Can I switch from synthetics to organic

Hi everybody.

My question to you all is....... Can I change from synthetics to organics during the same grow. I have been vegging 2 plants in 50% coco 50% perlite for 3 months and now there in flower under 2 600w hps + 4 cfl for side lighting.

I really want to swap to organic ferts for the remainder of this grow before I go all organic + aact in my next grow.

Am I defeating the object going organic in flower after using chem ferts in veg or can this be a good thing.

Any info on this would be great

Cheers

Yep and vice versa.. you can use synthetics while going organic, depending on how poten of stuff you are putting in, most you need to do is re-innoculate..

RawBudzski said:

Yep and vice versa.. you can use synthetics while going organic, depending on how poten of stuff you are putting in, most you need to do is re-innoculate..

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True, but once a plants has used the synthetics it can never again be called 'organic' bud. I would stick, then next go organic and compare.

i would do both to be honest, mostly organics in the beginning, then some synthetics towards later flower to really let em swell. feed less and less as they get close to chop, flush if you fear they have salt buildup, but you can feed up to the last day with 1/4 suggested feeding of synthetics, organics can be fed up until the last day too.

crazyhazey said:

i would do both to be honest, mostly organics in the beginning, then some synthetics towards later flower to really let em swell. feed less and less as they get close to chop, flush if you fear they have salt buildup, but you can feed up to the last day with 1/4 suggested feeding of synthetics, organics can be fed up until the last day too.

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great minds think alike

yup no reason you cant change it up every week if you wanted to and knew what your were doing lol

or use Super Soil and never use chemical nutes again, only organic amendments in your soil

Actually I'm gonna go ahead and say no. Not if you're concerned at all with yield anyways. Not if you're already in flower with a mix of 50/50 coco perlite. You'd have to add a lot of worm castings or compost or potting soil or something...I mean sure, you can do it, but you'd have a terrible yield.

Growing organically is all about your soil (or soilless mix) and keeping your soil healthy. It would be a less radical shift to have started and ran with organics all of this time, and then jumped into synthetics during flower. But by giving the plant organic nutrients now, I don't think that the plant will be able to utilize them properly. I would probably be more beneficial to keep using your synthetic base nutrients, but give them some teas as well.

Either way, starting off completely organic on your next round is an excellent choice, you'll be happy to have joined the club. Start with a nice soil mix and have fun.

Because of your Medium, Witch Doctor is 100% correct. It would be such a pain to switch now to organics unless your willing to spend big $$ on 100% organic hydro nutrients that require cleaning your system often and a well scheduled auto feeding that you should just finish out this grow the way your going and then START organic in some nice soil with some teas on your next grow=D. Best of luck on this batch brother.

organics not yielding well is a myth, try adding some bat guano to your water, compost teas every 3 weeks is a good idea as well. use some chem ferts, they're readily available to the plant, organics are taken up slowly.

you can go with teas to water. trancplant in to organics. thats about it.

could also add it to the top soil and let it run down next water, or just shake it up in your water. check pH before doing so.

crazyhazey said:

organics not yielding well is a myth, try adding some bat guano to your water, compost teas every 3 weeks is a good idea as well. use some chem ferts, they're readily available to the plant, organics are taken up slowly.

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I didn't say he wouldn't yield well because of organics. I only said that he wouldn't yield well switching to organics from synthetics mid-flower in a 50/50 coco/perlite medium. My garden is pretty much certified organic, and I yield well without using guanos or any animal products for that matter. All of my organic nutrients are also readily available to the plant, and there is no need to use any synthetics when growing organically. It's self-defeating in my opinion.

+ WitchDoctor + said:

I didn't say he wouldn't yield well because of organics. I only said that he wouldn't yield well switching to organics from synthetics mid-flower in a 50/50 coco/perlite medium. My garden is pretty much certified organic, and I yield well without using guanos or any animal products for that matter. All of my organic nutrients are also readily available to the plant, and there is no need to use any synthetics when growing organically. It's self-defeating in my opinion.

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ah alright i read that wrong then. i guess switching might have somewhat of a negative effect, i think he could use something like old age organics and some bat guano then slowly stop feeding synthetics.

Yea, he'd just have to get the plant into some soil or at least get 20% worm castings in there or something. But yea, the guano could pick up where the synthetics leave off as long as he made the grow medium suitable for organics.

Cheers everybody for your advise on this yet again it's nice to see you all helping me out on this matter.

I will see this grow out in synthetics then next grow start with soil and teas.

Thanks again

Just to pick up on this thread... What I'm doing is vegging with synthetic nutes (because I have them) and then switching to organics. My method is basically to take plants from their Solo Cup seedling stage into about the 3 gallon stage and let them get as big as they can. From there, I'm going to flush out the synthetic residue and pot them into 5-7 gallon containers filled with organic compost. During that period, they'll be fed organic nutrients for roughly 3-4 weeks before I initiate flower. That way, the salts are completely gone and the plants system has all but completely acclimated to the organic process.

It would be nice to know how it turned out for any of you guys above.

DiscreteMeat said:

Just to pick up on this thread... What I'm doing is vegging with synthetic nutes (because I have them) and then switching to organics. My method is basically to take plants from their Solo Cup seedling stage into about the 3 gallon stage and let them get as big as they can. From there, I'm going to flush out the synthetic residue and pot them into 5-7 gallon containers filled with organic compost. During that period, they'll be fed organic nutrients for roughly 3-4 weeks before I initiate flower. That way, the salts are completely gone and the plants system has all but completely acclimated to the organic process.

It would be nice to know how it turned out for any of you guys above.

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I'm in the same boat.

I have to feed with some synth nutes while I'm waiting for my organic soil to finish, after that it will be organic all the way.

If I adequately flush the plants before I transplant them into the organic soil will I be ok or will the chems have a continuing negative effect on the rhizosphere?

I say stick to what ur doing with synthetics (assuning u have grow and bloom) and prepare for next grow using nothing but organics, yes u can mix the two but defeats the purpose. A synthetic grow is synthetic period
Hope u get into real organics soon ROLS all the way!!

KegBert said:

I'm in the same boat.

I have to feed with some synth nutes while I'm waiting for my organic soil to finish, after that it will be organic all the way.

If I adequately flush the plants before I transplant them into the organic soil will I be ok or will the chems have a continuing negative effect on the rhizosphere?

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I agree with foreverflyhi and disagree at the same time, KegBert. The ideal of using organics is twofold: One part reducing the external negative impacts on nature through using non-petroleum/nitrate based chemical nutrients, the latter reason being improving the quality and safety of cannabis plants for various sorts of healthy human consumption. So on the one hand, ethically, a person is not exactly in line with the organic community by employing a sort of hybrid synthetic-to-organic system. In addition, you will not be able to personally certify to yourself that your cannabis product is totally organic. Formalities aside, whoopty-doo.

Again, if you can start organically, just go ahead and start organically. I agree... But in our case, we have leftover synthetic nutes that we're not going to simply waste. So, yes. I'm going to veg. my plants using the synthetic nutrients that I have left. And while I would never be able to certify my product as organic, I can certainly certify to myself that my plants are organic enough for my own personal satisfaction. I mean, the alternative for us is to use what we have and go 100% synthetic (or to just simply throw away our synthetic nutes... Yeah, right). So how would it represent a service to myself and the greater organic community if I chose not to atleast try to grow halfway organic? It wouldn't.

As a matter of fact, I've amended the method I suggested from the other day, and you may want to consider it in your grows as well, KegBert. So, I'm going to take my plants from solo-to 1gal-to 3/5gal smart pots using synthetic nutrients. Then, as I eluded to before, I'm going to totally flush the salts out of the medium by running bathwater through them for 15 straight minutes or until the runoff is barely colored. From there and after the medium drys out for maybe 2 or 3 days, I will begin to feed the plants an organic tea until I'm sure they have acclimated to organic feeding - that may take 1 to 2 weeks I'm estimating. And finally, I'm going to transplant them into maybe 15 or 30 gallon pots. Those pots will be filled with healthy organic potting soil (amended with only perlite) in the upper transplant layer, and then a super compost in the lower layer of the container. From there, I'm going to allow them to veg. another month before flowering.

Using this method? I will be satisfied that my cannabis product is thoroughly organic. Again, for certification purposes, it would not be considered "organic". But in reality, the finished product will be all but 100% organic.