to help yourself.
Fuck Off!

Now I'm out!
You can have the last word looser!

Boy I sure am insecure with this tough crowd about my pictures now.
They are extremely nice Indica plants you have there.
Would love to see some of your 11 week strains.
I love growing indica, so easy isn't it.
I guess I need to go back to growing them. At least for pictures to impress the crowd.
Especially if I'm going to sell seeds lol.


Anyway, I enjoyed what I did above for Mustang and appreciate him not going after me for what I said.
I'm done with that.
Maybe something will click later.
Took me years to dial in my watering, very common for growers to have to hit the reset. Even long time growers.

I'm not sure what to show.
Maybe something dark, something crispy and of course something with more than 5 blade leaves.
I would never embarrass myself by trying to impress this crowd with 5 blade 7 week strains lol.
Three pics for the road.
View attachment 4185623 View attachment 4185626 View attachment 4185627

I didnt find him difficult to deal with personally. Perhaps the phrase no bad student only bad teacher is appropriate?

Simple reality is you all ignored his test results in my opinion. Had you started with the data and not the personality, you might have got somewhere

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Again I think for Organic, Woods End Labs is the best

https://woodsend.com/

I've never hear of them, but I am open to suggestions. I know that the Soil Savvy test is only telling me what is soluble.

 

[Kushash]

I didnt find him difficult to deal with personally. Perhaps the phrase no bad student only bad teacher is appropriate?

Simple reality is you all ignored his test results in my opinion. Had you started with the data and not the personality, you might have got somewhere

I didnt find him difficult to deal with personally. Perhaps the phrase no bad student only bad teacher is appropriate?

Simple reality is you all ignored his test results in my opinion. Had you started with the data and not the personality, you might have got somewhere

Why are you bringing me back into the conversation. Did you not read my last post that I was done.
I was done the post before that until Crab Pot jumped in but I'm over that. He was just standing up for a friend.

I probably did go about it wrong since I didn't know how to approach it.
I was glad it was over but you had to say something to bring me back.

Before I called you smart but I realize the above comments are coming from someone who knows shit about watering.
Am I right? <- Answer that or I'll be trolling you for an answer. Share your knowledge of watering cannabis.

Now I think your a smart moron.

I said above he was only difficult with me because I want to talk about his real problem. Improper watering.

I knew from the beginning I might get attacked as other smarter than you growers did prior to you showing up.
By the way, I don't peg you as a grower just some kid out of school with a degree.

Do you have any knowledge to share about what I believe to be his over watering problem?

No one disputed or took me on or conversed about that.
Why has no one called me out on that?

Does anyone here that knew what his problem was 2 years ago dispute that he was over watering two years ago?
If anyone does please speak up and call me out on something intelligent.
Best I got so far was criticism of my plants LOL.

If anyone being critical wants to talk about what his problem was and probably still is (OVERWATERING) then please speak up or STFU and I'll leave.

Don't forget this especially the bold part.
Am I right? <- Answer that or I'll be trolling you for an answer. Share your knowledge of watering cannabis.

​

 

[Kushash]

Anyway.
What ever anyone thinks doesn't really matter to me.
I know what I spent my time posting above was for the right reason and that's all that matters to me.
I'll go back to helping newbies. Should be a cake walk dealing with some of them after this.
Back to soil.

 

[Ecompost]

Why are you bringing me back into the conversation. Did you not read my last post that I was done.
I was done the post before that until Crab Pot jumped in but I'm over that. He was just standing up for a friend.

I probably did go about it wrong since I didn't know how to approach it.
I was glad it was over but you had to say something to bring me back.

Before I called you smart but I realize the above comments are coming from someone who knows shit about watering.
Am I right? <- Answer that or I'll be trolling you for an answer. Share your knowledge of watering cannabis.

Now I think your a smart moron.

I said above he was only difficult with me because I want to talk about his real problem. Improper watering.

I knew from the beginning I might get attacked as other smarter than you growers did prior to you showing up.
By the way, I don't peg you as a grower just some kid out of school with a degree.

Do you have any knowledge to share about what I believe to be his over watering problem?

No one disputed or took me on or conversed about that.
Why has no one called me out on that?

Does anyone here that knew what his problem was 2 years ago dispute that he was over watering two years ago?
If anyone does please speak up and call me out on something intelligent.
Best I got so far was criticism of my plants LOL.

If anyone being critical wants to talk about what his problem was and probably still is (OVERWATERING) then please speak up or STFU and I'll leave.

Don't forget this especially the bold part.
Am I right? <- Answer that or I'll be trolling you for an answer. Share your knowledge of watering cannabis.

​

LOL, yes I make over $150K a year growing tomatoes in a country of high drought etc because I dont know how to water. Jesus you are a bit special bro and over sensitive to deserved criticism.
Please do leave, you are a lurker anyway this i can see since you came back, and you cant read a soil test it seems, nor can you read he grows outdoors where it rains on its own... esp in winter.

One ting to say about 2 years ago...

 

[Ecompost]

I've never hear of them, but I am open to suggestions. I know that the Soil Savvy test is only telling me what is soluble.

 

[Ecompost]

some school stuff to know from the kid graduate 48 yr old life time farmer who cant water LOL

 

[OPfarmer]

Mustangstudfarmer,

Sorry, I came back to nag a little.

Personally 60/40 peat pearlite, is borderline at best for airiation. Add more airation. Oyster shells instead of flower, biochar, wood chips, and my fav chunky coir. (I cut that 60/40 with 1/3 chunky coir for Marjuanna.)

(I use a 60/40 mix in peat pots for thousands of vegetable starts a year. It can get water logged, without additional airation.)

Secondly,
2 year old rabbit crap in the sun and rain is leached out.

Hot compost with enough mass, and the correct brown green ratio. Keep it shaded in the heat and out of the rain. (Weeks/months turning regular, using a compost thermometer not years, of cold composting.)
OR
Keep a worm farm in climate control, and run the rabbit crap through that.

Ecompost.. cool, tomato farmer!
I only farm 300 to 600 feet of tomatoes, just as part of my Artichoke to Zucchini market offering.

 

[Ecompost]

Mustangstudfarmer,

Sorry, I came back to nag a little.

Personally 60/40 peat pearlite, is borderline at best for airiation. Add more airation. Oyster shells instead of flower, biochar, wood chips, and my fav chunky coir. (I cut that 60/40 with 1/3 chunky coir for Marjuanna.)

(I use a 60/40 mix in peat pots for thousands of vegetable starts a year. It can get water logged, without additional airation.)

Secondly,
2 year old rabbit crap in the sun and rain is leached out.

Hot compost with enough mass, and the correct brown green ratio. Keep it shaded in the heat and out of the rain. (Weeks/months turning regular, using a compost thermometer not years, of cold composting.)
OR
Keep a worm farm in climate control, and run the rabbit crap through that.

Ecompost.. cool, tomato farmer!
I only farm 300 to 600 feet of tomatoes, just as part of my Artichoke to Zucchini market offering.

And you deliver advice in a non patronizing way as well as being a market gardener, good on you. I am always happy to see MJ growers stretching out to other crops. Not enough do this imo. They say they GYO MJ for meds, but they eat food from lord knows where, go figure

I would bokashi ferment the poop and then mix it or even do this ahead of the worm bin. I use about 5 true organic dairy cow pats per acre this way I could use less if i brewed it as a tea and not a soil add

I use rice hulls here for aeration. In a town near me, they grow rice, so it travels less than 20 miles which i like and this makes it easy to get. If I cant get hulls I might add many of the things you use, also nut or cocoa shell, just not around tomatoes, because I have lots of walnut trees, and i dont want my walnuts or walnut compost next to my tomatoes.

I also have many other alleopathic plants come to that, these either still do, or did spring up before I get to them anyway but i just plant around them without using the wrong plants in the wrong locations and its all good.

We just moved here 2 years before, its bigger then my last space which i love now so its a process to get it how we want, but the tomatoes have been in from day dot. I farm 6400m or about 21000 feet of tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, eggplant different cultivars but most heirloom/ old time varieties local here. I grow them for market traders but technically i am wholesale.
We are lucky we have space Shame i dont have upstate shoppers too, i would be making real money then

 

[Kushash]

some school stuff to know from the kid graduate 48 yr old life time farmer who cant water LOL

You win sensei!

 

[Kushash]

Mustangstudfarmer,

Sorry, I came back to nag a little.

Personally 60/40 peat pearlite, is borderline at best for airiation. Add more airation. Oyster shells instead of flower, biochar, wood chips, and my fav chunky coir. (I cut that 60/40 with 1/3 chunky coir for Marjuanna.)

(I use a 60/40 mix in peat pots for thousands of vegetable starts a year. It can get water logged, without additional airation.)

Secondly,
2 year old rabbit crap in the sun and rain is leached out.

Hot compost with enough mass, and the correct brown green ratio. Keep it shaded in the heat and out of the rain. (Weeks/months turning regular, using a compost thermometer not years, of cold composting.)
OR
Keep a worm farm in climate control, and run the rabbit crap through that.

Ecompost.. cool, tomato farmer!
I only farm 300 to 600 feet of tomatoes, just as part of my Artichoke to Zucchini market offering.

Glad you popped in. I'm out for now.
Look forward to chatting about growing down the road.

 

[dubekoms]

I wouldn't play transport waste over the sheer amount of energy required to make synthetics mate. You will lose that argument in a heart beat. Its not like they dont ship synthetics.

I am not one for worrying about N and or if its Organic or not, But may be the future is renewable energy and using some ag land to produce on site N salts as required and so cutting down the energy waste and transport requirements of N.

For me its not about that, it is about regenerative farming. If you aint building soil, you are a loser in my world and you should be re programmed not to take the piss out of the unborn future so you live fat today.

Yeah I guess i can say I was talking out my ass. Educated myself with a quick Google search and it looks like organic farming uses around 1\3 less energy compared to conventional farming. I had no idea synthetics take so much fuel to make!

Have you grown your tomatoes with synthetics before you got into organics? How do the yields compare? If you're getting smaller yields with organics do the energy savings help recuperate the costs?

 

[OPfarmer]

Ecompost,
I got around 37,000 feet in double rows. Fair bit garlic, onions, potatoes and dry beans. Little bit of wholesale to restrurants.

It's was the Rev@ HT in the mid 00's that really got me going on living organics. Always been anti synthetic, growing up on a farm in the 70's, choking on herbicides and pesticides, while the neighbors got brain tumors. Heck, likely why I am a cancer patient.

Dubecoms,
I know you asked ecompost. IMO it weeds and pests that can impact yield on organic farming not nutrients. For me organic nutrients work better for the whole growing season, plus with soil building, the ground just keeps getting better over the years instead of getting washed out like with synthetics. It's all about, organic matter and Cation exchange capacity, plus the fungi and micro critters.
Mindset is "feed the soil not the plants"

 

[Ecompost]

Yeah I guess i can say I was talking out my ass. Educated myself with a quick Google search and it looks like organic farming uses around 1\3 less energy compared to conventional farming. I had no idea synthetics take so much fuel to make!

Have you grown your tomatoes with synthetics before you got into organics? How do the yields compare? If you're getting smaller yields with organics do the energy savings help recuperate the costs?

dont worry bro, the dust bowl occurred during a time of organic farming, its not always righteous.
In answer to your question, yes i have grown with synths, on some crops i got/ get a better yield, but my argument is always at what cost the extra 15-20%. I can get 80% of a yield versus organic adds or synths using only mycos and water, no adds what so ever.

but you are right to intimate, there are some downsides to organics if we look at yield alone

this youtube might help. I like this guy, and its an honest representation of where we are at

 

[Ecompost]

Ecompost,
I got around 37,000 feet in double rows. Fair bit garlic, onions, potatoes and dry beans. Little bit of wholesale to restrurants.

It's was the Rev@ HT in the mid 00's that really got me going on living organics. Always been anti synthetic, growing up on a farm in the 70's, choking on herbicides and pesticides, while the neighbors got brain tumors. Heck, likely why I am a cancer patient.

Dubecoms,
I know you asked ecompost. IMO it weeds and pests that can impact yield on organic farming not nutrients. For me organic nutrients work better for the whole growing season, plus with soil building, the ground just keeps getting better over the years instead of getting washed out like with synthetics. It's all about, organic matter and Cation exchange capacity, plus the fungi and micro critters.
Mindset is "feed the soil not the plants"

I agree OP. my biggest head ache today apart from blistering heat and UV with excessive drought is bind weed, i dont mind the dandelions which are also everywhere right now. Afterall this weed makes for an excellent blood toxin cleaner when drank as a tea and if i suffered it would almost certainly lower my blood pressure but that effin bind weed man. Its a constant hoe down right now.
I am today a student trying to understand what the message or lessons are tied to each plant. This is really helping me squeeze out extra value and preventing losses or high inputs to drive success.
Sorry to learn about your cancer, are you taking other things besides MJ? Say Lions Mane Mushrooms, Graviola, Turmeric etc?

 

[Ecompost]

You win sensei!

sorry bro i wasnt trying to pick on you, i was merely trying to say there are many ways to grow, we as a community should acknowledge we arent all the same and we dont all have the same conditions, but at core we have the same dreams, this is to grow the best Cannabis we can.
I am a big fan of the research driven not by MJ but by food production reference soil health and whats happening. i recommend Will and also Rick Haney whose videos you will find online at Youtube, also have a look at Gabe Brown for cover cropping data, Ray Archuleta for soil regeneration, Prof Niggli for Synths versus Organics above and others doing super great work with Organics on large scale regenerative farms in the USA and beyond, these cats are really changing the world for the better imo and our community could learn a lot from them

 

[Ecompost]

Ecompost,
I got around 37,000 feet in double rows. Fair bit garlic, onions, potatoes and dry beans. Little bit of wholesale to restrurants.

It's was the Rev@ HT in the mid 00's that really got me going on living organics. Always been anti synthetic, growing up on a farm in the 70's, choking on herbicides and pesticides, while the neighbors got brain tumors. Heck, likely why I am a cancer patient.

Dubecoms,
I know you asked ecompost. IMO it weeds and pests that can impact yield on organic farming not nutrients. For me organic nutrients work better for the whole growing season, plus with soil building, the ground just keeps getting better over the years instead of getting washed out like with synthetics. It's all about, organic matter and Cation exchange capacity, plus the fungi and micro critters.
Mindset is "feed the soil not the plants"

ah I have about 110,000 feet total, but most of this is actually mature fruit groves, avacado, olives, almonds, pistachios, moringa, graviola, figs nispero, walnuts, date palms and citrus. I am however extending the planting in the veggie plots, and i am shoving more N fixers in to the tree groves, mostly shrubs in the citrus right now. i also planted a bunch of toscana prunes, if you havent tried these...wow they are delicious and sell super well at about 5-6 bucks for 2lbs. the plants of these i have are super productive and require next to no effort too. I found organic fruit to be the better sellers over standard veggies but our tomatoes are always sold before we plant

 

[Kushash]

sorry bro i wasnt trying to pick on you, i was merely trying to say there are many ways to grow, we as a community should acknowledge we arent all the same and we dont all have the same conditions, but at core we have the same dreams, this is to grow the best Cannabis we can.
I am a big fan of the research driven not by MJ but by food production reference soil health and whats happening. i recommend Will and also Rick Haney whose videos you will find online at Youtube, also have a look at Gabe Brown for cover cropping data, Ray Archuleta for soil regeneration, Prof Niggli for Synths versus Organics above and others doing super great work with Organics on large scale regenerative farms in the USA and beyond, these cats are really changing the world for the better imo and our community could learn a lot from them

Nice post. Thanks.
I will check out the information and videos.
I enjoy everything about organics.
This thread got diverted and I was on edge. I will avoid posting in the thread and will read along.
It is all interesting info.