I need a win - share some advice?

[BongRipLarry]

My first two grows didn't go great.

Without going into too much detail, I think Grow 1 failed because of bad luck with a pheno (Barney's Zkittlez grew to like 5', couldn't keep the damn thing away from the light) and some issues with temp/Rh control late in the grow. Grow 2 failed due to some NLS-related deficiencies and GNATS!!! in flower, which I think led to a really long grow time to reach maturity that I had to cut short due to a basement renovation - buds came out with decent looking trichs, but the smoke wasn't great and they were really loose and larfy.

But I'm not quitting - I've got some Roots Organic, about 2.5 lbs of NLS Autoflower Concentrate, a new 3x3 tent and a dedicated, permanent growing space, and a handful of Mephisto beans.

I'm not worried about equipment, but I'm looking for advice on approach. My two thoughts: try another NLS grow but be prepped to supplement regularly as they go into flower, or go just Roots Organic and use General Hydroponics with autoflower instructions and see how that works out.

What's the "easiest" way to get a grow to the finish line? Any other tips?

Edit to add: I'm not 100% locked into these options, it's just what I have on hand!

 

[Suki]

Curious as to the why behind using salt nutes in an organic soil? In my experience salt nutes and soil don't really go all that well together in general. If you want to use the salt nutes, coco is going to be a better medium in that correcting issue is going to be easier. If you want to go soil, I highly suggest going organic with a living soil and KNF inputs. Organic does require a bit more pre planning but in my fairly limited experience with it thus far it seems like a lot less work on a day to day basis. I'd suggest staying away from NLS, from what I could tell while doing research people seem to have a lot of issues with it.

 

[BongRipLarry]

Curious as to the why behind using salt nutes in an organic soil? In my experience salt nutes and soil don't really go all that well together in general. If you want to use the salt nutes, coco is going to be a better medium in that correcting issue is going to be easier. If you want to go soil, I highly suggest going organic with a living soil and KNF inputs. Organic does require a bit more pre planning but in my fairly limited experience with it thus far it seems like a lot less work on a day to day basis. I'd suggest staying away from NLS, from what I could tell while doing research people seem to have a lot of issues with it.

First - thanks for your reply!

No real reasoning behind using the salt nutrients with organic soil - I actually used Roots Organic on the first grow, but didn't start adding nutrients until the plants reached flowering, the RO was hot enough to get them that far seemingly healthy.

I'm down to do another living soil type of grow for the convenience, but it's pretty clear NLS is NOT the way. Are there other widely available off-the-shelf alternatives? My local grow shop has a brand called BuildASoil but the guy working didn't know anything about it.

 

[Rasterman]

Buildasoil has at least three prepackaged soil mixes and you can of course build your own. I know they're really popular, but I really didn't like their soil.

I've had better luck with Happy Frog. My biggest issue with buildasoil, and it's just a personal preference, is that the lava rock or whatever it's called is too large. So those light little white pebbles end up working their way to the top of the soil. They also magically find their way into the carpet and everywhere. The only place I haven't found them is... never mind. :smoking:

If you want easy, look at Sensi Grow and Sensi Bloom. I've had really good experiences with those nutes and supposedly they also buffer PH for you.

 

[Suki]

IMO BAS is one of the best companies to go with. I actually bought their 70gal take and bake kit on black Friday sale and have been loving it!

These two girls are 7 weeks old and are in a 20 gal of the soil I mixed up with that kit and have been water only up until the last week or so. I've been thrilled with the results so far, especially coming from using FFOF/HF and their bottled nutes before. This was my first time making it through transition with zero issues. The big girl is showing some slight hunger but they are very heavy feeders and she is huge (3' across and has had crazy rapid growth).

I've just recently (within the past week) started adding some KNF inputs to their water and while its too early for me to know for sure how its working for me, I've seen some super impressive KNF grows from some of the more experienced organic growers on here. I will say that now that I've jumped on the living soil bandwagon I'm never going back lol. Researching it can be a little tedious just because of a general information overload, but really once you jump in its pretty simple (way easier than salts) and I think with practice it seems like it will become pretty intuitive. And yes it totally sounds like some mystical culty thing when you first look into it, but I think that's just because once you get going and see how well it works its just super exciting and you want to share it with everyone lol.

It really just comes down to two very different methodologies. With salt nutes, you're feeding the plant directly. With living soil, and using knf inputs, you're feeding the microbiology of the soil in order for those microbes to provide your plants with the nutrition they need, when they need it. The more I learn about soil biology and how plants work on a molecular and systemic level, the more it kinda all just clicks into place.

 

[Suki]

Buildasoil has at least three prepackaged soil mixes and you can of course build your own. I know they're really popular, but I really didn't like their soil.

I've had better luck with Happy Frog. My biggest issue with buildasoil, and it's just a personal preference, is that the lava rock or whatever it's called is too large. So those light little white pebbles end up working their way to the top of the soil. They also magically find their way into the carpet and everywhere. The only place I haven't found them is... never mind. :smoking:

If you want easy, look at Sensi Grow and Sensi Bloom. I've had really good experiences with those nutes and supposedly they also buffer PH for you.

I 1000% prefer the pumice in BAS to the perlite in everything else lol. Perlite is *awful* about floating to the top, which totally defeats the purpose of including it for aeration and drainage.

 

[Suki]

@Fermented_Fruitz and @WildBill are both awesome with this stuff, I know there's more but I'm drawing a big old blank at the moment.

 

[2budz]

Buildasoil has at least three prepackaged soil mixes and you can of course build your own. I know they're really popular, but I really didn't like their soil.

I've had better luck with Happy Frog. My biggest issue with buildasoil, and it's just a personal preference, is that the lava rock or whatever it's called is too large. So those light little white pebbles end up working their way to the top of the soil. They also magically find their way into the carpet and everywhere. The only place I haven't found them is... never mind. :smoking:

If you want easy, look at Sensi Grow and Sensi Bloom. I've had really good experiences with those nutes and supposedly they also buffer PH for you.

I was actually going to suggest happy frog as well. It’s worked well for me, my plants love it. This last grow I started I mixed 60/40 with ocean forest despite being told ocean forest would fry my plants. So far I’m not seeing that. And I water sprouts several times a day with a spray bottle. I think for an easy grow FF soil and a ph adjusting nute line like Adavanced Nutrients is the way to go.

 

[Rasterman]

I 1000% prefer the pumice in BAS to the perlite in everything else lol. Perlite is *awful* about floating to the top, which totally defeats the purpose of including it for aeration and drainage.

Pumice! That's the word I was looking for. I think their soil would rock (literally) if they just smashed it up into smaller pieces.

 

[WildBill]

My first two grows didn't go great.

Without going into too much detail, I think Grow 1 failed because of bad luck with a pheno (Barney's Zkittlez grew to like 5', couldn't keep the damn thing away from the light) and some issues with temp/Rh control late in the grow. Grow 2 failed due to some NLS-related deficiencies and GNATS!!! in flower, which I think led to a really long grow time to reach maturity that I had to cut short due to a basement renovation - buds came out with decent looking trichs, but the smoke wasn't great and they were really loose and larfy.

But I'm not quitting - I've got some Roots Organic, about 2.5 lbs of NLS Autoflower Concentrate, a new 3x3 tent and a dedicated, permanent growing space, and a handful of Mephisto beans.

I'm not worried about equipment, but I'm looking for advice on approach. My two thoughts: try another NLS grow but be prepped to supplement regularly as they go into flower, or go just Roots Organic and use General Hydroponics with autoflower instructions and see how that works out.

What's the "easiest" way to get a grow to the finish line? Any other tips?

Edit to add: I'm not 100% locked into these options, it's just what I have on hand!

If ya have good water, ppm meter, pH meter and some MegaCrop. you can easily get some Meph girls to the end with quite good results. Roots Organic Original will take you to the show of sex and then 500-550ppm TOTAL in every watering. I pH'd to 6.3-6.4 You can still use teas. mycos, Recharge, molasses and the such. MC is not too harsh to kill off all the microbes.

Nute wise, it's easy. Ya have to pay attention to everything else. Just get a good SIMPLE grow under your belt.

I used popp22's MC 550ppm method from the 'Dialing in MC' thread in my first grow.
I used cheap Linda Seeds. 2 GG'#4 and one Gelato33

Gelato 33

First GG#4

The other GG#4 named Miss Wispy was completely different pheno. I just took top buds and made fresh froze dry ice hash.
A shake for quality hash netted just shy of 60gr with her. Other trim netted about 20 gr. That worked material was then turned into canna butter that lasted a couple months from worm food.


Pay attention to details. Learn how to water properly.....still have problems with that sometimes. Pay attention to your VPD for the plant's timeline. Lung room conditions is important, Just keep it simple as possible. Keep your variables to as small as possible.

Grow and Learn!