racer3456
Well-Known Member
I know this is going to be a controversial thread, but I'm going to post it anyways. Everyone always tells new growers to experiment in soil before hydro because it is more forgiving and problems are easier to fix and so on. But I propose that it is in fact exactly the opposite of that. While hydro does in involve a little more equipment and a few easy memorizations (pH, ppm), it is much easier to fix a problem in hydroponics than it is in soil. All of these posts that I see where people have nutrient burn is almost always in soil. They have either used a crappy wal-mart fertilizer that releases all of its nutrients at once or they have used miracle-gro "every watering" or at least "every other watering" and now are wondering why it looks like its going to die. And how long does it take to flush a plant with soil? A long freakin time. How long with hydro? Maybe a couple days at the most. And pH problems in soil? Don't even get me started on that. How many new growers actually have a pH meter for soil? None. That's why they want to grow in soil, because they don't want to purchase the meter. They assume the pH is going to be right because it is soil. How hard is it to add nutrients once every two weeks (some do it it more frequently) and just top off with water in between? With soil, you have to keep watering it and you never quite know exactly when to fertilize it. Some may have good feeding schedules, but it'll never be exact and perfectly uniform like hydroponics. So, these are my reasons why I think most new growers, if they're serious about growing some nice personal stuff, should go with hydroponics. It's easier, less expensive in the long run, and problems are much easier to diagnose, and thus fix.