Do you really need cannabis soil?

[stonerfromthesouth]

do you really need cannabis specific soil to grow weed? it's way more expensive than ANY other soil. seems like bullshit marketing to me. why would i pay double or tiple, when literally any other plant specific soil costs way less? (for vegetables, for flowers, for succulent plants etc etc etc.

what's the best soil that isn't specific for weed and doesn't cost double compared to other soil? spending more than 11 euro for 50L of soil is madness to me. no matter how good it is. my granparents grow all kinds of shit, and have never had problems. all kind of vegetables, and they are using soil from the fields... and every year they just throw a bunch of cow and pig shit in there, mix it up with the tractor, and the soil is as good as new.

is cannabis really so damn needy? or is it all marketing? cannabis grows in india afganistan etc, and their soil doesn't exacly strike me as being super fertile or special....

will soil for vegetables, that has a good ammount of nutrients ( also considering i'll add nutrients myself as the grow goes on) will it do?
and what's the difference between cannabis specific soil and just the other stuff? will i really get WAY higher yields as some people claim?

i've had so many people telling me that i need specific soil, i'm on my second grow. my first grow was a purple queen outdoors. i used some soil my dad gave me, he just mixed a bunch of soils, (store soil for vegetables, soil for grass, and some soil from the garden (high in clay)

at the end of the grow, i had a 180cm high plant, with FAT buds, a strong base,big Leaves, and it was looking very healthy, exepct when i up-potted it in some soil for grass. it was showing a bit of magnesium deficency, so i just started feeding it from the bottle....


i'm NOT blaming anyone for using expensive soil, it's just that not everyone has 2k to spend on cannabis supplys, and saving up here and there is necessary... i know for some of you US guys, 30 euros for soil is not a big deal, considering life in the US is cheap, and y'all earn a lot per month, but here in my country we earn around 1k euro/month and life is very expensive...

so for example: grow tent 60-80EUR. i build my own for 20
branded grow light:150 eur. i get one from not a very well know brand, but with good reviews: 100 eur
soil: 30eur= i get one for 8 eur

you guys get the hang of it, save 10 euro here and there, and you have an extra 150 euro at the end of the month...

i'm just making this post because i've had many people telling me that i'm wrong for not buying expensive lights or soil. and telling me my girls are not gonna grow well. when that's not true.

 

[Old Salt]

to the forum...

You are the grower, and need to make the decisions. Cannabis is a heavy feeder, and special consideration is needed for the soil. I chose to stay away from soil and use coco/perlite. So, I can't really help you other than pointing you at someone who can.

There are many articles here on how to make your own soils for growing cannabis. Emilya builds her own soils. You may want to check out her current journal. Her paper "The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant" will also be of use to you.

 

[nivek]

soil can be a simple or as difficult as one likes.

a simple soil recipe, equal parts of each,, potting soil (no nutrients added), peat moss, perlite, vermiculite.

cost a bit initially but goes a long way and can be reused

 

[Vulx]

Cannabis will grow in whatever medium you like, but it doesn't produce high-quality smokeable flower unless you take the time to understand each medium and how it works with the plant. I've seen commercial growers that have AAA flower produced from plants grown in everything to coco/perlite to supersoil to rock wool. What does that tell you?

Edit: Also, welcome to the forum!

 

[Nunyabiz]

If you're going to feed it with bottled nutrients then I wouldn't bother with soil at all.
Be better off just filling a 7 gallon fabric pot with Coco coir mixed with 30% of pumice and precharged biochar, wet it down really good with Yucca extract mixed in water.
Then water daily with 1/4 strength nutrients.

 

[stonerfromthesouth]

If you're going to feed it with bottled nutrients then I wouldn't bother with soil at all.
Be better off just filling a 7 gallon fabric pot with Coco coir mixed with 30% of pumice and precharged biochar, wet it down really good with Yucca extract mixed in water.
Then water daily with 1/4 strength nutrients.

well, i'd rather keep the fertilizer as a supplement, not something the plant has to relay on.. i'd rather it gets most of the goodies from the soil, and i just give it some help with the fertilizer. the soil i made is pretty fertile. i mixed 20% soil for succulent plants (i had it for aloe vera, really good drainage) 20% perlite 20% clay rich soil 40% good soil for vegetables rich with nutrients, and i've also added a tiny bit of organic slow-release nutrients. hopefully this will go well

 

[Nunyabiz]

In that case you could make your own Clackamas Coots soil recipe.

Make Your Own Soil

Learn to make your own high quality reusable soil. Recipe and mixing instructions included!

growerslove.com

Coots Soil Mix | Organic Soil & Compost | Growing Organic

This Coots soil mix is not our own, but it is what we have found to work best for most plants. All credit for this recipe goes to Clackamas Coot.

growingorganic.com

 

[labexperiment]

No.

 

[Emilya Green]

do you really need cannabis specific soil to grow weed? it's way more expensive than ANY other soil. seems like bullshit marketing to me. why would i pay double or tiple, when literally any other plant specific soil costs way less? (for vegetables, for flowers, for succulent plants etc etc etc.

what's the best soil that isn't specific for weed and doesn't cost double compared to other soil? spending more than 11 euro for 50L of soil is madness to me. no matter how good it is. my granparents grow all kinds of shit, and have never had problems. all kind of vegetables, and they are using soil from the fields... and every year they just throw a bunch of cow and pig shit in there, mix it up with the tractor, and the soil is as good as new.

is cannabis really so damn needy? or is it all marketing? cannabis grows in india afganistan etc, and their soil doesn't exacly strike me as being super fertile or special....

will soil for vegetables, that has a good ammount of nutrients ( also considering i'll add nutrients myself as the grow goes on) will it do?
and what's the difference between cannabis specific soil and just the other stuff? will i really get WAY higher yields as some people claim?

i've had so many people telling me that i need specific soil, i'm on my second grow. my first grow was a purple queen outdoors. i used some soil my dad gave me, he just mixed a bunch of soils, (store soil for vegetables, soil for grass, and some soil from the garden (high in clay)

at the end of the grow, i had a 180cm high plant, with FAT buds, a strong base,big Leaves, and it was looking very healthy, exepct when i up-potted it in some soil for grass. it was showing a bit of magnesium deficency, so i just started feeding it from the bottle....


i'm NOT blaming anyone for using expensive soil, it's just that not everyone has 2k to spend on cannabis supplys, and saving up here and there is necessary... i know for some of you US guys, 30 euros for soil is not a big deal, considering life in the US is cheap, and y'all earn a lot per month, but here in my country we earn around 1k euro/month and life is very expensive...

so for example: grow tent 60-80EUR. i build my own for 20
branded grow light:150 eur. i get one from not a very well know brand, but with good reviews: 100 eur
soil: 30eur= i get one for 8 eur

you guys get the hang of it, save 10 euro here and there, and you have an extra 150 euro at the end of the month...

i'm just making this post because i've had many people telling me that i'm wrong for not buying expensive lights or soil. and telling me my girls are not gonna grow well. when that's not true.

Hi @stonerfromthesouth and welcome to the forum!

You have asked a great question and one deserving of a great answer, so let me try to help. You can get many different types of soil, from a cheap commercial fertilized soil like Miracle Grow, to dirt out of your back yard. You might think that a soil is a soil is a soil and to a point that is true. Most soils will serve you well while the plant is in the vegetative stage, or while it is rapidly growing and with a good organic soil or one enhanced with extra nutrients, you can easily get your plants all the way up to bloom without needing anything extra. The bloom period is when most soils fall down and are unable to supply nutrients in the amounts that these weeds need in order to produce huge potent flowers. This is when growers with a typical soil need to start adding additional nutrients, usually from a bottle, and without this additional nutrition, these hungry plants just wont be able to thrive. Marijuana plants are exceedingly needy, only because of the massive sticky buds that can be produced and a regular unenhanced soil can not come close to supplying what they need.
Then consider the expensive supersoils that you are writing about here. These expensive mineralized soils are worth their weight in gold, because used properly, they CAN supply everything the flowering plants need... from start to finish. You pay extra to have all of the needed minerals pre-built into that soil, and then composted over time so that those minerals are in a form that can easily be broken down by the microlife in the soil and made available to the plants. A highly mineralized supersoil, even just filling the bottom third of your container, with just plain old soil in the upper 2/3, can be enough to completely supply the needs of your plants, requiring you to only have to add water... no additional nutrients needed.
Any flowering plant has extra needs over a non flowering plant and a fruit producing plant has even greater needs yet. As a gardner of fruit producing weeds, you need to supply those needs one way or the other... either by feeding from a bottle or preloading the soil with the minerals that will be needed. Then, there is another thing that you are not considering, that makes this supersoil model superior to any other method when it comes to overall cost of operation.... you can reuse a quality soil over and over again. I built my supersoil about 7 years ago, and have been using it about 3x a year ever since. I spent about $100 USD to originally build this soil and have added back some of the original leftovers of material a little bit at a time over the years so as to keep this soil minerally rich. I wager a guess that I have gotten well my money's worth out of this soil... oh, and I haven't bought a commercial nutrient since. This is why people buy the expensive soils... not only do they work well, but in the end, they save you a whole lot of money.