Grow Mediums Surprisingly quiet in hydro forum...

[Ydijadoit]

Lots of good comments here!
I agree on hydro being easier than soil. I started with 4 waterfarms under a 600 and a 400 hps. I damn near cooked that first grow, reading my PPM meter wrong. .7 vs.5 conversion factor will getcha every time.
Even feeding 2100PPM of Pureblend Pro, I was able to drain and refill, after realizing my mistake, and recover a decent harvest, for a first try. If that had been a soil grow, I would have been screwed.
I guess the bottom line for me is, I am better at reading and interpreting meters than plants.
Hats off to the organic/living/breathing soil crowd. That shit is like a dark art to me. I'd like to try it someday, but I am a bubbling water junky at heart!
Regards, Kyle

 

[Madness]

People think that soil ends up better nug than hydro.

I started off hydro and I do want to try soil at some point but honestly I love hydro.

DWC is the best method of growing for fast growth. If someone wanted to have a grow off vs me on how quick and potent the same strain can be... well let me tell you.... My plant will grow 1.5-2x as fast as that soil plant and be just as potent. Its quite easy to grow hydro, especially RDWC or DWC. I will admit other hydros being a little bit more to learn but even flood and drains are easy. Not enough people realize how easy hydro is.

I'm doing a passive hydro Hempy system right now and it's still easier than soil and can return the same results.

I wish more people were accepting of hydro.

I grew 2 auto diesel Berry's in a RDWC in a bun with 2 other autos. Vegged 18/6 for a month and then switched to 12/12 because I had photos in the room.....

Ended up with 3.5 zips of diesel Berry's per plant Even with 12/12 for half it's life and also 2 tops from the plants getting mold because of poor circulation. That was about 4 years ago when autos weren't even top notch then and that would be considered a great grow for autos. Now the genetics and knowledge has come so far that 3.5 zips isn't that much for an auto. Not enough people are doing hydro with autos and I feel as though if they did they would be getting massive plants with huge yields.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

I have grown both soil and hydro. They both have strengths and weaknesses. I think the best tasting weed I have grown was in my organic living soil from my vegetable garden under cheap burples. I had no problems and did not need to add nutrients of any type start to finish but I worked on getting that soil to that condition over 12 years. Then my bad back would not allow me to move heavy pots of soil around. I moved into hydro. Pumps do all of the heavy lifting now. 5 gallon bubbleponics yields amazing results faster, bigger yield. Once I started adding seaweed extracts I think the flavor is almost a match for the soil grows but it can become problematic in junking things up. Although I have done it, It is too hot here to do bubbleponics in the summer unless you have active reservoir cooling. Just too expensive and problematic. I have moved to top irrigated rockwool with a drain to waste system to solve that problem. Plenty of oxygen to the roots even in a hot tent. I have not yet matched the yield of the 5 gal. buckets but I am working on that.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Ps. My grows are not posted in hydro?

 

[Nonpoint]

I dabble in to much shit to be in one category. May post here or may post there but I am soaking up as much info as possible. Everything on here also gets put to use with my vege gardens and even fishing. To much info to stay in one place

 

[lunarman]

This chart has probably been posted before, but it's especially useful for hydro (stay in the green):

Why is VPD more important for hydro grows? I would think that dialed in RH and Temp would be just as important for soil.

I printed this chart a week ago and refer to it a lot. I have a remote camera in my tent and I check my hygrometer using an app for the camera. I find my tent can hold 74 degrees and RH of 55% without too much effort from me. But its easier in the winter.

 

[puggle6]

Will be tidying up the consoledated sticky shortly and linking some more handy stuff so keep the suggestions flowing!

 

[Olde School Player]

I agree man not many hydro folks here. I see more coco people trying to mimic hydro results, some even do. Other than that it's all soil. Whatever floats your boat I guess. I myself am a water baby at heart! Dwc will be my go to any day of the week.

I do think the fact that a lot of autos have short veg times and arent cloneable. That has a big part as to why I dont rub n many autos in hydro. I prefer my photo strains in dwc. Thats not to say autos cant perform in hydro, i just prefer my autos in 3gal of coco and my photos in 4gal of water lol

Heh heh... Fettled had to help me find the hydro section, I think he's the man with the plan to enlighten more of this forum's members on the wonders of hydro.
I'm new to the forum here, and for the last 15-16 years been totally hydro. And I've had some pretty not-quite-amazing-but-almost results with auto's and hydro. Yeah, it sux not being able to keep mothers & I miss taking clones, but auto hydro is getting to be pretty good to me.
I do think a lot of people feel organic is the way to go. Not to start a huge argument, I don't oppose natural organic grows at all, I rather admire them. But I do snicker behind their backs and wonder WTF anyone would intentionally want to play with worm poop and bat do-do????
The only fault I really have toward the organix crowd is very few of them are willing to admit that a plant can't uptake NP&K from organic ingredients until it has had a chance for the microbes to turn poop and do-do into NPK elements. So yeah, hydro has a direct line to that & I love it!!!
Only area with hydro that I feel a little left out is in the realm of beneficial bacterias / myco's and the likes. The types of soups that encourage these little critters tend to be less friendly in a hydro realm. I got more to learn in this area before I say any more

Just in case any of you wanna scope out a few of my results, I did a fairly in depth intro where you can see some of my autoflower hydro results.
https://www.autoflower.org/threads/greetings-and-salutations-afn.64370/

And keep that damned dirt outta my grow room!!!! That shit has bugs in it.

 

[puggle6]

Welcome @Olde School Player !

I've actually done aquaponics and yielded 311g from a single GSC and am working on a bio reactor to make my own organic hydro food!

Some nute lines could be considered organic such as GH FloraNova which I use with beneficial bacteria with very good results! More to come on that!

Check in regularly and fresh new content always welcome!

f6

 

[Olde School Player]

Great to know, fettled, I need to learn more about that. Like especially myco's to encourage more efficient root systems - how can I tell if a myco treatment really infected my root system? I know they have to come into direct contact with the roots before they will propagate.... Does anyone have a slide of what this would look like under a microscope? I'm a believer in the science but I really am flying blind to know if my myco treatments are propagating or just lying around at the bottom of my res like a bunch of lazy worthless good for nothing pieces of mycorrhizae?????