No run off with organics?

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Does anyone run a cycle without runoff using liquid organic feed?

Dealing with run off is one of my least favourite parts of growing and I’m curious if it can be avoided.

so far this grow I have let them suck up any run off and not seen any issues (yet?) they are 38 days old autos. If anything I underfed them a little at times during stretch but just upped the feed.

I had a thought. Let’s say the bag is E.C 1.2, the plant grows and removes nutrients from the soil to grow. So if I match exactly what the plant needs at the right time the soil never becomes depleted/toxic? Thats my theory at least.

Im just wondering if salt build up will occur from sodium content or any other factors to consider? My water is 38ppm so very soft.

Im gonna see how long I can do this for out of curiosity.


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Beeswings

Well-Known Member
I never water to run off, sure I'll water too fast sometimes and a little comes out the sides or whatever but never more than a couple fluid ounces of water. That's with Fox Farm nutes in Fox Farm soil, I'm sure different fertilizers and soils will handle salts differently but I can keep photos happy way longer than you could ever grow an auto so I think you should be good to go with the short life of an auto.
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
Does anyone run a cycle without runoff using liquid organic feed?

Dealing with run off is one of my least favourite parts of growing and I’m curious if it can be avoided.

so far this grow I have let them suck up any run off and not seen any issues (yet?) they are 38 days old autos. If anything I underfed them a little at times during stretch but just upped the feed.

I had a thought. Let’s say the bag is E.C 1.2, the plant grows and removes nutrients from the soil to grow. So if I match exactly what the plant needs at the right time the soil never becomes depleted/toxic? Thats my theory at least.

Im just wondering if salt build up will occur from sodium content or any other factors to consider? My water is 38ppm so very soft.

Im gonna see how long I can do this for out of curiosity.


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I wouldnt trust it bio bizz say to but i always water till run off and not had problems mind you i use all mix minus top layer of seedling compost maybe if ya use light mix you would get away with it
 

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
I wouldnt trust it bio bizz say to but i always water till run off and not had problems mind you i use all mix minus top layer of seedling compost maybe if ya use light mix you would get away with it
Good to know beeswings, curious if others have had success and yea my autos typically run 11-13 weeks full cycle.

Using plant magic Conor, similar to biobizz that it’s sugar beet based I believe. Using at a much lower dosage than recommended.

Also in biobizz lightmix with some worm castings that’s it, so not much in the way of nutrients to begin with
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
Good to know beeswings, curious if others have had success and yea my autos typically run 11-13 weeks full cycle.

Using plant magic Conor, similar to biobizz that it’s sugar beet based I believe. Using at a much lower dosage than recommended.

Also in biobizz lightmix with some worm castings that’s it, so not much in the way of nutrients to begin with
Its higher in n even the bloom vs bio bizz from memory but it is good stuff i know a few who use it but because of that bio bizz is better for sensitive stuff ie pure sats and landrace
 

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Its higher in n even the bloom vs bio bizz from memory but it is good stuff i know a few who use it but because of that bio bizz is better for sensitive stuff ie pure sats and landrace
Aye it’s a 5-3-3 grow and 3-5-4 bloom. What I do is mix them 50/50 until mid flower which makes a nice 8-8-7 ratio. Then can just drop the grow as they mature and replace with old timer PK which is a 2-4-8 to find a rough 1-1-2 ratio.


Makes sense for N sensitive strains tho to use biobizz!
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
Aye it’s a 5-3-3 grow and 3-5-4 bloom. What I do is mix them 50/50 until mid flower which makes a nice 8-8-7 ratio. Then can just drop the grow as they mature and replace with old timer PK which is a 2-4-8 to find a rough 1-1-2 ratio.


Makes sense for N sensitive strains tho to use biobizz!
Aye so like bio bizz u blend the two i see well that i can deal with i might try it somepoint for the more hungry stuff i run occasionally like the doctor or critical mass those two plants can take a crazy amount of feed especially the doc it eats N like theres no tomorrow ime
 

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Deffo!

I can imagine if you ran a long sativa or vegged for a long period an occasional run off would do some good but these autos only last 70-100 days
 

HydroKid239

Well-Known Member
I’ve used Foop without ever getting runoff, but I ditched it for dry ferts. This was when I was going through a phase trying to find what I want to use for the long run. Foop was pretty good to the plants using recommended dosing. I still use their ph up/down.
 

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
The issue I'm seeing, is you're eventually going to get a buildup of whatever nutrients the plant uses last. It'll get to a point where the ratios will be thrown too far out of whack,imo.
That’s what I’m suspecting too but just how long will it be is the question. Maybe removing the run off now and again would be the way for a longer grow but doesn’t seem necessary to remove it every feeding with these organic nutes
 

Hollatchaboy

Well-Known Member
That’s what I’m suspecting too but just how long will it be is the question. Maybe removing the run off now and again would be the way for a longer grow but doesn’t seem necessary to remove it every feeding with these organic nutes
Id prolly water to runoff at least once a week and, iirc, organic nutes break down to the same as synthetic at the molecular level, I dunno if that makes a difference or not.
 

weedstoner420

Well-Known Member
Your plants look great! Personally I think the no runoff/no soaking up runoff in organics thing is a bit exaggerated. The only time I would avoid letting the plants sit in runoff is when the are very small. Once they get a decent root ball established, they can handle sitting in a bit of water.

I keep mother plants bonsai-style in 4-inch pots, feeding with liquid organic nutes (fish emulsion and soluble kelp powder) every 1-2 weeks. I let them sit in runoff all the time, even when fertilizing. I try to prune the root ball and replace about half the volume with fresh soil every 6-ish months, but other than that, everything that goes into the pots eventually gets absorbed into the soil. Here's one that's about 3 months old, no obvious issues so far
 

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Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Your plants look great! Personally I think the no runoff/no soaking up runoff in organics thing is a bit exaggerated. The only time I would avoid letting the plants sit in runoff is when the are very small. Once they get a decent root ball established, they can handle sitting in a bit of water.

I keep mother plants bonsai-style in 4-inch pots, feeding with liquid organic nutes (fish emulsion and soluble kelp powder) every 1-2 weeks. I let them sit in runoff all the time, even when fertilizing. I try to prune the root ball and replace about half the volume with fresh soil every 6-ish months, but other than that, everything that goes into the pots eventually gets absorbed into the soil. Here's one that's about 3 months old, no obvious issues so far
Nice to see I’m not the only one following this practice. Changing soil with mothers makes sense due to acidification.

But it seems you can do a full auto run without removing run off. I’m just about to start tapering off the nutes now anyways for a few of them
 

SwS

Member
I tried it once with biobizz and ran into salt buildup in soil came flower but I think it's due to the excess nitrogen not being used by the plant. It does make you sad seeing all that money "running off" lol
 

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Well a few are about ready for harvest and pretty happy with them. Gave a few days of plain water and they yellowed up so wasn’t a great excess of food in the soil.

I overdid the K tho but haven’t used potassium sulphate with this PK and was too much, caught it in time as soon as I saw sugar leaves yellowing so should be good.

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stawawager

Well-Known Member
Does anyone run a cycle without runoff using liquid organic feed?

Dealing with run off is one of my least favourite parts of growing and I’m curious if it can be avoided.

so far this grow I have let them suck up any run off and not seen any issues (yet?) they are 38 days old autos. If anything I underfed them a little at times during stretch but just upped the feed.

I had a thought. Let’s say the bag is E.C 1.2, the plant grows and removes nutrients from the soil to grow. So if I match exactly what the plant needs at the right time the soil never becomes depleted/toxic? Thats my theory at least.

Im just wondering if salt build up will occur from sodium content or any other factors to consider? My water is 38ppm so very soft.

Im gonna see how long I can do this for out of curiosity.


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By runoff do you mean flushing at the end-of-life?
 
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