I need a hand here if you guys could?

[Guy Cavallero]

FWIW, No-one really grows in "soil" unless they are growing outside in the earth.



Watering should be thorough (a lot) each time with at least a little run-off. The moving air from a fan helps the plant to take this water up from the roots into the leaves and it comes out of the leaves through tiny holes as water vapour.

If the water vapour that comes out is blown away quickly, more water vapour comes out and that process draws water upwards from the roots and should dry out the peat within days.

If you don't move the air, the water vapour does not get blown away and it condenses to water on the holes, blocking them up. Then the leaves cannot expel enough water and they cannot draw as much water from the roots, so the peat stays wet for longer and the roots suffocate due to stagnant water/lack of oxygen.

Be generous with your water, but stingy with your time. Plants like to get really wet roots and then to be left alone.

Don't spray your leaves unless you can control your environment & sticking your finger into the peat is not accurate.

I try to "tip" the pot gently with one finger, if it is too heavy to tip, there is enough water in the peat.

If I can tip the pot a little, the peat is too light & needs water.

So Richard, the peat is a viable substrate for growing? It doesn't have a weird PH value or anything like that? How would you treat the peat as far as nutrients would be concerned; like coco or promix? It's not a "soil", so nothing is there to somewhat buffer, making it less user friendly I would assume? Sorry, you don't come across this very often, so it's interesting to me.

 

[Richard Richardson]

Peat is a great substrate for growing, but it should be treated the same as coir. Promix is peat and perlite. Coco is a peat alternative. They are not completely inert, peat is just partially decomposed moss, but each have their particular qualities that makes them suitable for quasi-hydroponic growing methods. I prefer to mix peat with pure compost or use a high quality compost & peat based potting mix. The only plant that grows naturally in pure peat is more peat.

Soil is the living part of the earth where plants naturally grow. The only reason it "buffers" anything is because of all the different bits and layers that make it up. The humus layer is similar in composition to properly made compost, mixed with clay, sand, stones, etc, populated by a myriad of bugs, molds and bacteria that all work together in a cycle of decomposition and regeneration & is where most of the important stuff happens. If you dig up some earth from the garden soil, you remove it from the soil and it becomes dirt. When people talk about soil anywhere but in the ground, they usually mean a compost based potting mix, which buffers mostly due to the compost. Peat, sand and coco coir are traditionally used as "soil amendments", to give soil in the garden more air pockets. Compost is also added to garden soil to improve its biological activity.

My water is around 6.8 pH from the tap, so I don't adjust pH at all. Using compost as well as peat means that I don't have to add any veg nutrients to the water, unless they show a deficiency, then I add some fishmix and epsom salts (for magnesium). I add a little seaweed extract to the water all through veg and then add bat guano and palm ash to my potting mix when I pot up for flowering time.

 

[Autoflower420]

The fuckers at "ROLLITUP" keep saying it's overwatered over and over. But I realised it was underwatered as I added water mix with nutes.Air movement, I'm using a small fan, a desktop sized one from those towers, I'm using 1 of em. Soil type is perlite peatmoss mix, I'm using a powerfeed npk mix. Usually 5grams/bucket every 6-8 months (I'm adding in as I go and I'm doing around .9 grams a month to ensure a smooth flow. Sometimes I mix it in a water which I then PH test to be around, 5-6ph. I use 200ml-450ml of water every 3-4days (starting from yesterday). And for the fan, which one do you guys suggest? I'll try and buy one

Half a litre isn't much what size pots r u in

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Peat is a great substrate for growing, but it should be treated the same as coir. Promix is peat and perlite. Coco is a peat alternative. They are not completely inert, peat is just partially decomposed moss, but each have their particular qualities that makes them suitable for quasi-hydroponic growing methods. I prefer to mix peat with pure compost or use a high quality compost & peat based potting mix. The only plant that grows naturally in pure peat is more peat.

Soil is the living part of the earth where plants naturally grow. The only reason it "buffers" anything is because of all the different bits and layers that make it up. The humus layer is similar in composition to properly made compost, mixed with clay, sand, stones, etc, populated by a myriad of bugs, molds and bacteria that all work together in a cycle of decomposition and regeneration & is where most of the important stuff happens. If you dig up some earth from the garden soil, you remove it from the soil and it becomes dirt. When people talk about soil anywhere but in the ground, they usually mean a compost based potting mix, which buffers mostly due to the compost. Peat, sand and coco coir are traditionally used as "soil amendments", to give soil in the garden more air pockets. Compost is also added to garden soil to improve its biological activity.

My water is around 6.8 pH from the tap, so I don't adjust pH at all. Using compost as well as peat means that I don't have to add any veg nutrients to the water, unless they show a deficiency, then I add some fishmix and epsom salts (for magnesium). I add a little seaweed extract to the water all through veg and then add bat guano and palm ash to my potting mix when I pot up for flowering time.

Great explanation Richard, that gives me a lot of insight as well as some ideas for the future. Thank you very much!

 

[Billy2thumbs]

I'm doing a aurora indica as we speak. Looks about the same size as yours