Does "pushing" your plants gives any real advantage?

Cannaprentice

Cannaprentice

Active Member
Hi! I'm currently growing in soil and all I ever do is water with ph corrected water.

They are 8weeks old and I never ever gave them nutrients in the water.
My plants seem to be doing excellent and are growing fast, but I've been hearing people talk about pushing their plants, especially in flowering.
Do you think a soil grow could beneficiate from a hotter feed or are the two differents things that shouldn't be mixed?

From my current understanding, if the plant look pristine, it's already growing as fast as it can and adding more nutes would only burn it and cause a lockout?

I'm especially wondering if adding some GH bloom and calmag nearing end of stretch will help me get fatter flowers?
I was already satisfied last run (I only had to add bloom once when the soil was totally depleted) But I wonder if I could get more out of them.
Thanks!
 
Lucky Luke

Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
Soil is hard to judge as whatever your plant is doing is because of a week or two ago. Soilless and especially hydro react allot faster. Which can be good or bad.
 
Cannaprentice

Cannaprentice

Active Member
Thanks that's exactly what I needed to know!
I intended to start upping the feed very slowly, but as my
plants seem to be doing perfect ,more food will probably be no good.
Even if I go slow.
It's just weird to tell myself I haven't fed a single time in the entire life cycle.
 
Southside112

Southside112

Well-Known Member
Even hot soil is only good for about a month. You are going to need to add nutes in flower for sure. I usually give my soil plants a 800ppm feeding in flower, followed by a 400ppm or plain ph water and repeat. Top dressing with worm castings and or bat guano can also help. Good luck.
 
Dr. Who

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Southside112 said:
Even hot soil is only good for about a month. You are going to need to add nutes in flower for sure. I usually give my soil plants a 800ppm feeding in flower, followed by a 400ppm or plain ph water and repeat. Top dressing with worm castings and or bat guano can also help. Good luck.
Click to expand...
I make as many as 4 different bloom soils for water only growing. A soil lasting a month - is NOT a "hot" soil.... That could be poorly cooked soils or those that have too much of one macro nutrient or the other. Generally in a form that's available too fast....
Only long running strains may need a little help late - If you do it right.

This is decades of adjusting them too. So it is something you learn. You learn what compound is available at what rate , and over what amount of time. The balancing of fast medium and slow release nutrients is the art you learn - For the strains that run best that way.

"PUSHING" is something I used to do all the time. In fact I still build most of those soils to give a bare leaf tip yellow of about a 16th to no more then an 8th of and inch. That tells me I'm right at the plants capacity to use what I have available...

Dumping in high amounts of P&K at certain weeks? Not a good one in my book. There are a cpl of nutrient lines that are charted that way....They actually work at it - if your careful. I mean, they are formulated that way. Canna and HESI come to mind.

Then there is one that I have always found to be not well for the charted way they do it... House and Garden..... Then there is AN. it works but back when they first came out. They had so many bottles of this and that (watered down crap - usually available in most others main lines, as part of their 3 or 4 part) That they had gorwing levels tied to them.. Use this and grow at that level. Use all of them and grow at a "Master" level.
BS of highest order on that claim!

There are a few simple supplements that I use. I make them too. Even my alternative synthetic "parts" are home made. I might throw some of this at that point or this point.

Depends on how the plant is running at any given point.. That's also lots of experience and knowledge of the plant and it's needs, when it needs them.

Get proficient at growing and then read around, learn the plant, and experiment on your own.

best answer I can give.
 
Clumpyoyster

Clumpyoyster

Well-Known Member
Cannaprentice said:
Hi! I'm currently growing in soil and all I ever do is water with ph corrected water.

They are 8weeks old and I never ever gave them nutrients in the water.
My plants seem to be doing excellent and are growing fast, but I've been hearing people talk about pushing their plants, especially in flowering.
Do you think a soil grow could beneficiate from a hotter feed or are the two differents things that shouldn't be mixed?

From my current understanding, if the plant look pristine, it's already growing as fast as it can and adding more nutes would only burn it and cause a lockout?

I'm especially wondering if adding some GH bloom and calmag nearing end of stretch will help me get fatter flowers?
I was already satisfied last run (I only had to add bloom once when the soil was totally depleted) But I wonder if I could get more out of them.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
I use the same product line. I feed from the time they are three weeks straight to the end of flower
 

Attachments

Southside112

Southside112

Well-Known Member
Dr. Who said:
I make as many as 4 different bloom soils for water only growing. A soil lasting a month - is NOT a "hot" soil.... That could be poorly cooked soils or those that have too much of one macro nutrient or the other. Generally in a form that's available too fast....
Only long running strains may need a little help late - If you do it right.

This is decades of adjusting them too. So it is something you learn. You learn what compound is available at what rate , and over what amount of time. The balancing of fast medium and slow release nutrients is the art you learn - For the strains that run best that way.

"PUSHING" is something I used to do all the time. In fact I still build most of those soils to give a bare leaf tip yellow of about a 16th to no more then an 8th of and inch. That tells me I'm right at the plants capacity to use what I have available...

Dumping in high amounts of P&K at certain weeks? Not a good one in my book. There are a cpl of nutrient lines that are charted that way....They actually work at it - if your careful. I mean, they are formulated that way. Canna and HESI come to mind.

Then there is one that I have always found to be not well for the charted way they do it... House and Garden..... Then there is AN. it works but back when they first came out. They had so many bottles of this and that (watered down crap - usually available in most others main lines, as part of their 3 or 4 part) That they had gorwing levels tied to them.. Use this and grow at that level. Use all of them and grow at a "Master" level.
BS of highest order on that claim!

There are a few simple supplements that I use. I make them too. Even my alternative synthetic "parts" are home made. I might throw some of this at that point or this point.

Depends on how the plant is running at any given point.. That's also lots of experience and knowledge of the plant and it's needs, when it needs them.

Get proficient at growing and then read around, learn the plant, and experiment on your own.

best answer I can give.
Click to expand...
Not talking about custom soils. Talking about ffof and the like. They recommend to add additional nutrients after a month or so. I agree. No way ffof could take a plant all the way imo. Ymmv.
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
My plants are in living organic soil; I give them nothing but water for the entire grow. It is not easy to keep soil in a container both active and providing enough nutrients to the plants for any length of time. Giving them more than they need at any stage doesn’t make bigger flowers later. But if you fail to provide enough npk and macros in the soil your plants turn will yellow in mid bloom when they need it the most. So then most growers just give nutrients. Thing is lots of growers using nutes over feed the plants. Then again that’s sort of how they work. I have plants with yellow fans on the bottom half in week 7 yet they are growing huge colas.
So you basically have two choices: give soluble npk when needed or amend the soil with a slow release fertilizer. I simply add a handful or so of chicken manure to each final size bloom pot along with 2 Jobes AP organic spikes. Charlie’s compost brand is good shit; $18 for 10lb bag on Amazon. Jobes spikes are $8 for a 50 pk last I checked. They are made of mostly bone and feather meal plus bennies & mycorrhizae. Feeds for 8 weeks; perfect for bloom phase. Also keep a bottle of Neptune’s harvest with seaweed on hand in case they begin to get pale earlier than expected.
Microbial activity has a lot to do with how long a mix can sustain plants. Most times if I just add fresh castings from the worm bin that will green them up enough to finish strong. Compost and a source of clean water are the keys to indefinite soil sustainability. High levels of microbial activity is almost more important than npk value in a soil grow. Soil that you may think is depleted could just be inactive.
 
Cannaprentice

Cannaprentice

Active Member
@Dr. Who
Very nice take!
potting up in hotter and hotter soil seems like a great Idea!
Usually, I don't have much issues to use the soil more than a month before adding it in, I try to keep it living
Depending on strain or phenotype I might have some problems with the strenght but never much.
those two bigger plants are the same strain but the pheno on the right is getting tip burn for example.

They seem to thrive off of barely anything and as you can see, they look fine after two whole months only feeding on the soil.
I'm sure they'll end up eating everything and I'll have to add some nutrients mid flowering though!
1586452569635.png
@Richard Drysift
Man I really need to start looking in living soil.
I'm liking how much of a smooth sailing slow release nutes are and how I can focus on training the plants.
I can never find the bonemeal, bloodmeal kelpmeal and the like in store near me so something you can find on amazon is nice!
My goal is to go full slow release organic!
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Cannaprentice said:
@Dr. Who
Very nice take!
potting up in hotter and hotter soil seems like a great Idea!
Usually, I don't have much issues to use the soil more than a month before adding it in, I try to keep it living
Depending on strain or phenotype I might have some problems with the strenght but never much.
those two bigger plants are the same strain but the pheno on the right is getting tip burn for example.

They seem to thrive off of barely anything and as you can see, they look fine after two whole months only feeding on the soil.
I'm sure they'll end up eating everything and I'll have to add some nutrients mid flowering though!
View attachment 4528257
@Richard Drysift
Man I really need to start looking in living soil.
I'm liking how much of a smooth sailing slow release nutes are and how I can focus on training the plants.
I can never find the bonemeal, bloodmeal kelpmeal and the like in store near me so something you can find on amazon is nice!
My goal is to go full slow release organic!
Click to expand...
Exactly! The cool thing about living soil is that you get to see how the plants feed themselves naturally. They only take up what they need as opposed to being force fed everything all at once. You soon realize that the plants don’t use anywhere near the amount of npk in the soluble nutrients you give. Most of it is not even absorbed by the plants which is one reason ph fluctuates; especially if using hi npk value synth nutrients in a soil grow. These are issues you don’t really have to think about much when growing in living soil. You just water the plants; just does not get simpler than this.
There are a lot of organic supply stores online out there in addition to good old amazon. Kelp 4 less is worth checking out. It pays to wait for a sale and/or search for discount codes and then get what you need in bulk.
 
Bignutes

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
The feed stores for cattle and horses will be your best bet for really cheap fertilizers, all natural......natural enough at least. Prices at your grenhouse, grow shop, or amazon will run you $1-$8 per lb, at the feed stores and brew supply stores it will run you $0.15 to $0.40 per lb.
 
Bignutes

Bignutes

Well-Known Member
Cannaprentice said:
@Dr. Who
Very nice take!
potting up in hotter and hotter soil seems like a great Idea!
Usually, I don't have much issues to use the soil more than a month before adding it in, I try to keep it living
Depending on strain or phenotype I might have some problems with the strenght but never much.
those two bigger plants are the same strain but the pheno on the right is getting tip burn for example.

They seem to thrive off of barely anything and as you can see, they look fine after two whole months only feeding on the soil.
I'm sure they'll end up eating everything and I'll have to add some nutrients mid flowering though!
View attachment 4528257
@Richard Drysift
Man I really need to start looking in living soil.
I'm liking how much of a smooth sailing slow release nutes are and how I can focus on training the plants.
I can never find the bonemeal, bloodmeal kelpmeal and the like in store near me so something you can find on amazon is nice!
My goal is to go full slow release organic!
Click to expand...
That's what I've been doing as of late, pot up and increase fertilizer strength. I was using subcool recipe but that wasn't my bag, stuck in the train tracks with that mix and it's not conducive to potting on. It's also just meant for bottom 1/3 of pot.

Now I mix all my soil/aeration/peat (non fertilizer) together in a few giant tubs. In a separate 5 gallon pail I mix all my dry fertilizers. Depending on what stage the plant is at I mix in fertilizer at the time of transplant so I control how hot the soil is. It's nice cause I can start with the base soil and it gives me the ultimate in flexibility. I got to watch what I add tho now, I don't want ultra slow release but I guess when I get to no till I will.
 
Dr. Who

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
Exactly! The cool thing about living soil is that you get to see how the plants feed themselves naturally. They only take up what they need as opposed to being force fed everything all at once. You soon realize that the plants don’t use anywhere near the amount of npk in the soluble nutrients you give. Most of it is not even absorbed by the plants which is one reason ph fluctuates; especially if using hi npk value synth nutrients in a soil grow. These are issues you don’t really have to think about much when growing in living soil. You just water the plants; just does not get simpler than this.
There are a lot of organic supply stores online out there in addition to good old amazon. Kelp 4 less is worth checking out. It pays to wait for a sale and/or search for discount codes and then get what you need in bulk.
Click to expand...
@Cannaprentice

Another good source for organic's is -
www.buildasoil.com

They have some nice learning information there too - you just have to dig deep enough into the site to find it.
Hell, give them a call! They'll talk to you and answer questions/give advise...

www.kelpforless.com
has been a go to organic site for me for a long, long time
 
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M

myvoy

Well-Known Member
Only on new(strains) additions to garden to figure out their appetites and habits. No reason to feed them extras if they're not asking for it..
 
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