This was back in soil and growing underneath the stairs. I still use these lights in my veg tent, but after this grow I actually designed and built my own light to go along with these two. Worked well, was just a hassle to deal with.
This was back in soil and growing underneath the stairs. I still use these lights in my veg tent, but after this grow I actually designed and built my own light to go along with these two. Worked well, was just a hassle to deal with.
Why’d you switch away from soil?
Hydro and aeroponics perform better, I can also leave this for longer periods of time between waterings. The logistics of the soil was a pain, and I don’t have the space or time to do no-till or compost.
I did like the natural buffering that soil gave though, every way has its own benefits and rewards.
I always thought *ponics was way more labor intensive? Isn’t your like pH and stuff really important? I do a cup of amendments every like 6 weeks and top dress compost between cycles, and I don’t even bother checking the pH of my water. Hard to think that anything could take less time than that 😂
I’m on board with the rest of these things, but as labor intensity goes I think no-till would take the cake
Yes no till when setup right can be as simple as watering it with tap water from its natural buffering. When I stopped PHing my soil I actually had better results and wasn’t chasing issues.
But it’s getting there, I just don’t have the time with everything else. And than if something goes wrong you’re chasing issues, when with hydro/aero I just dump my reservoir and remix. Soil you are supposed to ph flush, and than do this and that yadda yadda.
I’m spending money to save time, I completely understand this, nutes ain’t cheap and no till is basically free once setup.
I guess for what it’s worth our tap water is mostly consistent in the winter and summer, so to PH most waterings is no different than another nutrient, just add 15ml everytime and than check if it’s within 5.8-6.8.
I should check it every morning (I was for months with no drift) so I stopped. If things start going sideways than lll check more diligently.
I’m personally a big proponent of no-till. It does require a bit of space, but you can also get away with a raised bed that’s the size of your tent (2x4?). If portability is important to you, then it becomes harder, since a raised bed isn’t at all portable, but you could also grow multiple plants in a really big pot.
Not being able to compost or keep earthworms around also sucks, but you can also buy top-dress amendments online (and you might also be able to find these locally at a nursery), similar to buying nutes online.
Also over the course of a couple years of the soil doing its work, and assuming it’s kept healthy, it can yield as much as hydro.
Can you explain the time factor, though? No-till generally requires less time and effort than growing with bottled nutes. If it’s due to watering, I’d consider an irrigation setup, like Bluemats.
It takes me 10 minutes to mix my nutrients and dump it in my aeroponics chamber.
Would be the 10 minutes to mix, 15 minutes to water, and than I still need to cleanup and deal with the runoff. Constantly buying soil and having to removing soil to the outside garden or compost makes room to make a mess.
And no, soil can never compete with hydro or aeroponics, yeah you can make up for it with a longer veg times or other methods. But aeroponics is designed to get as many nutrients into the plant as fast as possible, you always have it right on the edge of thirst. When properly setup you shouldn’t have runoff from aeroponics even, the last drop of water should be absorbed before dropping off the roots. Granted mines no where near there, but it’s the principle.
No-till ≠ soil + nutes. They are so radically different that comparing the two is apples vs oranges.
With no-till, you don’t want runoff at all, nor do you ever want to remove soil and add new soil. The soil gets better over time, especially when undisturbed. You aren’t adding salts to it like you do with bottled nutes, so there’s nothing to kill the soil over time. The fungal network that grows over time is especially helpful here.
No-till (if the soil is healthy) can absolutely match hydro for yields in the same amount of time. Healthy soil has fantastic bio-available nutrients at any given time that the plant can then choose to “eat” whenever it feels like it needs the food, unlike bottles nutes, which is closer to force feeding the plant using an IV (if still using human metaphors).
Adding bluemats to the mix, the plant basically just grows itself. Generally a good idea to topdress at the beginning of flower to prepare it and also after harvest, but you basically don’t need to feed it at all for the whole grow cycle. You basically just need to make sure that the bucket of water used for irrigation doesn’t go empty.
I’d highly recommend Build-A-Soil’s YouTube channel and website for some great info, and so you can see it in practice. (not sponsored). Full disclosure: they also sell stuff on their website. They do carry great quality products, but the same info applies regardless of where you get your shit, and even the owner suggests buying locally instead of through the website if you can.
I know the differences between the methods.
Do you have any resource that compares soil to hydro with similar results? Hydro and aeroponics can grow plants 5x as fast. You veg for a month, I veg for a week. It’s not just about the possible end result.
With hydro you typically get one more harvest a year, even if the yield of each is the same as soil. Hydro and aeroponics are on a whole different level than soil. I don’t know who’s sold you that farm, but it’s not even remotely true.
You veg for a week? That’s absolutely insane. How many nodes do you have before throwing into 12/12? What about plant height?
I’ve never seen anyone’s veg time just be one week.
October 23
October 31
I was being a little facetious since I’ve never seen anyone honestly think soil can compete to hydro, let alone aeroponics.
Till vs no-till and how no-till does better over time (both in-ground outdoors): https://lter.kbs.msu.edu/2020/05/no-till-agriculture-increases-crop-yields-environmental-gains-over-long-haul/
Difficult to find non-anecdotal evidence on a small scale, but here is some anecdotal evidence:
https://old.reddit.com/r/microgrowery/comments/x06aip/been_seeing_a_lot_of_posts_how_soil_cant_yield_as/
https://old.reddit.com/r/microgrowery/comments/8az94a/what_happens_to_yields_with_organic_no_till_vs/
Not to mention a (subjectively) better end product that (anecdotally) tastes better than the same genetics in hydro. There’s a reason why no-till product sells for more.
I don’t have experience with aeroponics, so I can’t comment on that, but I understand that it still uses bottled nutes, so a lot of the info should still apply.
You can’t compare no-till to any other soil-based growing method. They’re not at all the same.