growing with just water. good idea? First grow

[noobGrow]

im growing a dank strain with just water... is that a good idea? i started on 2/28 today is 3/08. and its been on 24 hours of light, my light is a 13watt CFL..im just wondering am i waisting my time trying to grow this or can i do it?
Thanks..toke on. :stoned::smokebong:

noobGrow Reviewed by noobGrow on 03-09-2012. growing with just water. good idea? First grow im growing a dank strain with just water... is that a good idea? i started on 2/28 today is 3/08. and its been on 24 hours of light, my light is a 13watt CFL..im just wondering am i waisting my time trying to grow this or can i do it? Thanks..toke on. :stoned::smokebong: Rating: 5

[Minnesnowta]

Well of course you can do it... if you wanna made a few modifications to your setup. First off the question about nutes doesn't even matter unless you get more lighting. If you're just doing one small plant then even like 3 of the 23w (100W equiv.) 2700k cfls would work to get you something worth your effort. Without adding more lighting I doubt you will even get the plant to flower for very long before it just stalls and dies, and even if it does survive you're not going to have much for bud, and it will be very loose and strange. Obviously it'd be much better to get even a really small HPS light but a few of those cfls at a minimum.

As for the nutes.. you don't always need nutes during veg if you have a quality soil mix. Typically there is enough organic matter and nutrient content to carry the plant strongly through vegging, but once you get into flowering intensely the plant requires much more of specific nutrients and there is no way to achieve those levels without adding nutrients to your medium/water. However, just yesterday I believe, I saw a thread posted here in "Basic Growing" about a plant that I'm pretty sure was in its 3rd week of flowering with no nutrients at all and it looked great, so I would think that with better lighting you could at least grow something worth your time without nutrients considering how little you plan to spend on the growth process. However, it also was only 3 weeks into flowering, and while it looked nice, I will be very curious to see the final results because the 2nd half or so of the flowering phase is when they really demand the added boosts in phosphorus and require little to no nitrogen added. Perhaps someone around here has grown a full cycle without any nutes and they can give you a better idea what will happen.

So simply put... first of all, add more lighting or you might as well just chop her down. Then think about the nutes, and believe me, the amount you spend on nutrient solutions is definitely worth it. In fact I'd say that it is so worth the money that it legally shouldn't make sense to debate that question as long as both sides of the debate are educated on the reasons for using/not using nutrients. Good luck man, spend a little more and you'll have a big smile on your face during your first harvest, instead of not having a harvest at all.. and perhaps even looking something like this..

[theforthdrive]

Im gonna have to agree... but slightly off skew. If you really now what you are doing and can make a perfect soil mix, think of that old man living in the hills, you never need to add nutes. If you are new, however, adding fertilizers will allow you to cheat a little and get more out of your set up that you normally get with just water. Just grabing one single bottle of some good compost tea will even help...and still keep it clean and organic! Adding some light is also a good idea! Good luck!

[Minnesnowta]

If by old man in the hills you're talking about a guy growing outdoors in a remote location or something... then I'd have to say the reason for success with no nutes is the natural soil there. If you're planting straight into the ground there are no limits for the roots to grow and continue to move into fresher soil with unused nutrients, not to mention water washing good stuff from other soil into the soil used by the plant. I'd be really surprised to see an indoor container grow without any added nutes and is still successful. If you transplant regularly enough perhaps you could do it, but I would think that would include at least one transplant during flowering, which I just don't do. Not sure if it would be a real bad thing to transplant during flowering stages but any minor stress that I can eliminate during that time is a good idea to me. Also reduces stress on me to not have to transplant a big budded female a few weeks into flowering.

But like I said earlier, I do believe an excellent soil mix would provide enough nutrients for the plant to survive the flowering stage and you would get some bud out of it, I just think that the increase in quality/quantity from nutrients farrr farrrrrr out-weighs any negative aspects of nutes, such as cost, figuring out the right mixture, or just more work to add nutrients than it is to just water the plants. So I just don't understand why anyone would want to grow without nutrients. Also if its really about the money then it'll be difficult to aquire that great of a soil mixture anyways, however there are several "home remedy" type solutions to add nutrients to your soil. Banana peels, used coffee grounds...... piss if you really wanna go that way for nitrogen (not recommended for consumable plants lol).

Anyways thats just my thoughts, if anyone has or knows of a grow log where someone grows successfully with just water I'd love to see it. I think that'd be a pretty interesting grow experiment, so if there are no current logs, then I would ask that if you are going to grow without nutrients... log it here so we can all see how it works out. What if we were all spending all this money on nutrients for no reason?.. haha doubt it.

[Asuka23]

Are we talking hydroponics or just planting in soil and giving it water?

[noobGrow]

its doing really good. looks nice and healthy.. gonna add some molasses in there tonight. and transplant it in like 3 or 4 days.. thank you everybody, ill keep the updates coming

[Minnesnowta]

Has to be soil not hydroponics. Hydroponics with just water and no added nutrients just simply will not work, and you'll know that nearly immediately so the only time you waste would be the initial startup. With soil it'll survive just fine for a long time, perhaps even the whole way through if the proper procedures are followed. Its just a matter of what the end result will be.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but I suppose this is a very important piece of info to know. Plants need light to break down any and all nutrients they uptake in order to actually use them for positive growth. It is important to find a balance in the amount of nutrients you provide the plant and the amount of light it receives. So when using a less than average light source, your plant will use less than average amounts of nutrients, so it will take longer for the plant to thoroughly use up the organic and nutrient content of the soil itself thus allowing for further delayed addition of nutrient solutions to your soil, and additions in smaller quantities.

[Minnesnowta]

So ultimately you could figure there is another balance to find which involves the amount of time it takes for a full plant cycle, with and without added nutrients. Then compare the cost of the nutrients used, vs. the cost of the electricity bill and other resources associated with a lengthier growth period and reduced finished product quantity and quality.

Hopefully I'm saying what I meant to say in a way that makes sense to people other than just me lol. Its tough to explain...

I guess my main question would have to be... Why wouldn't you want to add at least some basic organic nutrients? As well as some additional lighting? Within the first growth cycle any up front costs you were trying to avoid would easily be covered or well with it with a smaller setup size like you're thinking.

[theforthdrive]

Why wouldn't you want to add at least some basic organic nutrients?

That was kinda my point of at least adding a good compost tea... At least make sure you have some basics covered! Good thoughts man!

[noobGrow]

its looking very healthy! wish i could put some pics up..