Yea, I’m running multiple different styles in different tents, KNF being one of them so the more the merrier, but I’ll keep that in mind for my synthetic supplemented girls. I can definitely see running synthetics & microbes can get super costly cuz I would imagine having to re inoculate way more frequently due to the fact that synthetics would be constantly battling your microherd in the rhizosphere, killing them off, & throwing everything out of balance which may be why you didn’t have much luck. But with a living soil you want as much circle of life killing as possible so the extra would definitely be welcomed & ultimately even the ‘useless ones’ would ultimately become useful.
To be blunt, I will sit back until I see some guy smashing 2.0gpw with a true organic/synthetic system. A one were they can prove the plants are not just being hard carried by the synthetics, while flushing a majority of the microbes down the drain. But it also has to offer more quality, why go through all the extra effort if not, people already hit those numbers in synth, reliably. Unless it's for some kind of pleasure reasoning?, that's fair play. I was not doing it right, the problem was I could not find out why, without requiring years of trial and error. The below is why, might save somebody some time and money, or help figure it out (just don't forget to tell me how ;p).
I tried to find the minimum amount of each element needed for MJ and at it's various growth stages. Also the synthetic ppm levels that make the roots stop signalling associated microbes, the functions and interplay of aminos and god knows what ever else aside. I don't know this stuff, but it should be known, if we are spending big money and a lot of extra labour on it. That's why I looked into it, the products are not cheap and the extra work/time involved with cheap options need to actually pay off in yield, or else you could get extra work in a job that does, or spend more time watching netflix.
At the time it became obvious not a great deal was known about specific elemental values for mj, and the functions of microbes/roots, at-least with MJ. All I recall is that 90ppm N, 30 ppm P and 60ppm K was stated as minimum amounts for basic mj plant function, roughly. At the upper end, 140-60 N (late veg), 90 P (mid flower) 130-70K (late flower). I could not find anything in terms of all the other macro and micro nutrients.
In terms of microbes, most of the studies related to P for MJ, bit of a coincidence given nutrient companies obsession with P boosters. At 60ppm P, roots begin to prioritise the synthetic feed, and stop sending as many signals for microbes. At 80ppm P or so, they exclusively stop sending signals to any P related microbes, it's something like that anyway. Microbes already in symbiosis, I don't know what happens to those, do they just starve due to roots not feeding them?, if the roots keep feeding them, why, they are not doing anything, why should I feed the plant to feed free loading microbes?.
All that I could really go off was the P values covered in studies, so I could only assume you need to supply no more than 1/3 of the plants maximum amount of NPK etc as synthetics, but also knowing what phases to do that during. So basically no more than 30ppm P, or else you may begin to shut off root signalling. Now with that, you have to know the exact amount of P required over the whole life cycle of the plant. If you provide say 50ppm P from mid veg to early flower, that will build in the soil/coco and at some point shut off microbes, or not? you can't exactly check, but in theory that's what should happen. Apply that build up threshold to all the other nutrients. Carry over too much synthetic N from early veg to early flower, where is it going to go?. If it sits unused it's a waste of money, but if the roots start using it, what use are the associated microbes now, another waste of money.
To avoid that massive unknown, you'd need to have a solid handle on all the elements minimum amounts through each phase to not over do the synthetic side through build ups, along with any symbiosis issues relating to the microbes. That's clearly a ridicules task when you think about it. So the easy option is to water to run off in order to clear any build ups. Doing that comes with the obvious downside, you will wash synthetics, microbes and organic compounds out of the medium, complete waste of time and money. If you don't use run off and the synthetic levels build, then the roots shut off signalling, according to the limited studies I could find on it. If that happens you are again wasting microbe products, time and money.
PH by what I could read was also a nightmare to understand, even if you feed the bare minimum and keep to the minimum in each phase, ph can increase or reduce uptake of synthetics. Uptake reduction of certain elements will lead to synthetic build ups of that element. Reducing ph to be more in-line with the synthetic uptake values will then begin to battle against the preferred soil, root or microbe ph. For example, if you are feeding too heavy on synthetic N, and the microbes over produce ammonia, that will go unused and can lower the ph of the soil, if I am not mistaken. Things like that will go on though, they may create a balance, or you get unlucky.
In all I realised how ridiculously complicated it is. I get it, many grow for the art of it, or for various things like that. My numbers and so fourth may not be correct above, but the complexity of it really is, just making that aware to people, learn from my mistakes so to speak. If people prefer consistent high yield, it's going to be a shit ton of trial and error mixing synthetics/organics, because trying to understand all of the above is a PHD. You will likely have to try certain products at certain rates until something just clicks, it may click in 2 runs, it may never click, somewhat luck based, and you will not truly know where the problem was.
Again this stuff may be out dated, correct me on anything, it has been a few year now since I last looked. For now, I just see light synthetics as a potential early veg boost in a 100% organic grow, while microbes colonise. Applying it after that, especially in higher ppm rates, it may start killing off microbes, and since the plants would still be getting fed and happy, how would you know?.
That was a massive wall, sorry.