MMPR Soil or Hydroponics?

I'm interested in getting some opinions if anyone is so inclined.
We have an ongoing debate on growing in soil or hydroponics. Both have advantages and disadvantages. We have had experiences with both, and currently are in soil.
This would be based on a fairly large facility with a good operating budget.
Soil or Hydroponics? Thanks for any input.

Hydroponics (soilless medium ie. sunshine mix).

The ability to move individual plants would be super important, especially for a new set up that the grower is still unfamiliar with. I'm basing it on the most forgiving style IMO. I'd also assume a LP would experiment with different types of grows to find what suits their operation the best. A "research and development" part of the operation.

....but by this time tomorrow there will be so many others more knowledgable than me chiming in that I'll likely change my opinion.

Just sayin.

Thanks for the input Stark. Been doing a lot of experiments under the MMAR.

Naturally grown aka no food only microbes feeding the plants in actual soil mix. No one will grow it that way because it isnt profitable but it is the best medicine in every way.

Brian Savage said:

Naturally grown aka no food only microbes feeding the plants in actual soil mix. No one will grow it that way because it isnt profitable but it is the best medicine in every way.

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and there might be some heavy metal issues that won't pass testing

I asked my grower and you're definitely right about the heavy metals.

We're going aeroponic.

Plants explode when you use a starve and feed type of system. The only problem is that the plants react quickly if you have a power outage but thats what backup power is for.

Soil does generate a stronger plant in terms of dealing with power outages but starve and feed or hydroponics allow you the grower to truly know whats going into your plants.

Qa testing will be difficult to pass. You doing testing now is a very smart move. We're doing some r n d with leds. I dont mind sharing results if you're interested.

I, for one, would be very interested. Thanks Pat.

i'm using an aeroflo to experiment with right now to get my feet wet (see what I did there?) with some different growing techniques. I'm not as far along as some of you, but I am also a LP wannabe. I'm just a basement kid who likes growing good bud. I'm hoping there's some room for us little guys in this new mess HC has handed us. I figure since large scale growing is new to me, I better brush up on everything I can.

leaffan said:

Thanks for the input Stark. Been doing a lot of experiments under the MMAR.

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probably turning someones green into cash

cannadan said:

probably turning someones green into cash

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And that someone would have no green without the cash the other person had to set-up and grow their script....

When growing indoors, either in soil or hydroponics, a power outage is the worst case scenario and it really doesn't matter which method your using at that point.

Soil or soil less mix is forgiving and much more tolerant to inputs by a not so precise grower. On a large scale operation though you could possibly have tons of soil to deal with after each harvest.

Hydroponics is not forgiving, it requires precision and a higher level of skill. Things happen fast and you need to be able to diagnosis and react just as fast. Growth rates and yield are far superior to any form of soil/less mix. Water is also much easier to move and dispose of.

soil growing requires more skill overall imo , soil growing has more variables that tend to be measured by experience and knowledge, rather than digital meters

hydro can be very easy, applying a set of instructions that will work for everyone
i know that i could not give a noob some cuttings and a bag of soil and expect them to produce much with it on a first run or first try
many things they would need to learn to grow good plants in soil would only come with practice and experience , i could give them tips and pointers but
they stand a good chance of fucking it up, first timers are always overwatering and over feeding plants in soil

with hydro i could give any noob of average intelligence some cuttings and a small instruction list, if they follow the instructions they would grow
healthy plants nothing really to learn or gauge for yourself, meters for everything lol

peace

Thanks for the input folks!

Pat...We've been testing for a few years now. Trying hydro vs soil, different nutrients, ballasts, lighting, temps, strains, the list goes on and on...
I know a few people who have tried LED, and talked to many suppliers, and I would stay away from LED. They simply do not have it ready. Other than traditional lighting, the only alternative that has impressed me is induction for veg.
Aeroponics...wow...you must have a lot of faith in your grower. Although I have never done aeroponics I have witnessed a few failures.
I would highly encourage you to talk to your team, your grower, other growers, and debate this growing style. If you have already, fair enough and all the best. I would appreciate results on the LEDs, thanks.

Redi...I agree with the power outage affecting both styles of growing. Backup power is essential. In days past, the priority was to keep the charcoal filtration going, followed by feeding...
Soil is more forgiving IMO. You only have to engage in a battle with pythium to know what a nightmare hydroponics can be. IMO soil requires a higher level of skill to produce the max. It's taken awhile, but my soil yields are now closer to hydro than ever before, doubt it will ever match hydro output.
Yes getting rid of soil after a harvest is a pain in the ass for sure!

Skunk, I agree with you. I have found it is much easier to teach a noob (i'm no expert) to be able to help with a hydro grow. They seem to understand easier. At first hydro seems so much more complicated, but in reality it is easier than soil. I am talking about producing a max yield. Anyone, anyone can grow in soil and get something, but we want more than just something!
I said help in hydro grow. No way do I think a noob can pull off a hydro grow without support and supervision. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and wipe you out so quickly. Soil is more forgiving.
Soil is more subtle. A longer learning period. Requires experience and a keen eye.

I appreciate the dialogue.

Just say soilless when your talking about sunshine mix or promix, soilless is hydroponic.

Really we should be talking about which hydroponic system to use? And which geoponic mediums? The real difference is in "mediums that absorb and effect nutrients" vs. "mediums that barely absorb and have minimal effect on nutrients" . Or aeroponics.

Your question should be what kind of hydroponics do we think an MMPR wannabe should use? Aeroponics, or geoponics? Or were you really considering soil?

Soil by definition needs to have sand, silt, and clay, interestingly only the organics are optional.

hydroponic- not using soil.
aeroponic -spray over roots, no medium, nutrients in mist
geoponic -pump over roots, peat, rock, husk, clay pellets, including soilless, nutrients in water
aquaponic -pump over roots, uses any hydroponic method, nutrients in water from fish and/or other aquatic animals.

We want each of our bloom rooms to be flexible for the MMPR, because some strains like different conditions for their roots. We will be growing in both soilless hydroponic and non-absorbant geoponic simultaneously, each bloom room will be designed to be easily changed for either method, allowing us to pick and choose any strain we want. This will also allow us to save money on all the geoponic equipment that is required at first, spreading those costs out a bit further, starting up in soiless. During construction the extra costs are power related and the extra ceiling height required for our system of geoponics. I believe that being flexible within your facility might become your means of survival in a small LP later on.

Getting some soilless under your nails is nice too, more like gardening.

Soilless (absorbant geoponic) is more forgiving in a power outage unless your water requires power, and you don't keep your hydroponic solution container (barrel) full, which is pretty rare in cold water Canada.

I find it curious that, heavy metals become the issue in soil, can you elaborate, isn't most of our food grown in soil? No grower of outdoor I know has ever had the marihuana tested. No grower I know, uses soil indoors, and many of the outdoor growers I know use soilless with hydro food.

I added aquaponics because I wondered why this is not considered "organic".

Kgirl my partner would be laughing his ass off if he read this post.
I have never been good with terminology. It is not soil that I was referring to, I call it dirt, but in fact I should have said Bcuzz. I have no clue why I said, keep saying soil. Maybe this is the reason he cringes every time I come into the store.
So yes, you are correct.
I, we, grew for years with rockwool and hydroton pellets. Life was good.
Then came a battle, no, a war with Pythium. It seemed like the whole city was affected with pythium. We tried everything, I mean everything in this war. We had all the resources available in the industry. We couldn't get on top of it, so our choice was to either relocate or switch over to "dirt". Considering there were a lot of growers in the area suffering the same plight as ourselves, we settled on switching to Bcuzz aka dirt in our neighbourhood.
So we got back to having harvests, albeit smaller yields. Over time our quality and quantity improved. So much so that it is very close to what we had been getting before.
So now we are faced with soilless aka dirt (sorry can't help myself), or back to rockwool and hydroton pellets.
We fear pythium. We can't afford to go through that crap again. On the other side of the coin, we believe that the buds can get better flushed of heavy metals with rockwool and pellets.
It's really not a matter of yields now, or quality, or the inconvenience of dirt.
It boils down to possibly not passing a heavy metals test with Bcuzz, or facing another possible war with pythium.
The concern over heavy metal testing comes from a supplier. I don't know how valid the concern is, but it obviously has my attention.

Did you/QAP have and follow SOP's when you were suffering the pythium infection? These cleared ours up pronto, with the closing of two sanitary holes in our system. Add broadmite to your fear list.

Yes, we never deviated from our SOP. We have no idea how it started. We ripped out everything. Sterilized everything. Replaced every piece of equipment. Yet it was still there wreaking havoc. We weren't the only ones with this problem. To this day I cannot understand how a whole city gets infected with a pythium outbreak that stuck like glue and couldn't be managed.
Never had the displeasure of broadmites, and I hope I never do.

Sounds like it came with the water supply, did you disinfect the source of water?

Water supply was high on our list. Another local grower just out of town had it too and he was on a well. We tried RO, different filters, UV, different temps, soooo many air stones...nothing friggin worked.

Now I'm scared.

leaffan said:

and there might be some heavy metal issues that won't pass testing

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You would only have a heavy metal issue if you are using contaminated soil. As long as you dont get it from the local smelter you would be ok.

That being said, the use of soil at the commercial scale would be crazy (and messy). There are good reasons that greenhouse growers are almost exclusively hydroponic these days.

Personally, I am leaning toward a non-recirculating hydroponic system with a drip system to minimize the ability for root borne diseases to spread. I am terrified of Pythium, and do not want to take any risks.

Kron3007 said:

You would only have a heavy metal issue if you are using contaminated soil. As long as you dont get it from the local smelter you would be ok.

That being said, the use of soil at the commercial scale would be crazy (and messy). There are good reasons that greenhouse growers are almost exclusively hydroponic these days.

Personally, I am leaning toward a non-recirculating hydroponic system with a drip system to minimize the ability for root borne diseases to spread. I am terrified of Pythium, and do not want to take any risks.

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I hear you!...we crushed with RDWC, it keeps calling out to me....but non-recirculating is safer for sure.
Not so sure on your take on the heavy metal issue.

Nice feedback folks, thanks