PeeJay's Neophyte Breeding Adventure

PeeJay;2577254 said:

SweetSue;2576956 said:

I got this PeeJay

Here you go CC. He was kind enough to share it with us on the soil discussions thread.

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/building-better-soil-demonstrations-discussions-organic-soil-recipes-4.245223/post-2485236


Edit if you read back through this journal (the one we're in now) he mentions eliminating the middle mix, so now he's only using seedling and finish. Might want to clear that up.

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The last two summers I've found myself moving up into big pots of flower soil weeks before the plants were ready to flower. This year it was a good six weeks early. I haven't noticed any problems. When I mixed PJ v2.01 my friend needed 60 gallons of flowering soil for three 20 gallon outdoor plants and I knew that the breeding plants would need to go straight into flowering soil. I decided to drop the guanos from the mix and replace them with crab meal. The mix is basically the same. The flower and veg soils only differed in that there was soft rock phosphate in the flower soil only. Flower soil had a small amount of high phosphorous sea bird guano and veg had a little high nitrogen bat guano. This crop of plants is all in the original mix except for the breeders who are in v2.01.

There are some other minor changes to v2.01. Excellerite, the panca clay I was using as a mineralising agent is no longer available retail and I didn't want to pay shipping on a 50 pound bag. It was replaced with Cascade Minerals basalt dust and glacial rock dust.

As a base this time I used 1 compressed 3.5 cubic foot bale of Sunshine #4 and one compressed bale of Klasmann-Deilmann K-1 plus perlite. The Klasmann is a European white peat that is milled to exacting specifications so that it's fiber sizes are uniform and there is very little "peat flour" or dust in it. Peat is great because it does not degrade too fast but it does degrade. A uniform peat composition allegedly maintains an ideal porosity to hold water when wet and air as the medium dries out. Small fibers and dust fill the pockets and limit water retention and air flow. I have to say I was impressed with the product. It is silky smooth and feels amazing. The jury is out on if it is worth the extra expense since it costs about 4x as much as standard peat moss and half again as much as Sunshine #4 or Pro-Mix costs.

I also added a little oyster shell flour this time. Ha ha. I guess there are quite a few differences after all.

1 5.0 cu ft bale Klasmann Deilmann K-1 with 15 % perlite by volume
1 3.5 cu ft bale of Sunshine #4 (yellow label)

The compressed bales break down into roughly double the volume so there was ~ 17 cubic feet of base material.

3.0 cu ft Fox Farms Ocean Forest
3.0 cu ft Chunky Perlite
2.5 cu ft Roots premium worm castings
5.0 Gallons Yum-Yum Mix
2.0 qts Crab Meal
4 # Cascade Minerals Basalt
2.5 # Glacial Rock Powder
2.5 # Soft Rock Phosphate
1.0 # Oyster Shell Four
2 cups granulated mixed mycos

While mixing the dirt we used a sprayer to moisten it and the water in the sprayer had 2 tsp/gallon of 2-3-1 cold processed fish emulsion, 1/2 tsp a gallon of Sea Com PGR 0-5-5 cold water kelp extract and 2 tsp/ gallon of liquid mixed mycos. We used 10 gallons water total.

This produced about a yard of dirt (27 cu/ft) There are 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot so there was ~200 gallons of dirt. The total cost was ~ $215.00. It costs me about ten bucks for a 10 gallon container.

The current big plants are in the original mix and have been in the ten gallon pots since the second week in June. They get a weekly treat. Week 1 topdress with a mixture of 1 part castings, 1 part Yum-Yum, 1 part flower soil.
Week 2 drench with 2-3-1 fishy ferts @ 2 tsp a gallon. The 10 gallon pots usually take around 2.5 gallons of drench each.
Week 3 foliar feeding with the Sea Com PGR 0-5-5

Repeat.

I'm only feeding treats because the plants are quite large and have been in the soil for a long time now ~ 8 weeks. For more modest sized indoor plants in 10 gallon containers the treats might be overkill.

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