question for bobbong

[michaelpeg]

hey bob just wondering what your exact soil is for your indoor grows because i hate the soils i have used. Right now i have soil which has too much nitrogen and my plants look like they are drying themselves somehow and they smell like crap anyways this is my 3rd soil and im sick of searching and listening to lies from my hydroponics guy (he said the soil i am using now 'dutch treat' was the "GOOD STUFF" and i also dont want to hear what i want to look for in soil because alot of bags dont say exactly what is in there, i just want exactly what you have and i will add exactly what you add. The only plant i have gotten to reach the flower stage is a plant i have in seedling mix and i fertalize it at every feeding with foxfarm products and this plant has one leaf per branch and is less than a foot tall, maybe 24 leaves all together! I want desperately to see a plant that i can take clones from and is more than 10 inches tall.
thanks in advance

[michaelpeg]

hey bob is it "TOP SECRET" or what lol

[stinkyattic]

Well I'll step in here and give you a couple suggestions.
Happy Frog soil is a good product and one of the few soils sold at grow shops that you can actually do seedlings in- it is MUCH lower in added nutrients than other high-end media.
Canna makes an extraordinary product line that includes a soil that I have not personally used, but have heard excellent reviews on, and I am a big fan of their fertilizers.

Then, if you are not feeling so spendy, you can go the cheap route and use something from the farmers' supply.
Bagged composted humus and bagged perlite, mixed 3:1 or 2:1 compost:perlite, is good but depending on the actual compost might be too 'hot' for young plants.
ProMix BX is a standard commercial potting soil and the trick to using it successfully is never plant your plants in a pot too big for them, and re-pot up to the next size once every 6 weeks. If you look at my donkey dick log, that's actually what I am doing with them.

If you are feeling cheap and there is no grow shop or farmers supply, even the big box stores sometimes have Miracle Gro organic choice. You have to add extra perlite to that, too, to make it more user-friendly but it works fine for plants more than 3 weeks old.

Enjoy!

[michaelpeg]

actually i am feeling very spendy just not enough to order foxfarm online and PAY BIG for shipping as i am in canada and this isnt available here. and as for the promix bx, it is basically a soiless medium, am i right? if so then what would you add to it to make it cannabis friendly and not just have a sprout sitting there the same height for months to come? tell me exactly what you would do and i mean EXACTLY i want a sure fire plan because my plants are pathetic thanks. and i do have a grow shop but the guy lies constantly and says stuff that doesnt even make sense just to make himself feel and look smart. he recommended my current soil -dutch treat- which overdosed my plants with nitrogen to the point of them drying themselves somehow. and didnt want to leave you out and ask bob only but i just asked him because he is canadian and i wasnt sure if you would know about canadian soils so sorry

[stinkyattic]

Okey dokey.
REally, read this thread:
http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-log/149439-donkey-dick-vt-local-ibl-indoor-outdoor-2008-a.html
I just found the same problem, that it is difficult to source quality soils at a reasonable price in the dead of a New England winter! So this is my first ProMix grow.

You don't have to add a thing to it, but you have to make certain that you don't leave a plant in the same sized pot for more than a month to avoid the pH problems that ProMix users sometimes bump into.

It's soilless, so you run your pH just slightly lower than for soil- 6.4 is about right.

NEVER overwater the stuff; that shortens its lifespan in the pot. You can flush it if you have to, but you really need to let it dry out a bit between waterings to get the benefit of its texture.

As you might see in my log, I found that the lowest set of leaves DID turn yellow and drop; how much of that was light and how much was pH I'm not sure; growth was good in general and I made sure that I was following good watering and feeding routines.

The sprout will be fine with no added nutrients until about 3 weeks (differs based on how much light you have), and then you just give it regular grow fertilizer like any other medium. The Advanced Nutrients line was designed to be used specifically with ProMix, as that is a popular choice for large-scale commercial growers.

[michaelpeg]

hey stinky i guess i didnt really didnt consider how important pot size is.. i started my plants in 6 inch pots (i believe that the size) and maybe i should have stuck with my little jiffy pots, oh yeah another thing what is your take on letting your roots grow through the jiffy pot as compared to just ripping the pot open and transplanting that way or do you dislike jiffy pots and for what reason and i am currently reading your log, just makes me sick to my stomach to see what my plants COULD look like :( but good job anyways i LOVE outdoor grow logs

[stinkyattic]

I have mixed feelings about jiffy pots. They are convenient and earth-friendly, but can inhibit root growth if you don't keep the whole pot just slightly moist a lot of the time- when they are dry, they are VERY hard and tough!
That being said, did you see in one of the pics in my log there's a CASE- yes, 2,500 of them? haha!

I prefer plastic 3" pots for the first transplant (nursery 6-pax to 3" pots) of plants I plan to keep around, but when I start stuff for the outdoor garden, jiffy pots are GREAT. I have all my tomatoes and peppers and shit in them!

I don't think you should peel them off, but I DO think that you should let them degrade a little or shred them up just a bit before planting in the next size pot.

My transplants are:
Seedlings in nursery 6-pax to 3" plastic square deep.
Young veg in 3" plastic to 6" plastic, again the square deep ones.
MAturing veg in 6" plastic to 10" square 3 gallon to flower keep as mothers, or put outdoors.

Clones are taken while the plants are still in the 6" pots.

[michaelpeg]

your transplant info is perfect just what i was looking for just want to know how long you keep them in each pot do you take them out of the nursery right when they sprout?

[michaelpeg]

oh yeah any idea why bobbong didnt give his 2 cents? did i bother him too much with all my other questions

[AR15]

oh yeah any idea why bobbong didnt give his 2 cents? did i bother him too much with all my other questions

Well, it's only been about one full day (a little over). He might not have been on since you posted this, and if he has been, he might not have checked this part of the forums.

Another much likely situation is that he does not have the free time at the moment to actually respond. Be patient :thumbsup: He'll get to you when he does. :jointsmile:

[stinkyattic]

Wait to transplant them out of the small nursery pots until they have 2-3 sets of adult leaves. By that time, they are probably getting close to rootbound, and you want to time transplants by the condition of the roots.

Bob may have been busy with other sections of the boards, or didn't feel that this was his particular area of expertise- I think for some reason that he knows hydro better? Not sure. Anyway don't worry, that's why we are all here, to pool our collective knowledge!

[michaelpeg]

thanks stinky just wondering those little nursery six packs are those the little things that come with the humidity domes, just hard to judge the size from the pic for me

[stinkyattic]

Well, in this case... 9-pax ;)

[michaelpeg]

thanks stinky, no more questions:thumbsup: except what kind of soil bob used for his cfl grow

[BobBong]

Sorry MP
wasn't ignoring you just had a rough night so i'm kinda hurting today.

ProMix Bx is what i've been using, i'll be trying CocoGro bricks from botanicare next.

[michaelpeg]

thats no prob bob, ok i can get promix bx do you add anything to it or use it as is? thanks thats last Q (for a while) i promise!
thanks alot

[stinkyattic]

I'm not Bob but I use ProMix for plants that I am moving along quickly through my grow, and don't add anything to it. However, I am considering playing with mycorrhizal fungi (MycoStim is the brand I get locally) to improve the conditions in the rhizosphere.

[michaelpeg]

yeah i just read up a tiny bit on the mycorrhizal fungi and it sounds like the plants would love it, how would you go about applying such a thing? i think i actually read somewhere that promix bx has some kind of fungi in there but that could be totally false. by the way at the moment i cant afford a digital pH tester until income tax so could you tell me the pH of the promix bx im sure you got the fancy tools lol

[stinkyattic]

The promix comes from the factory pH stabilized already. You still need to check that your water isn't going to be a problem. CRAP where is that thing I posted on the shit.

Here!

Sez my main chica FoxySox: ;) heh heh heh

I've been using ProMix BX lately and the trick to avoiding pH problems is this:

Promix is stabilized at the packaging plant by addition of lime, a pH buffer (CaCO3). The pH of peat, the major component, is naturally around 5ish. The lime keeps the pH up above 6 UNTIL IT IS USED UP. This occurs because when you add water, you are allowing a chemical reaction (neutralization of the acids in the peat by the lime) to take place. Over time, the amount of lime left will drop, and this neutralization stops taking place.

Your job as the soilless ProMix grower is to keep ahead of the pH!

Typically you will start to see problems after about 8 weeks of the plant being in the same pot. This is because the lime is used up and the peat is breaking down into a sludgy peaty acidic swampy mess. pH will plummet.

So how do you avoid this? Simple!

Pot up into a pot that is JUST big enough for your plants. Time your grow so you are potting up into the next size pot, with fresh ProMix, every 5-6 weeks so that new root growth is ALWAYS going into nice fresh soil.

Staying on schedule, you should rarely if ever have to flush to keep your mix at the desireable soilless range which is about 0.4 pH points below the range for soil.

Good luck.

The fungi comes as a powder and you just mix a little into the soil and it grows and spreads around on its own.

[michaelpeg]

excellent so the key is to keep potting up and pH will be A okay gotcha thanks again and i will be sure to buy some of this miraculous fungi and my 20 manitoba poison seeds are due to arrive today or mon or tues if i get a successful grow out of this it will be strictly due to the information provided by you and bob if you guys lived around here you would get half of my yield.

[michaelpeg]

how long after the expiry date do you guys think the fungi would be good for because my bastard of a hydroponics guy just sold me some 2.5 year expired fungi which i didnt notice until i got home (I had to take the bus there and back... temp outside -32 celcius with windchill and its a 20 min walk from the bus stop) so you can imagine how fucking thrilled i was when i got home anyways the container says best before nov. 2005 is it a pile of shit now or still useable?

[stinkyattic]

That's not good at all! I'm not sure how long the spores last myself, sorry... :(
I would return the stuff to those bums! Gads, that's no good! You don't absolutely NEED mycos, so save your receipt and return it next time you go to the shop, and grab a new can when it's more convenient.
Remember not to over-think the grow process. It can be as simple or as complicated as you would like it to be. ProMix is among the simplest media if you just make sure your pot size and your plant size always match well, don't overwater or overfertilize, and start out by getting used to growing with the basics- soil, water, light, simple fertilizer- before getting too fancy with supplements and bloom boosters.

[michaelpeg]

yea ive been trying to do it simple but its not working.. i will have to exchange it i guess. Man i want to give that guy a huge piece of my mind but i will have to remain kind because i dont want to be banned from his shitty store. this is the 3rd time he has screwed me. first it was him selling me a 23 watt sunblaster flourescent telling me i would be able to grow with it (this was before i did hours and hours and hours of reading) next was a leaky bottle of pH down (what a pain in the ass whenever i need to use it) and next was the shitty dutch treat soil which is "the good stuff" which gave me N overdose (which i confronted him about today and he said he never heard of that before) but what an attractive name for a soil to grow cannabis in, dont you think? and today a 2.5 year expired bucket-o-shit.
hmm i guess this is strike 4 then. well stinky if you come across someone from Winnipeg other than me on this site, some of the best advise you could give them is DO NOT GO TO READY SET GROW HYDROPONICS!!!

[stinkyattic]

Lol! I think you may be the only person from Winnipeg I've ever had the pleasure of chatting with, period!
Don't you have farmers' supplys? I gotta say I LOVE my local farm store. I mean, think about it... do ya REALLY want to hear an earful from a pissed-off middle-aged Yankee with a hundred head of cattle back at da farm, and biceps the size of my thigh, wondering why the hell his feed order isn't in yet? lol I've never gotten anything but spectacular service there. Well plus I'm spoiled by having the best hydro shop I've ever been to a hop skip and a jump up the street... but you probably don't want to hear any gloating now, do ya? hahaha

[michaelpeg]

well it appears i do have a farmers supply in town which isn't too terribly far away i guess i will have to make my way down there tomorrow. stinky i am serious now tell me what your list would look likeif you were heading in to farmers supply and you plan on growing only 2-3 plants pretend i dont have soil or ferts of any kind. keep in mind im getting a good chunk of money from income tax this is not a joke i want the stinkyattic shopping list.

[stinkyattic]

Shoot, I've actually gotta get going almost right away... I've got a date, and then I have to hit THE FARMERS SUPPLY hahahaha
All right.
-A good quality fertilizer with micronutrients, that has approximately the ratios 7-4-5 (it doesn't have to be EXACT; you just want the first number to be highest for veg, and you need plenty of potassium in all life stages) that you can use for a veg fert. But again, this is actually something I would just wait to get at the grow shop... I love Canna and Botanicare nutes, and the AN line is designed for ProMix.
-MycoStim or something similar that isn't expired
-ProMix if you haven't got it yet
-A sack of perlite to lighten your soil even more if you like
-CHEAP plastic pots. Honestly, the cehaper the better. The black deep nursery pots are designed so that pro nurserymen don't have drainage troubles on their perennial starts... they are functional, not pretty, and come in the sizes you want. I'd get 3", 6" (Quart) and 8" (gallon) if you are going to flower your plants at ~10-12" high, and if you are going to veg them longer, you'll want 4-5 gallon pots too.
-Wilt-Pruf for cloning later if they have it (they should)
Shit I gotta run seriously my date just called. Have a great weekend... sorry...

[michaelpeg]

no prob have fun and maybe we will continue after the weekend