Soil VS Hydro- Whats cheaper

Yeah soil is great....... for bugs and nutrient problems and it's not forgiving. Rock wool is sterile and it's forgiving you can easily flush out the nutes unlike soil. As for pump to water you can still water by hand it's cost $3.50 for a 6x6 inch cube. I've used both and rock wool they grow way faster.

soil is cheaper to run but hydro well outways the yeild so if your an experienced hydro grower your going to get more bang for your buck yeild wise compared to the money it costed to grow them. remember hydro can easily yeild twice as much to soil and grows alot faster.

I'm switching to hydro on my next grow. I just bought two GH waterfarms. I have to buy nutes anyways, now I just use the same nutes in my water. The medium is reusable, soil should not be. Soil is messy to work with, hydroton and water are not. Once you get your nutes dialed in with the proper PPM, hydro growing should be pretty simple. The rate of growth is astounding and in 90 days, you can have plants yielding a lb a piece. Hard to do indoors with soil. I think that answers the OP question right there. If you place a value on weed, the more you have from your yield, the greater your profits are. Therefore, hydro is much cheaper to grow, simply because of the returns it gives you.

cerberus said:

the proccess to an ending will always change the outcome of that ending. water will be different than dirt, because its a different proccess to come to the end.. I wont weigh in one which is better but rest assure they are not the same..

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My point is that this is medium vs. medium, and that what you are tasting is a difference nutrient composition and growing conditions. Soil is much more forgiving and definitely cheaper to get "connoisseur" level composition. I'd like to see a taste test with soil and various types of hydro using the EXACT SAME nutrient profile, as in everything that the plant can get from the soil will be provided to the hydro. I bet the taste would be very similar, with the hydro increasing in size with each increasingly efficient style system.

pmsl, anyone who disagrees is just guessing or probably not very experienced in both methods. No one has said one method is crap, they have advantages and disadvantages but to dispute that bio soil isnt better quality in 99.9% of comparative grows is just bs

Fuzzbutter said:

Personally it depends on the whole set-up, but over-all I'd say that soil is cheaper than hydro simply because it takes more electricity to run hydro+lights than just the lights as it would be for soil. Considering though the hyro grows can take less time, then depending on what you're doing with your final product (selling..ect) hydro could make more sense.

I prefer hydro though, my cat seems to like eating my plants that are grown in soil, but she'll leave my ones in my Aerogarden alone...idk why...she's strange. Or she likes to add her own fertilizer to my soil plants...no thank you.

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If your cat likes soil plants it's a good chance the cat can smell the "quality"

If I had the time and the privacy and the money and the need to be constantly monitoring my rig then I'd go hydro. But I'm a one plant grower and I don't have the time to be fucking around with hydro bs. Soil has so many benefits for someone who just wants to grow a few plants on a budget for farming enjoyment. I'm not too worried about yield, but I do want decent quality and I can get this with soil.

If I was a single dude living alone I'd hydro in an instant.

I'm loving my MG soil and my worm castings right now.

I grow hydro because it's the simplest method for me. I have to feed them about once a week, other than that i don't have to look in on them until their totes need a changaround.

In terms of price, i pay a fixed monthly rate for water so water is free essentially, i re-use all net cups and hydroton and i use 1" rockwool cubes which cost pennies in bulk.

Not saying that i'm fully satisfied with using hydro over something like coco though, but for me it's all about ease of use and minimum involvement, so my DWC tubs are great

NLNo5 said:

If your cat likes soil plants it's a good chance the cat can smell the "quality"

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Or maybe she prefers the smell of the plants she fertilizes herself. At this point the soil plant is her, she can chew on is, dig at it, and fertilize it as much as she wants, I won't be smoking it if it's female xD. Keeps her away from my main babies so IDC what she does to it.

Anyhoo, guys, the question wasn't "which method is better" the question was "which method is cheaper". Now to sum things up, most of us agree that soil, in general, is cheaper. However, if someone is growing for quantity for sales, that that hydro would end up being more time and cost effective because of the higher yields...that's pretty much all there is right? Isn't the question answered?

I would be interested in your soil recipe. I also use FFOF. Found a spot I can get it for about 15.50 per bag but if I can nock it down to 6-9 per CF that would be great!

I think FF have a useful chart on their website.

which method is cheaper is a bit difficult tho. Price per bud weight or price per thc weight? But essentially yes, if you do't care about quality (rephrase, best quality) then hydro would yield more weight all being equal.

question to the soil ppl. Im about to start a grow. What does the soil have that makes you dislike hydro? Everything I read is based on nutrients so what is it in soil that makes it better then hydro and why can't I add it to a hydro grow? Thanks in advance

organic dirt, is the most complex form of nutirents you can provide the plant. while plant scientist are good, many believe that nobody is 100% on how or what makes plnts preform in their stages and while nutrient companies make better and better products, there are some missing micro nutrients, or even some other missing ingriedient due to nutrient uptake or some other proccess that takes place in an organic living environment. either way, this added complexity offers the opportunity to provide a complete (or the most comlete) feeding and growing environment. that is the most logical reason that has been explained to me why organic dirt may offer a different finished product vs. inorganic (which hydro has to be, as far as i know).

good luck with your endeavors

soil is cheaper especially if you goto feed stores and make u'r own nutes (organic) real route.....from what i've seen true organic nutes for soil from hydro-stores cost way more.....hydro is gonna be about the same price pending on what you use after u'r first grow ,but u'r first grow will be way more upfront costs for mediums......but you reuse them....depends on who you talk with i like hydro ....i grow vegetables etc.....in hydro ....i think the only other thing worth doing for me would be growing in a greenhouse now that would be something but so much focus on medium well not sure but i know a greenhouse is the real way to go man growth difference is amazing...just can't do it were i live

The startup price to get the grow room working is more expesive for hydro system jsut cause theres more moving parts*air pump,waterpump,resevior temp control, airstones, the list goes on and on and on... but after that cost its realitivly cheap to keep it maintained... cause waters is cheaper than soil... you're still going to spend the same amount on nutes.... and if you use pots and hydroton its reuseable... ive used the same 50 lb bag for i dont even know how long *and theres still some in the bag never used*, same with pots...

if you have the money to drop on expensive equipment hydro's the way to go....

Does anyone think that theres a big quality difference between hydro and soil..... and how about Organic vrs Chemical nutes

Hydro is Cleaner no doubt... Dirt plus water = Mud..... water+ nutes= water

absolutely I think there is a big difference in quality myself, soil is always nicer and I mean when properly measuring it too. Nowadays I never grow chemical, that's partly moral thing too, its not just the smoke that is affected but also everything that is left over, waste, etc etc

Hydro is less forgiving to less experienced growers also which s worth mentioning

3lions said:

Hydro is less forgiving to less experienced growers also which s worth mentioning

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mos definitely ive been trying to fix a deficency for the longest time... but its also my first time growing hydro and kinda just feeling my way around with the nutes.... anyone who can help check out my Journal link is in my signature

only cost about 40 dollars for soil and oragnic fertilizers to mix in for the 5 plants in my current grow. seems pretty cheap to me and the plants require little to no maintenance besides watering (if you use the right water). setting up the grow was more expensive the first time but lights, pots and tools are a must buy for first timers regardless of planting medium. this time around though, seeds included I only spent about 60 bucks (plus electricity) to grow out 5 plants that look great.

so there's a word from a soil user

cerberus said:

organic dirt, is the most complex form of nutirents you can provide the plant. while plant scientist are good, many believe that nobody is 100% on how or what makes plnts preform in their stages and while nutrient companies make better and better products, there are some missing micro nutrients, or even some other missing ingriedient due to nutrient uptake or some other proccess that takes place in an organic living environment. either way, this added complexity offers the opportunity to provide a complete (or the most comlete) feeding and growing environment. that is the most logical reason that has been explained to me why organic dirt may offer a different finished product vs. inorganic (which hydro has to be, as far as i know).

good luck with your endeavors

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Thank you for that excellent explanation!

I'm not convinced by a majority of the answers simply because there are very few (maybe none) people here (including myself) that has really had a chance to compare all the different possibilities between the two ways. Are we talking about chemical hydroponic nutrient grown versus only chemical soil nutrient grown? Chemical hydroponic nutrients vs. purely organic soil grows? Organic hydroponic growing vs. soiless potting mixes plus chemical nutrients? Aquaponics vs. time-release MG soil grows?

Has anyone here really tried enough of all the possible combinations side by side enough to have such strong opinions?

As far as pure cost goes, I personally spend both less time and money on a couple of DWC buckets than with my soil plants, including equipment.

I like the thread - just wish people would specify what they have really compared.