Anaerobic bacteria effect on soil

[oldfogey420]

I have had a worm bin for upwards of 5 years now. It's a large outdoor garbage can that is filled about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way and kept indoors. Three times now, the bin has gone anaerobic and I have been able to correct that by adding dry coir and constantly turning the soil with a shovel, allowing it dry out more.

At the start of a new season, i dump all my soil containers from the previous grow into one giant plastic tub, mix in dr earth, mycorrhiza and add a rather hefty amount of soil from my worm bin. Each consecutive grow has been a little worse than the one prior. I am wondering if the soil from the worm bin could be the culprit being that it has gone anaerobic a few times. It's not anaerobic when i am using it, I think... but the dead (and maybe some still alive for all i know) anaerobic bacteria is still there, plus the toxins or whatever(I have nfc)bad stuff they potentially produced when they were alive. I honestly thought it didn't matter to the plants if their food was broken down by aerobic or anaerobic bacteria, but in several threads I've read today, folks mentioned toxins released by anaerobic bacteria.

I am at the point where I need to flip lights to flower schedule for size reasons but my girls look like shit! Not sure what I can do at this point to save the grow. Any insight is appreciated.

 

[Turpman]

Interesting I’m not a big organic user. I have worm bins and they do get anaerobic in the bottom. I do flip them every so often. Just dump from one bin to an empty one.
pulling up a stump to learn.

 

[oldfogey420]

Obviously, there are other factors, many, many other factors or a combination thereof.. that could be contributing to my problems. Before going all organic, i tried all different kinds of bottled and powdered nutes - FF, botanicaire, gh bottled nutes, gh dry nutes, etc. Never had problems like I do now. I am still using that same soil from those chem fert grows. Soil has to be like 6 or 7 years old, mostly coco, but also ffof mixed in and lots of perlite. I switched to organic because it's supposed to be easier and less time consuming. It has been anything but, tbh. I also like the idea of recycling soil instead of constantly buying, using for a grow or two or three and then dumping it. I read that with 100% organic grows, the soil gets better with each grow, as not everything is broken down at once. I've used build a soil, natures living soil, and have now been using Dr Earth for a good while because it's inexpensive and easy to find. I do not ph my tap water as it has been suggested that the soil and microbes will do that work for me. I do let it sit to gas off the chlorine. I have been adding calmag the past few waterings because all plants at the very least seem to be exhibiting signs of magnesium deficiency, but it's not doing the trick. And some plants are exhibiting much worse than just a simple magnesium def.

Back to the worm bin - who knows if maybe I'm putting too much of a good thing in there.. the worms love bananas, and they get a steady diet of them, along with all of our vegetable and fruit scraps. All the leaves from every grow eventually get worked into the bin, along with the chopped up stems and stalks and root balls. (Having a worm bin is quite convenient to get rid of the excess plant material that would otherwise be burned to get rid of)

 

[Fallguy111]

Personally I run my root balls through the worm bin.

 

[GenericEnigma]

Obviously, there are other factors, many, many other factors or a combination thereof.. that could be contributing to my problems. Before going all organic, i tried all different kinds of bottled and powdered nutes - FF, botanicaire, gh bottled nutes, gh dry nutes, etc. Never had problems like I do now. I am still using that same soil from those chem fert grows. Soil has to be like 6 or 7 years old, mostly coco, but also ffof mixed in and lots of perlite. I switched to organic because it's supposed to be easier and less time consuming. It has been anything but, tbh. I also like the idea of recycling soil instead of constantly buying, using for a grow or two or three and then dumping it. I read that with 100% organic grows, the soil gets better with each grow, as not everything is broken down at once. I've used build a soil, natures living soil, and have now been using Dr Earth for a good while because it's inexpensive and easy to find. I do not ph my tap water as it has been suggested that the soil and microbes will do that work for me. I do let it sit to gas off the chlorine. I have been adding calmag the past few waterings because all plants at the very least seem to be exhibiting signs of magnesium deficiency, but it's not doing the trick. And some plants are exhibiting much worse than just a simple magnesium def.

Back to the worm bin - who knows if maybe I'm putting too much of a good thing in there.. the worms love bananas, and they get a steady diet of them, along with all of our vegetable and fruit scraps. All the leaves from every grow eventually get worked into the bin, along with the chopped up stems and stalks and root balls. (Having a worm bin is quite convenient to get rid of the excess plant material that would otherwise be burned to get rid of)

Sounds like you have an open mind as to what the problem might be. A few items jump out at me.

Before I say much, I'd like to see the plants. Got pictures? Whole plant and close-ups of problem areas would be good. Also, tell us more about your tap water (source, quality, contents). In the majority of cases, tap water is fine for organic growing. However, this is not always the case.

 

[weedstoner420]

Can we get some more info about your grow? What size containers, how much Dr Earth are you adding, do you add any fertilizers throughout the cycle or just in the beginning, etc?

Can you also post pics of your current grow along with those details? That will really help folks get a better idea of what's going on.

Personally I have two thoughts: the anaerobic microbes in your worm bin shouldn't be of too much concern. I think they tend to thrive in low-oxygen environments, and quickly die off or get out-competed by aerobic microbes once there is an abundance of oxygen in the environment.

Worm castings (what you're pulling from your worm bin) can make the soil really heavy and not drain well if you use too much. You might want to add some perlite and/or peat to help balance out the soil texture if you're adding a bunch of worm castings when you recycle it.

 

[SBNDB]

You need more amendments to the soil , some fresh peat,coco, perlite etc. the fertilizer, myco and the worm castings just isn’t enough i’d say. You need shit like lime, bone meal, langbeinite etc etc etc. And maybe what you’re working with is just too old and used like me lol. Sometimes it’s easier to start from scratch than try and keep beating a dead horse

 

[oldfogey420]

Some more info and images:

My setup:
4x4
Mars FC-6500e at about 65% right now and 15 inches above the canopy.
5 in 7gal containers and 1 in a 5 gal container
I water when they feel like they need it via a heft test.

Tap water here generally runs 7.5-8pH. 250ppm from the faucet. Tried to find my city's water report online earlier today with no luck.

I do add more Dr Earth 3 times typically. First time around a week before flip with 4-6-3 and then add bloom 3-9-4 three weeks later and bloom again another three weeks later. I can't remember how much I use in the initial batch, but I have it written down somewhere. I ammend with 1/4cup for 5 gal of soil and 3/8 cup for 7 gal.

Drainage is good, there's lots of perlite in the mix.

Pics attached. The three in the back are Humbolt CSI - GSC x Indiana Bubblegum. They seem to be doing the best, of the six, but they are neither happy nor healthy. The front left is bagseed from supposed Platinum Cookies. The front middle is Blimburn Blue Dream. The front right is bagseed from supposed Trainwreck. I say supposed in both cases because I don't actually know if those bags of weed were legitimately what I was told they were. But the bud was great and I was happy to come across a seed in both cases. Could be selfs, or could be a crosses. I don't mind rolling the dice! I was really hoping for a male for pollen, but i guess I'll have to settle for all females. Oh darn...

 

[GenericEnigma]

I suspect a buildup of calcium locking out multiple nutrients (potassium, phosphorous, zinc, manganese). Between the Dr. Earth calcium content and possibly the tap water solutes building up in the recycled soil, this is a real possibility. I recommend checking out this thread and seeing what you think:

Calcium Carbonate & CaCO3

This has been a study of mine for some weeks, and I'm finding there's two camps to this subject.. the first camp says there's plenty of Calcium in tap water for the ladies to absorb, no need to add it in the soil amendment. The other camp says, no way, my tap water ppm is up the roof with...

www.rollitup.org

That light is very powerful as well. Under healthier conditions, its setup likely wouldn't cause issues. But, if my suspicion is correct, it could be exacerbating the issue.

It also looks like there might be a slight pH issue (too high). This makes sense in the larger picture since a calcium toxicity would keep the pH high and correlate with the lockouts of phosphorus, zinc, manganese.

Hopefully the linked thread will be useful to you. Let us know what you think!

 

[Kushash]

Some more info and images:

My setup:
4x4
Mars FC-6500e at about 65% right now and 15 inches above the canopy.
5 in 7gal containers and 1 in a 5 gal container
I water when they feel like they need it via a heft test.

Tap water here generally runs 7.5-8pH. 250ppm from the faucet. Tried to find my city's water report online earlier today with no luck.

I do add more Dr Earth 3 times typically. First time around a week before flip with 4-6-3 and then add bloom 3-9-4 three weeks later and bloom again another three weeks later. I can't remember how much I use in the initial batch, but I have it written down somewhere. I ammend with 1/4cup for 5 gal of soil and 3/8 cup for 7 gal.

Drainage is good, there's lots of perlite in the mix.

Pics attached. The three in the back are Humbolt CSI - GSC x Indiana Bubblegum. They seem to be doing the best, of the six, but they are neither happy nor healthy. The front left is bagseed from supposed Platinum Cookies. The front middle is Blimburn Blue Dream. The front right is bagseed from supposed Trainwreck. I say supposed in both cases because I don't actually know if those bags of weed were legitimately what I was told they were. But the bud was great and I was happy to come across a seed in both cases. Could be selfs, or could be a crosses. I don't mind rolling the dice! I was really hoping for a male for pollen, but i guess I'll have to settle for all females. Oh darn...

View attachment 5358629View attachment 5358630View attachment 5358631View attachment 5358632

I only skimmed the thread.
A couple of things that stand out unless you are doing it or it was mentioned.
Each time a soil is amended a small amount of dolomite lime, or some other PH buffer should be added.
A grower reamending soil many times should understand how to test soil PH. Each grow without lime or another buffer added will result in a lower soil PH making the soil to acidic. Second, after many grows a soil needs to be leached/flushed if there is a buildup from not watering to runoff. The way to tell when this is the case is the runoff from a pot of soil will have an orange/brown color and the PPMs of the runoff will be extremely high. Let's say a good runoff for me will be in the 1600 to 2300 ppm range using a meter with the 500 scale and the color will be clear or slightly yellow. When the color of runoff starts getting a darker color and the ppms start testing over 3500 it's time to leach the soil of the buildup.
If starting with a fresh soil this buildup will usually be noticeable after the second or 3rd use.

 

[oldfogey420]

I suspect a buildup of calcium locking out multiple nutrients (potassium, phosphorous, zinc, manganese). Between the Dr. Earth calcium content and possibly the tap water solutes building up in the recycled soil, this is a real possibility. I recommend checking out this thread and seeing what you think:

Calcium Carbonate & CaCO3

This has been a study of mine for some weeks, and I'm finding there's two camps to this subject.. the first camp says there's plenty of Calcium in tap water for the ladies to absorb, no need to add it in the soil amendment. The other camp says, no way, my tap water ppm is up the roof with...

www.rollitup.org

That light is very powerful as well. Under healthier conditions, its setup likely wouldn't cause issues. But, if my suspicion is correct, it could be exacerbating the issue.

It also looks like there might be a slight pH issue (too high). This makes sense in the larger picture since a calcium toxicity would keep the pH high and correlate with the lockouts of phosphorus, zinc, manganese.

Hopefully the linked thread will be useful to you. Let us know what you think!

Thank you for that link! There are a lot of similarities I see to what they are discussing there. You just might be on to something. I'm going to do the tests that Kratos suggested in that thread and see where that leads me.

 

[oldfogey420]

I only skimmed the thread.
A couple of things that stand out unless you are doing it or it was mentioned.
Each time a soil is amended a small amount of dolomite lime, or some other PH buffer should be added.
A grower reamending soil many times should understand how to test soil PH. Each grow without lime or another buffer added will result in a lower soil PH making the soil to acidic. Second, after many grows a soil needs to be leached/flushed if there is a buildup from not watering to runoff. The way to tell when this is the case is the runoff from a pot of soil will have an orange/brown color and the PPMs of the runoff will be extremely high. Let's say a good runoff for me will be in the 1600 to 2300 ppm range using a meter with the 500 scale and the color will be clear or slightly yellow. When the color of runoff starts getting a darker color and the ppms start testing over 3500 it's time to leach the soil of the buildup.
If starting with a fresh soil this buildup will usually be noticeable after the second or 3rd use.

I do have dolomite around here somewhere. Can I add some to the top or just make sure to add some when I make a new batch of soil?

I'm wary to add it though, due to what I read in the link that Generic Enigma provided. That thread says CaCO3 buildup may be causing the pH to be too high, and you say the age of the soil and lack of a buffer may be doing the exact opposite, making the pH too low. Both seem feasible, so it looks like i have some work to do tonight. I will do the tests suggested in the linked thread as well as perform a slurry test to check my soil pH as you suggest. Why would I be testing runoff in an organic grow? Isn't that more for those who use salt ferts?

 

[Hollatchaboy]

Your worm bin needs more o2

 

[cannabiscrusader]

You can do a light topdress, but definitely add lime to your mix. Your ph is swinging all over, cut the cal/mag, and back your lights off another 6". Your lights being so close is exasperating the problem.

 

[Hollatchaboy]

You can do a light topdress, but definitely add lime to your mix. Your ph is swinging all over, cut the cal/mag, and back your lights off another 6". Your lights being so close is exasperating the problem.

Agreed. Back the light off some.

 

[oldfogey420]

Your worm bin needs more o2

I've got that under control now. If i turn it every so often and give it some days here and there with the lid off it's fine. It's been a long while since it's gone funky and the worm population is booming.

 

[oldfogey420]

I'll go ahead and raise the light up a bit more since multiple folks are suggesting it. So if I'm at 15" from the canopy now, what should i raise it to? 18, 20, 24? I don't want to dim any more because I need the heat.

 

[Kushash]

I do have dolomite around here somewhere. Can I add some to the top or just make sure to add some when I make a new batch of soil?

I'm wary to add it though, due to what I read in the link that Generic Enigma provided. That thread says CaCO3 buildup may be causing the pH to be too high, and you say the age of the soil and lack of a buffer may be doing the exact opposite, making the pH too low. Both seem feasible, so it looks like i have some work to do tonight. I will do the tests suggested in the linked thread as well as perform a slurry test to check my soil pH as you suggest. Why would I be testing runoff in an organic grow? Isn't that more for those who use salt ferts?

Dolomite is best if mixed in a soil when amending but in situations where a grow is in progress and soil ph needs to be raised it can be used as a top dressing. Buy a gallon of distilled water at a pharmacy to do the slurry tests.

Why would I be testing runoff in an organic grow? Isn't that more for those who use salt ferts?

I understand where you are coming from there. It is often said testing runoff is useless but that is not true in some situations.
For a new grower who is adding all kinds of stuff then looking for help and they say this is what my runoff is. In that situation it is true the info they gather about runoff is probably useless.
When you run the same soil for more than 5 years/15 grows as I have, and you know what is going on, the information is very useful. The least you should do is test the runoff color and ppms if you have been using the same soil for several grows to see if there is a buildup that does occur in soil over several grows especially if not watering to runoff. House plants are the same, after a year or two they need to be leached/flushed to be kept healthy. There are some edu articles about testing runoff and also testing the ppms of a slurry test that can be useful.

 

[MissinThe90’sStrains]

If your worm bin is now fixed, maybe consider making a good worm casting or compost tea for them. It should help balance your good microbes in your soil. The microbes are arguably the most important thing in an organic grow - helping to regulate the ph and helping to make the nutrients in the soil available.

 

[cannabiscrusader]

Go 24, then bring them down to 20 an inch a day. That should give them some relief to recover. Watering in a light topdress of dolomite should clear up your ph issues. Drop the cal/mag. Dr earth already has calcium and magnesium in it. It contains fish bone meal, kelp meal, kelp flour and fish meal that not only provide Nitrogen(N), Phosphorus(P) & Potassium (K) but are rich in Secondary Nutrients such as Calcium (Ca) Magnesium (Mg) & Sulphur (S). Adding the dolomite will add extra calcium. dolomite has calcium, calcium carbonate, magnesium, and magnesium carbonate. Keeping up with the cal/mag will eventually lock out magnesium, leading to new problems.