Soil prep question RE: Soil food web

charface

Well-Known Member
I have read MOST of teaming with microbes and I have a question.
I understand two things.
1 it takes time for fungi to actually grow
2 tilling or upsetting the soil disturbs the system.

I grow indoors but I want to know if this idea would be worth the effort.

Background.
I use clones
I transplant a few times before they end up in 5 gallon buckets to flower.

Here is the idea. When I start the clones I would would also fill my 5 gal buckets with soil
with myco and just let them sit and keep it moist so it could get a head start on the fungi.
When it was time to transplant into the 5`s I would simply take the bottom off the 2.5
gal pots containing the plants and sit it directly on top of the prepped soil in the 5`s.

I hope that was understandable.
If you think this would be worth it what would you do to this soil.
I use gardner and bloome blue ribbon organic.
It already contains myco, guano etc..

also wondering if the soil not having the plants roots to interact with for the first month-6 weeks
would make this not really work.

anyway I`m gonna stop now so I do not confurse myself.
 

dank smoker420

Well-Known Member
subcools super soil gets good results. atleast that ive seen. i have also herd that compost teas can introduce fungi to the soil. why not just trnasplant like normal into the myco soil? it cannot mess up the colony that much. its gotta move to the roots anyways.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
subcools super soil gets good results. atleast that ive seen. i have also herd that compost teas can introduce fungi to the soil. why not just trnasplant like normal into the myco soil? it cannot mess up the colony that much. its gotta move to the roots anyways.
My concern is that it takes a while for the fungi to develop and the plant only takes roughly 8 weeks to finish.
So by jump starting the final pots the plant would have longer to actually benefit.

I like the idea of building my own soil but for now this is just easier and cheaper.
Plus I have already gotten good results with this soil.

Thanks for reading and hopefully you know what I`m getting at now.

I do plan to use tea and molasses and that is kind of my question.
Should I do this while the pots are sitting growing the fungi or just wait until
the plants are in the pot or just trash the whole idea and do what I always do and
transplant the standard way.

The books is pretty clear though that fungi takes time to grow

Edit: you make a good point.
It has to move to the roots anyway.
So which is faster and more effective.
1 for the fungi to move to the roots
2 for the roots to reach into the already present undisturbed goodies.

I guess there is a third option skip one of the transplantings and move them into the 5`s
sooner and that would allow more time for the relationship to happen.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
Also this idea does present another problem and that is having these moist buckets making
more humidity in the room. I wouldnt want to store them anywhere else due to bugs.

I`m not sold on this by any means just looking for pros and cons or if you think it would work
how would you treat the soil while it was waiting.

At this point I`m thinking just get them in the final pots sooner than normal.
Still might just cut the pots so the roots have 7.5 instead of 5 gallons of dirt
 

george xxx

Active Member
Personally I believe just transplant as usual but use a good tea with mycos. The use of these are to feed the microbes already present in the soil. Feed the soil not the plant! All good prepackaged soil mixes have some moisture which was growing microbes long before you got it.
I like Buffalo Loam's compost tea. Has NPK ratios of 1-1-1 with mycos so its mild enough you can water with it everytime to help maintain a healthy soil.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
Personally I believe just transplant as usual but use a good tea with mycos. The use of these are to feed the microbes already present in the soil. Feed the soil not the plant! All good prepackaged soil mixes have some moisture which was growing microbes long before you got it.
I like Buffalo Loam's compost tea. Has NPK ratios of 1-1-1 with mycos so its mild enough you can water with it everytime to help maintain a healthy soil.
Nice I did eventually want some store bought tea recomendations. I have used AN nutrients in the past but this time I got tiger bloom I think it is called and I was wondering if I would still use this and tea or just tea unless I noticed a specific deficiancy.
My knee jerk reaction would be to use the tiger bloom a few times during flower but rely mostly on te tea/soil
 

dank smoker420

Well-Known Member
yeah making your own soil is hard work and alot of ingredients. tiger bloom is non organic. the chems could kill the things in the tea. but i am not forsure about that. with a simple tea you can add as many things as you wish. add different types of guano or ewc for different deficiencies.

i am new to teas and the hydro guy said you can kick start a fungal tea by adding more nutrients like kelp to the ancient forest compost to help the fungi start growing. he says in 2 days you should start to see the white fuzz over the ancient forest compost. and than you brew your tea with that. he says it add alot more fungus to your tea and then is transfered to the soil. along with the beneficial bacteria that are also brewed. with my understanding if you water with the tea everyother watering your soil should be full of bacteria and fungus. you can brew a baterial tea or a fungal tea or one with both.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
yeah making your own soil is hard work and alot of ingredients. tiger bloom is non organic. the chems could kill the things in the tea. but i am not forsure about that. with a simple tea you can add as many things as you wish. add different types of guano or ewc for different deficiencies.

i am new to teas and the hydro guy said you can kick start a fungal tea by adding more nutrients like kelp to the ancient forest compost to help the fungi start growing. he says in 2 days you should start to see the white fuzz over the ancient forest compost. and than you brew your tea with that. he says it add alot more fungus to your tea and then is transfered to the soil. along with the beneficial bacteria that are also brewed. with my understanding if you water with the tea everyother watering your soil should be full of bacteria and fungus. you can brew a baterial tea or a fungal tea or one with both.
Now that you mention it I recently read or watched something about that. I was also wondering if MJ prefers a more
fungal or microbal enviroment. I`m guessing fungal with all the fungi craze going on now. Probably not exclusive and a bit of both would be found in the real world. I love the organic concept and I think once I grasp it it will be easy but my little head is about to
spin off right now. I did wonder how organic the tiger bloom really was. It says organic but I understand that dosent always mean it is.

EDIT: I just read your post again and I see how you are using tea ingredients to deal with defs.
More learning. lol

My big fear is screwing up but I guess I stand a better chance of blowing it with salt based crap.
 

elduece

Active Member
Now that you mention it I recently read or watched something about that. I was also wondering if MJ prefers a more
fungal or microbal enviroment. I`m guessing fungal with all the fungi craze going on now. Probably not exclusive and a bit of both would be found in the real world. I love the organic concept and I think once I grasp it it will be easy but my little head is about to
spin off right now. I did wonder how organic the tiger bloom really was. It says organic but I understand that dosent always mean it is.

EDIT: I just read your post again and I see how you are using tea ingredients to deal with defs.
More learning. lol

My big fear is screwing up but I guess I stand a better chance of blowing it with salt based crap.
Since cannabis prefers a ph of 6-6.5 at the root level in soil, I'd wagered that it would very much prefer a bacterial dominated soil -fungi dominated soils is around a 5. Fungi exudes wastes that lowers ph in soil. Making a fungi teas for cannabis is a waste of time and materials so I'd just stick with compost/ewc teas.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
Since cannabis prefers a ph of 6-6.5 at the root level in soil, I'd wagered that it would very much prefer a bacterial dominated soil -fungi dominated soils is around a 5. Fungi exudes wastes that lowers ph in soil. Making a fungi teas for cannabis is a waste of time and materials so I'd just stick with compost/ewc teas.
Lol, I said microbal when I think I meant microbial when I really meant bacterial.

Anyway that is interesting so according to that info you posted this time issue may not be as important as I thought.
 

charface

Well-Known Member
Looked into teas at the hydro store today and to hit them once a week along with thne rest of my berries and stuff will be very cheap.
I wi;ll add mykos to the soil at transplant and tea weekly and see how it goes. I have been using AN`s bloom and veg tea but I want to try the aerobic home brewed and see the difference. Gonna pick up the materials to make a 5 gallon bubbble bucket. trying the extreme gardening brand of tea. Eventually I will make all my own stuff but I want to get familiar with what works best for me
then reverse engineere it. (read the package)
Peace.
 
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