Hydro vs. Soil

[b4ko]

I would say that hydroponics has got to be the best thing since sliced bread.

[seaflo]

I am new to hydro and have a few sprouts coming up in rockwool in a flat. I am going to buy or build a hydro system this weekend and was hoping one of you experienced hydro experts might lend a recommendation on what you prefer. Thanks in advance.

FREE AMERICAN FROM INTOLERANCE

[mikeo1313]

ok wheres the Zandor KBS style dvd?

I hear you on the flushingâ?¦I flush more then most do, I run a flush with just about every water change now and it makes my like easer. Hydroponics done right is not for the faint of heart, youâ??re right there. I donâ??t think the trial and error of what to feed and when to feed was an accident. A Good Refractometer or (Brix meter) will tell you how your nutrients are being absorbed and used by the plant. I have one but I only use it when there is a problem and my experience does not tell me what it is.

Taste is personal and I respect personal opinion. I can only give creed to what I grow and cure and mine is better then soil but again itâ??s my biased opinion. As an American I guess growing more pot in the same amount of time. Using the same space and growing with fewer plants is a good thing. The yield can be much higher then the same time, same space, same light, and same environment as soil. To grow 1.5 pounds from one plant will take what 6-8 months. With hydro you get that with ½ the time. You just need to grow in near perfect conditions and regulate everything to grow stress free KBS style.

Growing outside is not an option for a lot of people in the US. Growing over 99 plants moves you into the federal jurisdiction in the USA and that is just out of the question.

Itâ??s just nice to get 10 pounds of dried bud with 10 plants inside every 80-90 dayâ??s is allâ?¦.I guess that does make me a typical Americanâ?¦.hehe I never thought of it that way.


Soil is more forgiving for 90% of the people growing today.
Soil is slower to recover and slower to show signs of problems.
Soil does not require as much work as Hydro
Soil will not return the same yield as hydro grown for the same time period, amount of lights, and environment.
Soil cannot feed the plants fast enough is why it would lag behind hydro.

I have been growing in hydro for so long now I guess Iâ??m not the person to judge either. All I know is with lots of money and time you can grow 10 pounds or more with 10 plants. The caregivers I grow for all love it. I love it, and grow nowhere near the limit of plants California law allows for me and 6 other people. It does require cycle growing and is not for the faint of heart only because the cost is so much to get started in KBS most people stay away and I donâ??t blame them. I have noticed that different strains do not grow as well in hydro so I just stay away from them but that still leaves me about 100 that do. Pure sativa does not grow as well in hydro for example but a 40/60 cross will do just fine.

The potency if the THC is determined by the genetics.
The grower and environment determines the amount of THC the plant produces.
The more THC produced does make the plant more potent thus requiring less of the product to achieve the same desired effect. Hydro growing faster is why they say itâ??s more potent because the same time spent with soil and harvested will not have as many trichomes available to contain THC.

Soil is for I would say over 75% of the growers because they only need a few ounces from one plant and have other lives to live. Soil requires less money to setup and less work to keep going. After all this is a weed.

The taste I guess remains a personal choice but as long as it is flushed properly and cured correctly I donâ??t believe there is enough difference to tell. Most people who sell hydro do it for profit and they rush the drying and curing process like they rush the grow process. I still believe that the taste is determined by more of the variety of the strain and the curing process then anything else.

I will not waist time dignify the comment that hydro is â??minimalist scienceâ?� that is plain bull shit and un-informed.

[Zandor]

It will be more of a book on how to build the setup but not until next late year. It's in the planing stage but I have some other projects to finish up first.

[Aaron385]

Sounds cool.. yea my 2c on hydroponics.. grow veggies first... learn how to do it right.. then try a money crop..

just like soil growing i guess.. if you have never even had a house plant or anything.. well.. drop a bagseed in soil and start reading FAQs like your life depends on it.

you have to start somewhere right?

[Mnoutdoorz]

Sounds cool.. yea my 2c on hydroponics.. grow veggies first... learn how to do it right.. then try a money crop..

just like soil growing i guess.. if you have never even had a house plant or anything.. well.. drop a bagseed in soil and start reading FAQs like your life depends on it.

you have to start somewhere right?

Definetly true I wasted 5 seeds of blueberry because I had no clue what to do. I read and did research for the last year before I tried again and it has made so much of a difference. I knew what to do right away with what little I had and then added as I could. READ READ READ and then read a little more. Go on yahoo video or google video and you tube and search for grow dvds you can learn alot of the basics from those too.

As far as hydro vs. soil I can't comment since i've only done soil but I'm planning on doing a side by side grow comparison in the future.

[jamstigator]

I've had shitty pot grown hydroponically and shitty pot grown in soil. I've had great pot grown hydroponically and great pot grown in soil. The best pot I've ever had was some White Rhino I grew myself, in soil, which I began flushing about two weeks prior to harvest. I brought some of my WR nugs to Bonnaroo this year. While I was there, I had all KINDS of people want to trade some of their hydro-grown stuff for my WR nugs, and since I had an abundance, I traded a lot of it, just to get a variety of other stuff to sample. Everybody I traded with was just amazed at how good that WR was (and is, heh), and asked how it was grown, and many seemed surprised that it was grown in soil.

I'm sure my yields do not compare to hydro yields. If I were selling anything, that'd be a big issue, probably a huge overriding issue, and I would go hydro. But since I am a self-supplier only, yield becomes irrelevant to me as long as my yield is greater than what I consume, and achieving that is no problem.

[Opie Yutts]

I'm just wondering if you can grow the same quality pot in soil as you can hydroponically, or is the hydro is always gonna come out better?

Suckie dirt weed will be suckie dirt weed if you grow it in dirt or hydro.
White Widow will be White Widow in dirt or hydro.
Blueberry will be Blueberry in dirt or hydro.

Get it? It doesn't matter. Potentcy is in genetics. Taste is in genetics and nutrients.

Of course hydro has many advantages over dirt. Bigger, faster, healthier-looking overall, and of course the biggie: higher yield, sometimes double. It's also easier to take out the chemical taste when growing in hydro.

Dirt also has its advantages.

I guess that's why we have people doing both.