Organic Growing: An Introductory Guide

Rasta Roy said:

Cannabis is an annual so it prefers bacterial dominant soil

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In my experience cannabis is more of a 1:1 fungi:bacteria kinda of crop, and then as the soil progresses it should become slightly more fungal, and that's going to produce some nice results.

Nice post though, spread that knowledge!

iplantthings said:

In my experience cannabis is more of a 1:1 fungi:bacteria kinda of crop, and then as the soil progresses it should become slightly more fungal, and that's going to produce some nice results.

Nice post though, spread that knowledge!

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I love talking about this, and was a little disappointed no one had brought it up sooner.

Because I agree with you, and diversity is everything. But consider this...

In nature...bacterial dominated soils occur in grassland and open pasture type areas. Places with lots of green material where animals graze (leaving their nitrogen rich manure). Herbaceous plants and soft stemmed vegetables thrive in this soil.

Fungal dominant soils occur in the forest, trees and bushes love that shit.

I'm no botanist, by any means. But free of human intervention, cannabis would probably grow wild in those open pasture, bacterial dominant soil, more than it would in the woods. Don't you think?

I still think diversity is everything. But that's why I say it prefers bacterial dominant soils. Diverse soils are best of course.

Rasta Roy said:

I love talking about this, and was a little disappointed no one had brought it up sooner.

Because I agree with you, and diversity is everything. But consider this...

In nature...bacterial dominated soils occur in grassland and open pasture type areas. Places with lots of green material where animals graze (leaving their nitrogen rich manure). Herbaceous plants and soft stemmed vegetables thrive in this soil.

Fungal dominant soils occur in the forest, trees and bushes love that shit.

I'm no botanist, by any means. But free of human intervention, cannabis would probably grow wild in those open pasture, bacterial dominant soil, more than it would in the woods. Don't you think?

I still think diversity is everything. But that's why I say it prefers bacterial dominant soils. Diverse soils are best of course.

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Love the picture you painted.

Though it seems to me that cannabis really is more of "bush", so it actually prefers soil more on the fungal side of succession. Not super-heavy fungal soils that provide great growing conditions for large trees, but at least 1:1 and maybe tipped more on the fungal side.

Have you ever heard that where blackberries are growing in the wild is also a good place to grow cannabis? Blackberries are a bush, right? They probably like a good amount of fungi in their soils.

Anyways, I'll try and find some real data on this at some point. But that's my train of thought!

Makes sense.

If you look at places historically where cannabis grows naturally (Yunnan China, Nepal), you see it growing more on those grasslands, open areas....

iplantthings said:

Love the picture you painted.

Though it seems to me that cannabis really is more of "bush", so it actually prefers soil more on the fungal side of succession. Not super-heavy fungal soils that provide great growing conditions for large trees, but at least 1:1 and maybe tipped more on the fungal side.

Have you ever heard that where blackberries are growing in the wild is also a good place to grow cannabis? Blackberries are a bush, right? They probably like a good amount of fungi in their soils.

Anyways, I'll try and find some real data on this at some point. But that's my train of thought!

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Cannabis can definitely resemble a bush when you train it out right! However if you don't cut it down in the fall and leave it to try to survive through the winter you will find it lacks the nature of perennials like blackberries and bushes.

Blackberries do prefer fungal dominated acidic soils... cannabis like most annuals prefer a neutral pH, which tends to be most common in bacterial dominant soils.

Again, I would never argue against diversity in soil! Just like to point out what we would see in nature, and then we can decide the starting point that's best for each of us from there.

Vnsmkr said:

If you look at places historically where cannabis grows naturally (Yunnan China, Nepal), you see it growing more on those grasslands, open areas....

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Yeah but grassland is not equal grassland.

This summer, I took a soil sample of a mountain meadow that was growing grass almost exclusively, on a steep slope of very limey bedrock. It was like sand in consistency, if a tad "sticky". I was surprised to see it had more fungal mass than pretty much any other soil I've looked at to date (except forest soils).
Actually that reminded me about the thing with the U.S. "dustbin" too, those prairies were fungal-heavy too, originally...

I once watched a few of those strain hunter vids, trying to remember what other vegetation was growing alongside the cannabis in the more remote spots... I think that could give us more clues as to fungal presence (in absence of a representative soil sample haha)

Personally, I've been thinking to just give the plants everything, they can then select which organisms they actually need from that abundance? Not worried about getting too many fungi, I find that building those populations is not so easy

But it would be nice to know something more definitive!
Anyone got a notill that's been going for a while and willing to take a sample?

calliandra said:

Personally, I've been thinking to just give the plants everything, they can then select which organisms they actually need from that abundance?

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I think that's the way to go about it. Create a good environment and the organisms that will thrive alongside the plant will take hold and live.

mine would go fungal at time & then bacto & back again , as i switch up the feed on the teas if one side is winning more so to speak
i do remember last summer a huge g/h in norcal that hauls in tons of soil material that the compost was overly hot & had active fungal , that just as the buds were swelling the compost below popped mushies alotta them among the stems , the yield of bud was great

This is a video from my other anti-supersoil thread...fifteen days into flower. Just wanted to show the bud development growth rate I'm able to get, more or less using the method described on this thread. My soil has been recycled and I've built up with lots of homemade compost and castings along with some local compost, mushroom compost, and with this current round some local composted cow manure (no salt licks for the cows it came from I should mention because you should avoid manure from cows that are fed salt licks).

this my 1st foray into 100% organic this summer , sold sold sold did I say sold on it !
the bugs were a pia but not as bad as on just G/H nutes Nova,terpinator,rock resinator, koolbloom like my 1st summer gro when I listened to the gro master @ the Hydro-store my wallet wuz emty that summer & the mites eat 3/4 of the crop
(the bud i did gro those years was fire that combo will produce Fire with great genes , my indoor on the G/H combo was the best till now weed i've smoked . Till Now lol Organic Tastes Soo much better
now a few yrs later after slowly progressing toward full "O"
i say all that because I'm not sold on the supersoil either , i've been a g/h freak for my life long passion
& have grown orchids from seed , grown african succulents & even bloom the famed corpse plants , I have a active aloe & gasteria breeding program now that i'm disabled & want off the hard meds i grow
my g/h was build for Orchids heat,cool,moisture all controlled

now back to subject it's the peat I do not like at all in the 'supersoils'

calliandra said:

Yeah but grassland is not equal grassland.

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No of course its not and thats why cannabis thrives in places like I mentioned naturally, China, Nepal, India. Get some samples from those places . I think you are trying to overthink things but hey everyone has something that drives them and thats healthy. I bet a few people on this sub forum would or have taken samples of their no tills?

with all the ploy hybrids that we grow ,would a sample of a say Thai ilb soils be of any value ?
a indy ibl grows in way different soils that a tropical sativa that the tropics are famous for having poor soils in rain forests & savannas i lived in Panama I've seen that red earth
i've seen pix of nepal hash plants grown in rock fall gravel next to a sheer wall of mountain that no soil at all

After some more thinking about this I've come to the conclusion that it isn't so much about the biomass ratios, but more so what exactly these microbes are doing. The plant needs what it needs, and will utilize its exudates to grow those populations.

For example if it needs phosphorus, fungi are extremely good at seeking out and liberating phosphorus, but there are also some incredible microbes like Mammoth P that do a similar thing. So I wonder which exudate the plant would choose to produce in order to grow those colonies. Maybe both?

about frass ?

Vnsmkr said:

No of course its not and thats why cannabis thrives in places like I mentioned naturally, China, Nepal, India. Get some samples from those places . I think you are trying to overthink things but hey everyone has something that drives them and thats healthy. I bet a few people on this sub forum would or have taken samples of their no tills?

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believe me, I'm not trying haha it just sucks you in

Yeah would be cool, so anyone doing notill and looking at their soil life: please enlighten us
Cheers!

Fastslappy said:

with all the ploy hybrids that we grow ,would a sample of a say Thai ilb soils be of any value ?
a indy ibl grows in way different soils that a tropical sativa that the tropics are famous for having poor soils in rain forests & savannas i lived in Panama I've seen that red earth
i've seen pix of nepal hash plants grown in rock fall gravel next to a sheer wall of mountain that no soil at all

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Yeah, that sounds like we really do best by simply providing a wide variety of microorganisms and letting the plant select according to her wishes.
On the other hand, there could be a similar bacteria to fungi ratio in all those soils, fascinating thought, but yeah definitely overthinking haha!

iplantthings said:

After some more thinking about this I've come to the conclusion that it isn't so much about the biomass ratios, but more so what exactly these microbes are doing. The plant needs what it needs, and will utilize its exudates to grow those populations.

For example if it needs phosphorus, fungi are extremely good at seeking out and liberating phosphorus, but there are also some incredible microbes like Mammoth P that do a similar thing. So I wonder which exudate the plant would choose to produce in order to grow those colonies. Maybe both?

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While those bacteria in that stuff sound extreme, I could imagine that to be true on a less spectacular level too. I think little research has gone into such detail though.
Once again, it speaks for tending to diversity and letting the plant do its thing
(what is this, a diversity rally?! haha!)

calliandra said:

(what is this, a diversity rally?! haha!)

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rah rah diversity!

Fastslappy said:

with all the ploy hybrids that we grow ,would a sample of a say Thai ilb soils be of any value ?
a indy ibl grows in way different soils that a tropical sativa that the tropics are famous for having poor soils in rain forests & savannas i lived in Panama I've seen that red earth
i've seen pix of nepal hash plants grown in rock fall gravel next to a sheer wall of mountain that no soil at all

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Tropics, poor soils....Vietnam has some of the most fertile soil in the world, so that generalization doesnt compute sorry