Hydro grower moving to outdoor soil and cannot get it right! Help&

[Qwobbler]

Hey Everyone,

 

Its been a bit of a bad luck run for a bit so time to turn that around and get something working for us!

 

SOIL....

 

Stuffs me what keeps going wrong, but either plats from seed or clones start having major deficiencies after about 3-4 weeks of veg.

 

Soil is a mix of Searles 5 i 1, Searles Premium garden soil, Perlite, Dolomite and Coco bricks. Feeding with either BioBizz nutes or just plain water from water tanks. The PH of the water is 5.8 and 0ppm. When watering with either nutes or plain water, runoff is at 6.8, so shouldnt be a PH in the soil prob.

 

Mainly it looks like a Magnesium deficiency but have fed with some epsoms in the soil and as a foliar.

 

Got me stuffed what is wrong.

 

What is a good, RELIABLE, soil mix we can buy, in AUSTRALIA and use for growing in pots outdoors without using too many nutes? (in pots are only option due to location) 

 

 

[Carnage]

hey i have strains look like magnesium deficency in soil sometimes (recently one was canary yellow all over) ,

i added 1gram of iron chelate to my 20L bucket of nutrient feed and the leaves almost completely turned dark green

again over 2-3 days.

 

also an organic brew tea in a 20L bucket, aerated until the top of the bucket is frothy before watering.

6+ to 48hrs of aeratition time for your bucket of organic tea before feeding can generally help out when

you have some soil-nutirent root uptake deficencies/problems.

 

 

let it all break down before you feed, let it stink. heh.

 

Carn

[Qwobbler]

cheers mate

 

here is a pick of one of the girls.... they all look the same as this. 3 weeks from rooted clone now...

 

[fred_hawk]

I always think less is more

[gippy]

Looks like a combo of calcium and phosphorus deficiencies to me.

[itchybromusic]

just my way of thinking 

searles is good i've used it myself with coco , 2 things , it's a soil conditioner not so much a potting mix but generally , from memory , 3 to 1 part 5 in 1 , 1/4 of the mix   

the other thing is , i think all bags are treated to kill off any bad guys but at the same time killing the good guys along the way 

 

sorry man can't remember but you need to add a little extra something when mixing coco in a soil mix , i'll try to find what that is , i think peat is a better choice , you can look at Kiwi Peat

if you can get it , less refined than the brunnings stuff , will be hydrophobic when you open the small bail & you can use a sprayer to wet down B4 mixing , i use aloe vera & water   

 

if you don't want to mess round , canna terra , it's designed for what we grow , high N , i'm using now , there's no life in it pretty much but you can add it , not my prefered mix but most likely best of the rest 

you could make a mix with terra castings compost & little more aeration 

 

the best thing you can have in your pot is life , compost or castings would be your best starting point , one or a mix of both as 1 part of the mix , peat or coco as the second part & aeration as the third , chunky perlite & 

rice hulls 50/50 , can get RH's online at brewers shops like grain & grape cheap , will take 3 odd years to break down & add silca as they do plus a nice little abode for bene's

 

from there it's amendments & can get a bit full on but agree with fred hawk , less is more ,  

to 30lts add 1/2 cup Neem Meal , Kelp Meal & freeze dried shrimp ( turtle food ) shrimp meal would be better but still stink , if you can get it 

& 1 full cup of Basalt -volcanic rock dust , gypsum & oyster shell flour -  calcium carbonate to PH the peat 

i also add a handful of bokashi grains & activated bio-char just for more bene's / diversity 

 

that's pretty much it for the mix but you continue with top dressing diff things like fermented fish bone meal in flower & lots more compost / castings 

 

But did you say your collected rain water was ph 5.8 , i would have thought rain would be closer to middle of the road ? checked ya spoutings lately 

you did say 0ppm so Hmmmmm ?

 

i can't think of anything else to tell you right now & the mix bowls empty 

happy to help with anything if i can , anytime , just do a bit more looking in to your water i reckon 

[Sir PsychoHashy]

I've used Searles Premium potting mix, mixed about 50/50 with quality coco, then add 30% perlite with great success, but, that's the premium potting mix, and I fed with a low EC (about 1.2) using coco specific nutrients.  Adding worm castings to this is even better.  I found this gave great growth and health whilst providing a buffer against rain events starving the plants.  But if you're looking to save money on nutes, or go organic, this is no good for you.

 

Low quality potting mix doesn't generally seem to agree overly well with canna, but the premium seems fine.  Adding coco does good things as well, but does present potential problems with food uptake if there's too much in the mix.  Itchy might be on to something with the need to add something to the mix to address that, but in the meantime maybe try feeding them at least every 2-3 drinks with coco nutrients and see if that helps.

 

I've also noticed that the cheap shitey Brunnings coco doesn't seem to agree with canna overly well either, washing the shit out of it helps but it's still not ideal.

 

What's the problem with the local soil?

[Qwobbler]

 

just my way of thinking 

searles is good i've used it myself with coco , 2 things , it's a soil conditioner not so much a potting mix but generally , from memory , 3 to 1 part 5 in 1 , 1/4 of the mix   

the other thing is , i think all bags are treated to kill off any bad guys but at the same time killing the good guys along the way 

 

sorry man can't remember but you need to add a little extra something when mixing coco in a soil mix , i'll try to find what that is , i think peat is a better choice , you can look at Kiwi Peat

if you can get it , less refined than the brunnings stuff , will be hydrophobic when you open the small bail & you can use a sprayer to wet down B4 mixing , i use aloe vera & water   

 

if you don't want to mess round , canna terra , it's designed for what we grow , high N , i'm using now , there's no life in it pretty much but you can add it , not my prefered mix but most likely best of the rest 

you could make a mix with terra castings compost & little more aeration 

 

the best thing you can have in your pot is life , compost or castings would be your best starting point , one or a mix of both as 1 part of the mix , peat or coco as the second part & aeration as the third , chunky perlite & 

rice hulls 50/50 , can get RH's online at brewers shops like grain & grape cheap , will take 3 odd years to break down & add silca as they do plus a nice little abode for bene's

 

from there it's amendments & can get a bit full on but agree with fred hawk , less is more ,  

to 30lts add 1/2 cup Neem Meal , Kelp Meal & freeze dried shrimp ( turtle food ) shrimp meal would be better but still stink , if you can get it 

& 1 full cup of Basalt -volcanic rock dust , gypsum & oyster shell flour -  calcium carbonate to PH the peat 

i also add a handful of bokashi grains & activated bio-char just for more bene's / diversity 

 

that's pretty much it for the mix but you continue with top dressing diff things like fermented fish bone meal in flower & lots more compost / castings 

 

But did you say your collected rain water was ph 5.8 , i would have thought rain would be closer to middle of the road ? checked ya spoutings lately 

you did say 0ppm so Hmmmmm ?

 

i can't think of anything else to tell you right now & the mix bowls empty 

happy to help with anything if i can , anytime , just do a bit more looking in to your water i reckon 

 

cheers for the response bud... I think its my soil and maybe the coco in it. it had been sitting and cooking for a while and have about 600lt's of it.

 

Its a mix of Searles 5 in1, Local red dirt from my area that people call gold up here, its used for farming all around me, i carted it all the way to the new house because opf the sand here, brick coco from bunnings, perlite and lime... it looks nice and airy and full of goodness. Im sute the PH is ok because run off is 6.5 to 6.9.... Thats either with my straight tank water or when using nutrients. I forgot to mention, BioBizz grow and fish mix has been used along with aloe vera water.

 

I also lied about tnak water, it occasionally gets filled from a river when its gets dry out here, so there is a mix of the river and rain water... 0ppm's tho and its drinkable.

 

they are in 4lt bags at the moment. Think i might fill some 15lt's and put them in the same soil but back off on the watering since they do feel quite wet at the moment. I guess I can start yto correct the problems from there.

 

When in organics, we should not have to worry about the water PH level should we, since the soil should be nutralised to 6.5 to 6.8...? because if I use ph up or down with the BioBizz it apparently kills all the beneficial stuff. water mixed with the BioBizz is PH 5.3..... 

 

Im confused again hahaha

Edited March 20, 2016 by qwobbler

[Qwobbler]

I've used Searles Premium potting mix, mixed about 50/50 with quality coco, then add 30% perlite with great success, but, that's the premium potting mix, and I fed with a low EC (about 1.2) using coco specific nutrients.  Adding worm castings to this is even better.  I found this gave great growth and health whilst providing a buffer against rain events starving the plants.  But if you're looking to save money on nutes, or go organic, this is no good for you.

 

Low quality potting mix doesn't generally seem to agree overly well with canna, but the premium seems fine.  Adding coco does good things as well, but does present potential problems with food uptake if there's too much in the mix.  Itchy might be on to something with the need to add something to the mix to address that, but in the meantime maybe try feeding them at least every 2-3 drinks with coco nutrients and see if that helps.

 

I've also noticed that the cheap shitey Brunnings coco doesn't seem to agree with canna overly well either, washing the shit out of it helps but it's still not ideal.

 

What's the problem with the local soil?

Hey Hashy, hope things are well

 

When you say Searles Premium.... which one are you talkoing about? The white bag that contains 8 months robust? it seems to be very common in the shops up here. 

And Quality Coco.... are you talking like those nutriefield bricks ya used before? rather than bunnings crap coco blocks?

 

I will do that, I have some H&G cocos there still i'll feed them that instead.....

 

Local soil where we moved is basically Sand...... so no good for me, plus we go in drought for 3 months soon so need to go in pots with good soil.

[Qwobbler]

I shall go get a about 200lt's of some good Searles soil and mix it in to lower the coco content..... Just waiting for hashy to let me know whick bag it was.....

 

I do have a few bags of 5 in 1 around, but that is half the soil mix already.....