Medium Amendments

[Drivejunky95]

Been reading into partially organic growing in coco using amendments.

Came across vermiblend, used at 10% in coco.

It has:
Mycorrhizae
Kelp
Worm Castings

Also going to try feeding the cultivated microbes with tea (synthetic) from GH - FloraBlend.

Have read a little on using stuff like rock dust, gypsum, Epsom salt, bat guano, Great White, etc as well.

Do you recommend / not recommend any of the above, or other amendments not mentioned?

Have got a feeling based on the form of nutrients, and the process in which they are made available to the plant, may have some desirable effects.

(Like the difference between taking a multivitamin and eating fresh fruits and veggies.)

Much appreciated!

 

[Blew Hiller]

I had to read this twice and still not sure what you want to do....

Have you considered just growing in soil? With the above list you are more than halfway there....

 

[Barney86]

Yeah buddy, the thing with coco is it's a hydro method. That means you gotta water it lots and often to get the best results. Because of this, adding stuff to the coco opens you up to a he'll of a lot of possible complications. Any that occur would be hard to diagnose and hard to fix. A main selling point for coco, apart from the yields, is that if anything goes wrong you can just flush it and start again. Can't do that if you've got stuff in with it. I've seen people do organic coco, I know it can be done but its not something id ever advise. Way too many possible headaches.

 

[Drivejunky95]

Going out on a limb in approaching this, coco and peat grew really large plants in this study.

Comparison of Coconut Coir, Rockwool, and Peat Cultivations for Tomato Production: Nutrient Balance, Plant Growth and Fruit Quality

Rockwool (RC) and peat are two common substrates used worldwide in horticultural crop production. In recent years environmental and ecological concerns raised the demand for reducing the use of RC and peat. Although coconut coir (CC) has been increasingly ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

That study compares coco, peat and rockwool and the coco did the best, followed very closely by peat.

Coco has really good Air Filled Porosity - AFP. Lots of oxygen. Peat doesnt, very little.

But thing is, peat has living micro biology, and was just as large as the coco (slightly smaller in some regards). Which got me thinking maybe the symbiosis between beneficial bacteria like mycorrhizae that forms with the plant could boost nutrient uptake even further in coco.

The medium I'm thinking I'll try will be 90% coco and 10% VermiBlend, and another plant will have 90% coco and another super soil I found called Biochar Blend, that has a lot more "food" amendments to feed the microbes -

"Compost and Worm Castings add beneficial biology. Alfalfa Meal and Kelp Meal add valuable nutrients. Bone Char adds necessary Phosphorous and Calcium. Zeolite and Azomite are unique minerals that nourish microbes and plant roots."

I bought alfalfa meal separately cause reading says it's got natural triacontanol which helps trich development, and I bought Great White to introduce like 19 different funguses/bacterias to each potting mix - if they dont have them already.

Cause the mixtures are 90% coco, I think I can still use synthetic fertilizers like before, have plenty of oxygen, and possibly get some added benefits from the fungus and bacteria like seen from the peat in the study.

 

[Drivejunky95]

Looking into building a water to waste system that has air stones that turn on right before watering to temporarily boost the oxygen levels too. It shouldn't affect ph too badly because the rapidly diluting oxygen will dissipate from the reservoir.

Have you guys tried putting H202 into the mix?

People say it does boost oxygen with one more O, but can kill the good bacterias in the medium.......

 

[Hdinkleman]

i topdress my coco/peat mix and have had good results.
ive had a couple leaf problems but i have been battling them before i amended anything so dont think it had any adverse effects.
i topdress with langenbite 0-0-22, ff all purpose fert 5-5-5, ff bat guano 0-5-0

i was looking to add a organic pk 13/14, the langenbite and guano combo was what i decided on.

i also use a mix of bio char, oyster shell, insect frass, greensand, azomite, gypsum, humic acid, rock phosphate, neem seed, fish meal, crab meal, shrinp meal and kelp meal lol

 

[Hdinkleman]

Looking into building a water to waste system that has air stones that turn on right before watering to temporarily boost the oxygen levels too. It shouldn't affect ph too badly because the rapidly diluting oxygen will dissipate from the reservoir.

Have you guys tried putting H202 into the mix?

People say it does boost oxygen with one more O, but can kill the good bacterias in the medium.......

do not use h2o2 in an organic grow if you are doing organic soil, it will kill all your microherd

 

[Drivejunky95]

i topdress my coco/peat mix and have had good results.
ive had a couple leaf problems but i have been battling them before i amended anything so dont think it had any adverse effects.
i topdress with langenbite 0-0-22, ff all purpose fert 5-5-5, ff bat guano 0-5-0

i was looking to add a organic pk 13/14, the langenbite and guano combo was what i decided on.

i also use a mix of bio char, oyster shell, insect frass, greensand, azomite, gypsum, humic acid, rock phosphate, neem seed, fish meal, crab meal, shrinp meal and kelp meal lol

Hooooly moly there are more amendments out there than I thought!

So you like topdress instead of mixing them into your medium? Does that create a slower feed for the microbes and plant?

 

[Hdinkleman]

Hooooly moly there are more amendments out there than I thought!

So you like topdress instead of mixing them into your medium? Does that create a slower feed for the microbes and plant?

at the beginning i will amend whatever medium i am using, then i use the langenbite and guano to topdress at the start of flowering, and then i will topdress again at the end of week 3 half of what i used at the beginning.
i use the ff all purpose every 3 weeks or so up until week 1 of flower
all that other stuff i amend into the medium before transplanting, i have a plastic storage bin where i mix everything up and then water the bin with EM-1 and some organic pesticides and great white.( not all at the same time) i just pour some of my nute mix i have left over every couple weeks

so actually i do both, i amend and topdress

 

[Hdinkleman]

just re read your OP, i dont think you want to amend with epsom salts.
i also use great white myself.

i dont think coco is texhnically organic even if you use all organic nutes, i use 99% organic nutes in CANNA TERRA PRO PLUS, but my grow isnt true organic.
my white rhino though i believe is true organic and im using organic nutes on that as well.
i was going to use pk 13/14 on me gg4 but decided against it, it will fry all my microherd, thats why i topdress with the langenbite/guano instead

 

[Drivejunky95]

Ya, coco technically organic. Hardly any microbes in it afaik but it's supposedly a really good porous medium for them if you try cultivating them in it.

There's conflicting info from reading out there that say microbes should only get organic nutes, but another myth buster plant blog says they dont care since if you're feeding synthetic nutes it's all the same elements. It did mention though that concentrations, potency and sheer numbers like 20+ N P K (random example) can create toxicity for microbes and start killing them off. Idk, not enough experienced lol.

With topfeeding and amending I gather it slowly builds up an organic medium that slowly feeds the microbes/plant? Never done either, only synthetic liquid fertilizer so again no idea here lol.

But if the N P K is slowly building up that sounds like the microbes can deal better with toxicity.

 

[Drivejunky95]

Are there any amendments not worth ever skipping out on?

 

[Hdinkleman]

Are there any amendments not worth ever skipping out on?

thats a hard question, better to think what your plant needs rather than what it doesnt.
all the stuff i personally am adding is just different sources of NPK and minerals

really just need an all purpose like the fox farms all purpose, and then maybe something to help bloom, which would consist of the PK stuff.

 

[Drivejunky95]

thats a hard question, better to think what your plant needs rather than what it doesnt.
all the stuff i personally am adding is just different sources of NPK and minerals

really just need an all purpose like the fox farms all purpose, and then maybe something to help bloom, which would consist of the PK stuff.

Yea.... Seeing the more is better approach not as readily applying to biology, haha.

But then you see people growing those massive 600lb pumpkins at the fair.

What about massive 3lb buds?!


Haha, if only.

Plant growth regulators? Hormones?

 

[Drivejunky95]

Figure 1. Development and flowering of tomato 'Micro-Tom' submitted to...

Download scientific diagram | Development and flowering of tomato 'Micro-Tom' submitted to different treatments with plant growth regulators and compared to the control (desenvolvimento e florescimento de tomate 'Micro-Tom' submetidos a diferentes tratamentos com reguladores vegetais e...

www.researchgate.net

 

[Drivejunky95]

thats a hard question, better to think what your plant needs rather than what it doesnt.
all the stuff i personally am adding is just different sources of NPK and minerals

really just need an all purpose like the fox farms all purpose, and then maybe something to help bloom, which would consist of the PK stuff.

For microbe food only amendments I'm considering sea kelp, alfalfa, and azomite so far.

Im operating on the basis synthetic nutes may hinder rhizosphere health so focusing on microbe promoting amendments instead of NPK ones to try and offset the effects.

Are there other amendments/meals you know of that are good food or promote rhizosphere health for microbes?

 

[Hdinkleman]

think you may be overthinking it a bit, i think its probably all good.
if you want to feed the microbes, use black strap molasses in your waterings.
i am pretty sure the bio canna line has molasses, or something similar, in it already, part of the reason its meant to be used with soil/microbe containing mediums

i also use great white and em-1 to help the roots, if that gives you any ideas

 

[Drivejunky95]

Okay, I'll get some molasses for sure.

Teas are like microbe food yea? Or are those something entirely different?

 

[Hdinkleman]

Okay, I'll get some molasses for sure.

Teas are like microbe food yea? Or are those something entirely different?

i believe so but im not positive i dont use them. i dont have the space to bubble them without the whole place smelling like it.
molasses gives the microbes that are already there food to work and convert stuff into nutes for your plants, i dont know maybe the tea is actually making the microbe numbers increase so there are more of them.
hopefully someone else can chime in and clear this up

 

[Drivejunky95]

i believe so but im not positive i dont use them. i dont have the space to bubble them without the whole place smelling like it.
molasses gives the microbes that are already there food to work and convert stuff into nutes for your plants, i dont know maybe the tea is actually making the microbe numbers increase so there are more of them.
hopefully someone else can chime in and clear this up

No worries, bit of an off topic question!

Really appreciate all the info.