Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread

greasemonkeymann said:
what do you re-amend with when you dump and till?
Anything you added that you normally wouldn't?
I think you may be onto something with your aeration theory.
I have so freakin much aeration in my mix, probably close to 50%. Rotten wood, perlite, pumice, biochar, volcanic rock, small strips of coco (actually work pretty well on keeping the soil from compacting if you use them vertically)
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Nothing unusual. Kelp, neem, alfalfa, crabshell all at 1/2 the amount initially used. Some fresh soil, a lil spm, and some aeration all added in equal parts.

I really think this is an aeration issue. I'm forced to use rice hulls as I can't find pumice or smaller lava rock to save my life, and I refuse to have it shipped. I think the hulls degrade a bit and don't serve their purpose so well over time. When I dump and re-amend I'm getting fresh hulls and fresh soil throughout the container so that fluffs it up a bit, which I obviously can't do with no-till.
 
st0wandgrow said:
Nothing unusual. Kelp, neem, alfalfa, crabshell all at 1/2 the amount initially used. Some fresh soil, a lil spm, and some aeration all added in equal parts.

I really think this is an aeration issue. I'm forced to use rice hulls as I can't find pumice or smaller lava rock to save my life, and I refuse to have it shipped. I think the hulls degrade a bit and don't serve their purpose so well over time. When I dump and re-amend I'm getting fresh hulls and fresh soil throughout the container so that fluffs it up a bit, which I obviously can't do with no-till.
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ahhh, I bet you are right on, I used vermiculite for yrs back in the day, and I saw a little compaction on those even, so I imagine rice hulls would be even worse.
What I would do is maybe see if you can find some natural landscaping lava-rock (homedepot, orchard supply, etc) and then smash those little bastards up.
Just make sure they didn't treat the rocks with something.
I stumbled on a pretty effective way to keep aeration pretty uniform, I had a bunch of the coco-hair, the kind they use to line planters with, and I cut it into like 6 inch strips, 6 inches by one inchs, and I put them in the soil vertically and kinda "spiraled" it away from the center, and that smartpot seems to do better than the others, as far as watering and such, and the soil seems to readily take water better, could be all in my head...
the past four or five grows I have really been noticing that different types and amounts of aeration really seem to effect my results, and so far, more is better... Provided the aeration you use holds and retains both water and oxygen.
I am always tinkering with different variables though.
Almost every run I am trying something new.
I recently have been toying with the idea of saving my beard shavngs and hair for amendments to my soil..
Human hair is a super super slow release of high nitrogen, if I remember correctly it's almost the same as feather meal, minus the arsenic...
 
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Midwest Weedist said:
I think planter size may be one factor to your loss of yield. If you're on Instagram go check out MountainOrganics feed (It's Coot from Icmag, I think) he runs 200 gallon beds.
It's a very incomplete theory as I'm still educating myself on the sciences of soils and plants. But essentially it's because we (I saw we become I and a lot of others) try to squeeze too much out of too little of soil, which is why I feel dumping acts / ssts is so necessary for a high rate of success in the no-till style of cannabis cultivation where small planters are used. Aside from feeling that our soil beds need to be much, much larger than most styles use (3 - 15 gallons) I feel that our soil also needs a "resting" period, similar to a winter month.

Do you use acts? Maybe if you can keep your micro heard at its capacity at all times you could avoid the loss in yield?


Another question I have that I've debated in my head for a while now is and maybe this is a bit philosophical, but what's more important to you, the amount of flower a plant yields or the capacity of its affect?
Obviously you don't want too little that it's not worth the cost of growing but at the same time what good does a massive amount of bud do for you if you could get the same potency from bud that has 25% less plant matter? Obviously weight doesn't directly equate to potency or potential affects, but I feel there is a strong correlation in the fight to have a high yield and the often lacking affects I find in plants grown to achieve said high yield. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be chasing the numbers. But hey, I don't really know that much anyways, so what do I know lol.
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Some good thoughts Midwest. I can't disagree much on that. For me yield means only one thing: Keeping my patients supplied. I try to stay within the boundaries of our state laws, so I am growing fewer plants than I otherwise would like to. So those plants have to produce a certain amount, on a certain schedule to keep everyone happy. As it stands I've got it down pretty good, but I don't want to risk running short and having to tell a cancer patient that I don't have enough meds for her this month.

As for the correlation between yield and potency, I think there could be something to that. Almost without exception, the plants that have the best effect and the best terpine profile are the light yielding variety's. Very rarely do I find a big producer that is top shelf quality. Bodhi's Dream Lotus would be the one exception that I currently have in the garden.
 
greasemonkeymann said:
What I would do is maybe see if you can find some natural landscaping lava-rock (homedepot, orchard supply, etc) and then smash those little bastards up.
Just make sure they didn't treat the rocks with something.
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I've tried that. Remember my post a few pages back about running my car back and forth over a bag of lava rock in my driveway? :eyesmoke:

You dropped the tip about using your 45lb plates to crush them instead..... which sounds better than my redneck approach.
 
st0wandgrow said:
Nothing unusual. Kelp, neem, alfalfa, crabshell all at 1/2 the amount initially used. Some fresh soil, a lil spm, and some aeration all added in equal parts.

I really think this is an aeration issue. I'm forced to use rice hulls as I can't find pumice or smaller lava rock to save my life, and I refuse to have it shipped. I think the hulls degrade a bit and don't serve their purpose so well over time. When I dump and re-amend I'm getting fresh hulls and fresh soil throughout the container so that fluffs it up a bit, which I obviously can't do with no-till.
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That's what it sounds like, aeration issue. Trying upping your rice hulls by double maybe even triple? Doubt it will cause problems
 
Midwest Weedist said:
I think planter size may be one factor to your loss of yield. If you're on Instagram go check out MountainOrganics feed (It's Coot from Icmag, I think) he runs 200 gallon beds.
It's a very incomplete theory as I'm still educating myself on the sciences of soils and plants. But essentially it's because we (I saw we become I and a lot of others) try to squeeze too much out of too little of soil, which is why I feel dumping acts / ssts is so necessary for a high rate of success in the no-till style of cannabis cultivation where small planters are used. Aside from feeling that our soil beds need to be much, much larger than most styles use (3 - 15 gallons) I feel that our soil also needs a "resting" period, similar to a winter month.

Do you use acts? Maybe if you can keep your micro heard at its capacity at all times you could avoid the loss in yield?


Another question I have that I've debated in my head for a while now is and maybe this is a bit philosophical, but what's more important to you, the amount of flower a plant yields or the capacity of its affect?
Obviously you don't want too little that it's not worth the cost of growing but at the same time what good does a massive amount of bud do for you if you could get the same potency from bud that has 25% less plant matter? Obviously weight doesn't directly equate to potency or potential affects, but I feel there is a strong correlation in the fight to have a high yield and the often lacking affects I find in plants grown to achieve said high yield. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be chasing the numbers. But hey, I don't really know that much anyways, so what do I know lol.
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I have been thinking about that as well, pondering on whether a couple months with some cover legumes in the soil may help it, or truly a "rest" time where nothing in the soil is alive minus the microbes. No plants.
You make some good points though. No doubt
 
st0wandgrow said:
Some good thoughts Midwest. I can't disagree much on that. For me yield means only one thing: Keeping my patients supplied. I try to stay within the boundaries of our state laws, so I am growing fewer plants than I otherwise would like to. So those plants have to produce a certain amount, on a certain schedule to keep everyone happy. As it stands I've got it down pretty good, but I don't want to risk running short and having to tell a cancer patient that I don't have enough meds for her this month.

As for the correlation between yield and potency, I think there could be something to that. Almost without exception, the plants that have the best effect and the best terpine profile are the light yielding variety's. Very rarely do I find a big producer that is top shelf quality. Bodhi's Dream Lotus would be the one exception that I currently have in the garden.
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damn, so true.. why is it that the special plants always give you so little?
That's why I have grown the bluedream and the jack herer for so long, both yield pretty damn well, and their smoke is fantastic.
Maybe add the gorilla glue #4 to that list too, that lil lady got me an ounce and a half on a plant barely a foot tall, I flowered it a week after getting the clone. Can't wait to see what it'll do when veged correctly.
 
From what I can see, the soil mites, earthworms, etc do an excellent job of aerating my soil. I also have quite a bit of pumice and rice hulls. In future mixes, I would like to experiment with 50% peat since the worms turn so much of the media into castings so quickly. I find the outside environment/seasons also effect my indoor grows. ie, I always have better crops in the spring and fall while I tend to see a lower yield in the dead of winter or heat of summer.

Stow, I'm curious what rounds of notill you are seeing a decrease? Is it the very next round, or a couple of cycles down the road? I don't think no-tilling is as easy as some claim it to be. I know my first attempt wasn't the land of milk and honey I thought it would be.

Peace,

P-
 
st0wandgrow said:
Some good thoughts Midwest. I can't disagree much on that. For me yield means only one thing: Keeping my patients supplied. I try to stay within the boundaries of our state laws, so I am growing fewer plants than I otherwise would like to. So those plants have to produce a certain amount, on a certain schedule to keep everyone happy. As it stands I've got it down pretty good, but I don't want to risk running short and having to tell a cancer patient that I don't have enough meds for her this month.

As for the correlation between yield and potency, I think there could be something to that. Almost without exception, the plants that have the best effect and the best terpine profile are the light yielding variety's. Very rarely do I find a big producer that is top shelf quality. Bodhi's Dream Lotus would be the one exception that I currently have in the garden.
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That's the unfortunate issue that I see a lot of people running into; the state. I really see no way around it except to do as you are or break the law.

I'm lucky in that all of my plants are for my own consumption, so as long as I meet my needs I'm fine with low yields. But I definitely agree that the lower yielders have a higher capacity for affects and a "better" terpene profile.


greasemonkeymann said:
I have been thinking about that as well, pondering on whether a couple months with some cover legumes in the soil may help it, or truly a "rest" time where nothing in the soil is alive minus the microbes. No plants.
You make some good points though. No doubt
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Maybe a restive cycle that's more fungal dominant? At least a small amount of time to let the soil recuperate from such a heavy feeding plant.
 
Midwest Weedist said:
Aside from feeling that our soil beds need to be much, much larger than most styles use (3 - 15 gallons) I feel that our soil also needs a "resting" period, similar to a winter month.
Click to expand...

i see you beat me to the punch about container size. i actually put one of my 15+ gal. container outside for winter. some of the clover sprung back to life after watering. soil bug life came back too.
 
Pattahabi said:
From what I can see, the soil mites, earthworms, etc do an excellent job of aerating my soil. I also have quite a bit of pumice and rice hulls. In future mixes, I would like to experiment with 50% peat since the worms turn so much of the media into castings so quickly. I find the outside environment/seasons also effect my indoor grows. ie, I always have better crops in the spring and fall while I tend to see a lower yield in the dead of winter or heat of summer.

Stow, I'm curious what rounds of notill you are seeing a decrease? Is it the very next round, or a couple of cycles down the road? I don't think no-tilling is as easy as some claim it to be. I know my first attempt wasn't the land of milk and honey I thought it would be.

Peace,

P-
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I was at round 3, so second no-till with the same soil..... which happened to fall right in the dead of winter. Could it be that?

Interesting that you mention that, because it crossed my mind the other night as well. I was trying to remember if my yields dropped off last winter, but I smoke too much weed and don't write that shit down.
 
st0wandgrow said:
I was at round 3, so second no-till with the same soil..... which happened to fall right in the dead of winter. Could it be that?

Interesting that you mention that, because it crossed my mind the other night as well. I was trying to remember if my yields dropped off last winter, but I smoke too much weed and don't write that shit down.
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I often talk about how the outside effects inside grows. I've noticed it for years in all different styles of growing. Didn't matter if the room stayed at exactly the same temps and humidity levels, season seems to have an effect imo. I have also stepped up my teas adding more frequent, but low doses of alfalfa, kelp, neem, etc. More waterings than not I'll throw a pinch or two of kelp or whatnot and let it bubble for 24 hours. I also like to pull back the mulch and do a top dressing about week 2-3 of flower. I also add aeration to my top dressing.

My first not till did terrible. I let the soil sit way too long, didn't keep it moist enough, didn't plant a cover crop, didn't add near enough top dressing or teas. They faded quickly to say the least.

Don't know if any of this will help. Just a stoned ramble on a few things that helped my grows. ;)

Peace!

P-
 
greasemonkeymann said:
well shit, it is made from gypsum, so I guess that is a good way to get it.. if you can't find it..
I'd be worried about any flame-retardent chems or whatever they use to bind it with..
I'll be damned though...good idea.
I think?
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there is a study from csu that has drywall waste being chopped an ammened in fields shown lacking....
they say its just ppaper and gypsum no binders just h2o.... please correct me if this is wrong...
 
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