Ocean forest flush Test

From what I've read on the forums some people like myself believe OF runs a little too hot for beans. Today, I had some free time to try something:

1: flush the soil with 8x(for good measure) the volume of my container with ph stable water
2: bake said small amount of soil in oven to remove excess water... Why?

I know what you're saying about all the beneficial bacteria which is in of, and baking the soil will most likely kill all of it, So I mixed in about 10%~ fresh OF, to re establish anything and put in a small amount of nutes...just for the sake of good measure. Then I sifted the soil to get fine particulate soil separated from the bark and chunks, I placed a majority of the chunks to the bottom of the planter and Then mixed some fine/chunk in the middle, followed by all sifted at the top.

Ratio would be

20% rough large chunk at bottom
50% chunk mixed with sift
30% fine soil at top

Its an experiment to see if flushing the soil will create a lighter soil that encourages growth, not burn. Post drainage = pH of 6.5, so we will see if it works or is a flop. If it does indeed work I'll write it up with pics

Thanks for reading, opinions and ideas welcome, be mindful that this is test, I'm all for happy frog as a starter.

Hmmm...haven't had it burn my plants...not if you water right...I have accidentally starved them by not watering enough...I think there is no sense in doing anything you did...I mean I guess it was a good upper body work out, but probably just won't have too much of a good effect.

I suppose the last time I tried it maybe I didn't water it right, what do you do?

errrrr.... maybe try another potting soil if your needs arent being met with that one.

why the fuck would u buy the most expensive potting mix, and then rearrange the aggregates? youre messing with the tilth and structure of something that works for millions.

anyways, sorry u burnt ur shit. was it really the FFOF? i have had over 20 strains in it with no burn.

dry a cup os that soil all the way out abd put it in a mason jar with water and a drop of dish soap. shake 5 minutes. let settle. come back in 10 minutes and mark the first separation line on the jar. after 2 more hours, mark the 2nd. after 2 more days of rest, mark off that third one. you now effectively can calculate the amount of sand, silt, and clay. use the triangle, and you have a good description for the soil structure.

lots of clay (which u will not find) might cause burn because clay holds a negative charge. cations (NUTRIENTS) get between the clay to hold it with a "+" charge. burn baby burn. only, FFOF isnt clay, so what did u do?

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Bonkleesha said:

errrrr.... maybe try another potting soil if your needs arent being met with that one.

why the fuck would u buy the most expensive potting mix, and then rearrange the aggregates? youre messing with the tilth and structure of something that works for millions.

anyways, sorry u burnt ur shit. was it really the FFOF? i have had over 20 strains in it with no burn.

dry a cup os that soil all the way out abd put it in a mason jar with water and a drop of dish soap. shake 5 minutes. let settle. come back in 10 minutes and mark the first separation line on the jar. after 2 more hours, mark the 2nd. after 2 more days of rest, mark off that third one. you now effectively can calculate the amount of sand, silt, and clay. use the triangle, and you have a good description for the soil structure.

lots of clay (which u will not find) might cause burn because clay holds a negative charge. cations (NUTRIENTS) get between the clay to hold it with a "+" charge. burn baby burn. only, FFOF isnt clay, so what did u do?

Click to expand...

Lol good response. I'll have to try that since there's an abundance of clay in my area, sounds educational. Anyways, it's not like I did this with the whole bag of soil... I just Used about a solo cups worth of soil, and the whole process took about a half hour-45 mins. How else do you learn things other than by trial and error?

You may not agree with what I did, and I could be 100% wrong, sounds like you know your science. For me It's a learning curve. As far as my last OF attempt, moistened the soil, it wasn't drenched at all. Two days later, have a shriveled yellow sprout. Bad bean, watering, soil? No clue. I'm ruling out my growing environment because there's no temp spikes, always at a solid 75@24/0 Lighting is not an issue, close but not close enough to burn it. 250cfm in a 4x4x6 area. 125w cfl starter. 600w hps in two weeks. If things grew with my old set up the new one should work awesome.

The soil and nutrient aspect is a bit hard to grasp at first, coming from someone with little to no biology or earth science background(physics and anything with electricity is a different story) I'm at the point where I'm trying to find what works for me. From hours of reading various forums I get the impression that there are a TON of different soils, methods and recipes. For example, the MG versus FF debate. I've read that both work wonders(although MG usually has a bad rep w/ the auto feed) so, what works for one may not work for another. Like I said, it's a learning curve. Most of the time learning comes at the cost of making mistakes. We've all been there when learning new skills. My question for you is, what is your definition of proper watering, because I will go give it a shot. [/FONT]

proper watering? well, you want your plants to be at "field capacity" shortly after watering (macropores drained from gravity, micropores still saturated). i actually let mine tell me when i need to water, for the most part. the slightest sag... if you leave it unwatered it would wilt in a day or so. hard to get a grasp without letting em go wilty, but i just feel the media in several of my containers when im out in the grow room.

nothing wrong with trial and error, dude. thats how we ALL learn.

btw: i wouldnt try ur clay thing till u read which nutes have + and - charges. also, dont take outside clay inside. at least i wouldnt. youre bringing in an unsterile media into ur sterile grow room. eek.

FFOF is a media and not a soil in the sense that its a sterile mix that is manmade, contains NO soil... only organic matter and aggregate.

as for ur bean, damping off can be the cause of a few things....