what's this

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
Ok makes sense, but I'd still just rip the bandaid off because its either the worms which you can reintroduce or it's your plant. If i had a choice I'd side with making the plant happy first then get the worms getting their funk on later.
 

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
It's constantly changing.. like today, Im in week 8 and finishing up. I noticed today that my soil was 5.7 bone dry, and ready to eat. I had to feed in at 9 to get a wet 6.9 PH reading. I guarantee that tomorrow morning when I check it again, it will read 6.4-6.6 BUT!, they will be in the zone while they're eating!
 
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DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
Ok makes sense, but I'd still just rip the bandaid off because its either the worms which you can reintroduce or it's your plant. If i had a choice I'd side with making the plant happy first then get the worms getting their funk on later.
Good choice!....worms are easily available, a healthy plant that you've spend a good amount of time on cannot be replaced.... you just have to start over.
 

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
This is why a good tool is so important.... my 7.6 PH well water is kinda hard. My soil comes in at 5.1, my nutes crash my PH, my soil crashes my PH. With so many variables, why would you not want to know where you truly stand day by day?
If i ran the plant count and volume you guys run id be all in on that. I can do a ph with the cheap meter, it's not as accurate, its more work, and a pita but when I standardize my water input with 7.0 distilled my runoff takes the soil ph readily.......now how accurate is this? I don't know, I wish I could use your ph pen to compare.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
This is why a good tool is so important....
And one can NEVER have too many tools. lol
making the plant happy first then get the worms getting their funk on later.
Right?

I was always told that living organic soil doesn't care about pH but I have no clue, never used a worm for anything other than fishing personally. All the worm business just seems like extra work and a house of cards. Living soil just seems like way more work than I would ever wanna do and you don't have control like you do with bottle fed. Maybe I am just a lazy control freak.
 

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
If i ran the plant count and volume you guys run id be all in on that. I can do a ph with the cheap meter, it's not as accurate, its more work, and a pita but when I standardize my water input with 7.0 distilled my runoff takes the soil ph readily.......now how accurate is this? I don't know, I wish I could use your ph pen to compare.
I do tend to forget that some people run a handful of plants and not 100+. I wish I could tell you how accurate your method is. There's no real way to know until you do a side by side I suppose.
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
Good choice!....worms are easily available, a healthy plant that you've spend a good amount of time on cannot be replaced.... you just have to start over.
I'm actually more concerned about keeping my soil happy anymore. I can always stick another plant in it. Clones are easy to come by. I'm just trying to keep my soil really alive, so it will get better with time. When I top dress, I brush my rice hull mulch to the other side of the pot, and it's crazy how the worms are thriving. Continuous EWC without any work, lol.
 

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
And one can NEVER have too many tools. lol

Right?

I was always told that living organic soil doesn't care about pH but I have no clue, never used a worm for anything other than fishing personally. All the worm business just seems like extra work and a house of cards. Living soil just seems like way more work than I would ever wanna do and you don't have control like you do with bottle fed. Maybe I am just a lazy control freak.
With the way your setup is dialed in and only using 10 gal pots for those Amazon's I'd put living soil in the rearview too.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
I'm actually more concerned about keeping my soil happy anymore. I can always stick another plant in it. Clones are easy to come by. I'm just trying to keep my soil really alive, so it will get better with time. When I top dress, I brush my rice hull mulch to the other side of the pot, and it's crazy how the worms are thriving. Continuous EWC without any work, lol.
What do you think about the living soil not requiring a tight pH range?
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
And one can NEVER have too many tools. lol

Right?

I was always told that living organic soil doesn't care about pH but I have no clue, never used a worm for anything other than fishing personally. All the worm business just seems like extra work and a house of cards. Living soil just seems like way more work than I would ever wanna do and you don't have control like you do with bottle fed. Maybe I am just a lazy control freak.
Haha. That's actually why I'm trying to do no-till. Because I'm lazy as fuck. I don't want to transplant or mix nutes, or all that shit, but I'm still new to I think and don't have it mastered yet. But I think once someone masters it, it's the easiest way. Think of the hippies man, they probably invented no-till, and they're some lazy suckers, lol.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
With the way your setup is dialed in and only using 10 gal pots for those Amazon's I'd put living soil in the rearview too.
Shoulda seen it when I had 5 gallon pots LoL. Man that was a lot of hassle watering and when I switched to 10's the yields definitely went up. At one point I had large ass rubbermaid totes and a DWC setup that pulled epic yields off Kandy Kush, but that was the only strain that wouldn't get root rot with the setup I had. No chiller, no CO2, no AC but I was throwing the light at them on the sides and using the trellis rigs. When people got tired of the Kandy Kush I dumped the DWC.
 

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
Im kinda in the middle at 7 gallons. Towards the end (like right now) I have a hard time getting the soil probe down there.. maybe I should move up to 10's?.. IDK. The rootballs come out dense as fuck. ..........The board is busy tonight!.. Everybody working from home these days due to the Rona Virus?
 

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
Im kinda in the middle at 7 gallons. Towards the end (like right now) I have a hard time getting the soil probe down there.. maybe I should move up to 10's?.. IDK. The rootballs come out dense as fuck. ..........The board is busy tonight!.. Everybody working from home these days due to the Rona Virus?
I am in the process of transitioning from 7 to 10 gal for that same reason. Like a lazy hippy my arms are being replaced with some high tech automation.......a SIP.

I've been a member of RIP for a while, a lurker, it's been since the virus hit that I actually post on here.
 

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
I am in the process of transitioning from 7 to 10 gal for that same reason. Like a lazy hippy my arms are being replaced with some high tech automation.......a SIP.

I've been a member of RIP for a while, a lurker, it's been since the virus hit that I actually post on here.
Think I may do 10's for the Fall run as well. Yeah, I've noticed more peeps online since State laws and Shelter in Place have come about...... such a strange world we are living in these days.
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
What do you think about the living soil not requiring a tight pH range?
I always heard that you don't need to worry about pH in organic soil, but that's not entirely true I've realized, lol. If you have the right balance of everything in the soil, sure the pH should be in the proper range, but I'm still learning the whole organic thing, and added too many Ca based amendments which want to buffer my pH up. Lesson learned, and I still have many more to learn. Microbes can only do so much to buffer the pH in my experience so far.

One cool thing about no-till is that the soil will develop a nice mycorrhizae hyphae network that will feed the plant what it wants. And that network will just get better and better over time. When people remix their old soil, they are destroying that network. Those guys that grow those record breaking 1000lb pumpkins are all about the mycorrhizae network.

I am getting one of those pens though soon. I actually almost ordered one last night, lol.
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
Shoulda seen it when I had 5 gallon pots LoL. Man that was a lot of hassle watering and when I switched to 10's the yields definitely went up. At one point I had large ass rubbermaid totes and a DWC setup that pulled epic yields off Kandy Kush, but that was the only strain that wouldn't get root rot with the setup I had. No chiller, no CO2, no AC but I was throwing the light at them on the sides and using the trellis rigs. When people got tired of the Kandy Kush I dumped the DWC.
Shit man, Kandy Kush was bomb. I still have a little from last year.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Shit man, Kandy Kush was bomb. I still have a little from last year.
I had a pheno that was insane. Had another pheno that was good but not like the first. The first one made 2 liter bottle colas, and lots of them. Massive weight off that plant in my setup. Super lemony, with some pine and some gassy fuel notes came on when she was ripe. That plant was the best yielding plant I have run.
 
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