Agreed, anecdotes only provide avenues for scientific exploration. This is why I stated my belief that the next decade will demonstrate the significant cost reduction in outdoor and in ground systems through largely microbial means with lots of organic practices in the mix, and probably occasional salt inputs for targeted and timely nutrient needs.
With regards to microbes increasing ag yields in both conventional and organic, there are a lot of data and white papers dating back many decades. In terms of the people I worked with, they all had lots of data but they are private businesses and those data are not generally available to the public, unfortunately. In my literature reviews I’ve rarely found a paper on organic vs conventional that does anything but compare the soil-test-recommend-reammend style of organics to conventional, which I agree that conventional will win in this scenario. I’d just finish by saying that yes 100% in our current ag paradigms conventional wins for cost, but I see more and more “microbial farmers,” as I call them, demonstrating a significant reduction in cost in both conventional and organic systems, with white papers on such systems coming out in the very near future.
If I could change my opening statement. Saying I wouldn’t trust those data was wrong. I should’ve said that it is my belief that those data are incomplete and do not adequately represent where agriculture is heading as the relatively new tools for understanding microbial interactions are changing our understanding of plant systems.
I believe the lowest common denominator is trace minerals and an incomplete understanding of the importance (all of them, not just the 20 or so we know about). Many trace minerals are difficult to study, but of all the trace minerals studied, they have all been found to be important to living systems. I think what Organic and KNF systems provide more than microbes, is an abundance of trace minerals. Since every plant collects a different ration of trace minerals, they are likely providing something to the soil that may be lacking. One of the biggest issue with conventional ag is a focus on maybe 8 to 12 elements. This is why I remineralized my soil (so far 800lbs of azomite and 10lbs of Sea-90 per acre). You can feed a plant and the plant can feed the microbes, and you can feed the microbes and they will feed the plant, without a full compliment of trace minerals, efficiency will be lost either way from reduced enzymatic activity. There are some studies showing that zero input systems have the fewest microbes, organic systems have the greatest, and conventional systems are between these two (conventional being much higher than no input and having fungal levels nearly as high as organic). I don’t disagree that most current conventional systems deplete soil of essential nutrients and damage microbial populations in the long run, but organic and conventional systems don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I believe you can build soil tilth and utilize the economic benefits of conventional nutrients.
Trace minerals are for sure the limiting factor. I think part of the microbial boom in agriculture will be finding specific formulations to make those minerals available based on soil conditions. We already have consortiums for releasing/fixing the most common nutrients after all.
I use to feed that line to people, but I don’t believe it anymore. This year’s crops, which utilized a combination of organics and synthetics was by far my best crop in terms of yield and quality. I think pure synthetics is missing components to maximize flavor. I think relying too much on microbes for proper NPK supply and it eing harder to balance ratios, dispersal, and timing of release is problematic. I think hybrid systems provide the best of both worlds. As for harshness, that all comes down to a proper flush/cure, nothing more, nothing less, imo. I should get some quality numbers this week and will post on my thread.
I can taste in tobacco when a field is over manured
I don’t think in any crop I have eaten that you can tell the difference. Between organic fertilizer and inorganic.
I have seen more mistakes in organic growers, just not knowing. Organic is definitely harder to work constantly for unskilled growers. Less cookbook like growing.
I have had more bad vegetables grown hydroponically than good.
If you can grow organic and get a label. I think there is a good nitch market.
I can find fifty papers that look at the life of rhizosphere. When comparing inorganic salts to organic salt sources. This is why good water based rhizospher products out in the market. Growers have learned.
If organic offers you a market advantage or a morale philosophy go organic. But, get certified. A good repeatable grow is a lot harder with with a pure organic approach. Real skill is need here.
If inorganic nutrition fits your market use inorganic and add a product to grow healthy plants. This approach gets us closer to a cookbook grow.
Rhizosphere management should be part of a good IPM plan.
Just my opinion
There is room for every type of grower. I worked with a guy who was 100% certified greenhouse production. It was a real problem keeping nutritional numbers repeatable. Lots of bucket chemistry.
Last point the nitrogen form in most organic formulations, cause me great problems in a greenhouse below 68F. They are a urea or ammoniam based derivatives. I am just not warm enough to effectively convert it to a plant usable form of nitrogen.
Also until the organic fertilizers “plant food” manufactures, can give me a label that meets the fertilizer standard. I am screwed as a grower. I have to test each lot delivered. To figure out what I am putting on my plants.
Plants can’t tell where the salt came from. Organic vs inorganic. People care about the source. Petroleum based nitrogen sources is just a waist product in refining oil for cars. Until we get rid of oil, cheap nitrogen will be available to growers. That is why farm grade fertilizer costs varies by local so much.
Last point most organic nitrogen is shipped as a water based solution. So I am paying for really expensive water. And what is the cost of shipping all that water?
This, to me, is mostly a marketing point. The OMRI requirements for organic certification do not match the definition of the word “organic.” You would be hard pressed to find anything that is prepackaged that hasn’t, at the least, been pH’d or stabilized (to prevent swelling, freezing, etc.) with an inorganic compound, or made soluble with an inorganic surfactant. I think we all know the benefits of marketing as “organic,” and I am certainly not one to knock someone for wanting to use that label.
To mirror what has already been said , I have found in my own personal experience that combining certain benefits from organics / living soil with certain elements of chemistry has provided the best results for me. This includes yield, potency, terpene percentage, and a wider variety of cannabinoids and terpenes. The work that I have been doing this past year, in large part, is focused around this concept.
At the end of the day, I’d say what really matters is:
Do your plants like it? Are your plants showing signs of deficiency or overabundance?
Are you satisfied with your finished weight, potency, and terpene production?
Is it clean of toxic heavy metals and bicarbonates?
Is it being used by your plant? Salt build ups and excessive run off are a waste of money.
Is your model sustainable and environmentally responsible in terms of production and shipping?
Is it cost efficient enough to make good business sense?
If you can cover these six points, then you have hit the mark in my humble opinion.
I SWEAR I can taste certain nutrient lines when I smoke flower grown with them. Certain materials seem to encourage the development of certain terpene profiles.
The harshness itself usually comes down to improper flushing or unethical pest treatment practices.
If it was real one of the biochemist would have reported it.
If you finish hot, you will get a mittalic taste. That is true in some other plants grown in the greenhouse. Clear water Last three days minutes as SOP and never exceed 400 ppm N. If you are your mix is too tight.
Goal for maximum dry weight is a known water six to eight times a day in a high gas exchange media. You pick I like puffed glass, like growstone. You can reuse for upto a year with good sanitation. That is 6.5 times a year in an eight week crop.
And I can match any terpintine profile you want if you just play with light and temperature. Remember it’s a short day plant we know a lot about those pathways.
Warm roots 70 degrees and cool tops. Will give all that the genetics can.
Ammonium, potassium, or sodium bicarbonates will wreak havoc on the soil or medium’s pH levels and are not necessarily great fungicides even for foliar spray (they will control outbreaks but not kill the spores). I’m honestly not sure if any brands are trying to use these, but have heard of people mixing them into their own salt mixes before.
I love and use a lot of non-nitrate materials on short-cycle plants, but I imagine you could have some success using only nitrates as well.
I work with biochemists, and they do concur… But I don’t care to put company names on blast. Everyone’s trying to do their best. I would rather people take free samples of our materials and do their own comparisons.
You are so right about lighting and temperature. My lane is plant nutrition but there is a whole frontier of lighting and environmental factors that can manipulate the plant’s production that I want to learn more about. I’ve heard examples of people encouraging different cannabinoid and terpene profiles with different light cycles. That interests me a ton. I believe you can eventually manipulate the genetic memory of a phenotype to change its habits as well. I know I have turned a THC-heavy sativa into a 1:1 THC:CBD strain before by revegging and flowering again after harvesting. So this stuff is very real. Anything you know about this, feel free to share with us.
Nutritionally, our terpene production has increased significantly since we began using acetate as our potassium carrier.
Just not true we have 200 years of data from Sanborn Field the longest scientifically studied field. Large organic studies before it was called organic. All the records are free and open source. Sanborn field annual production methodologies survey 210 years of continues production. University of Missouri Columbia. They also have a great hard core organics production program. You can even get a PhD in it from 5 land grant schools.
If you reread what I said, I said outdoor and in ground propagation. I made no reference to soilless media, and in fact went out of my way to state the opposite. I even excluded soil media in potted or similar systems… My argument is more nuanced than organic good inorganic bad, so please take the time to respect that when you craft your reply and realize there’s more depth to my stance than any one post can sum up.
I already restated and clarified what I meant by the statements I made in my original reply to which you are referring. I have read many papers on the subject and find a vast majority to be lacking in their scope of controls and experimental design. It’s an inherently complex system of which we only know about 10% at best. In the Cannabis industry, as I said above, optimum yield and quality is currently coming in at around 80/20 organic to inorganic largely due to reasons similar to what you stated above about storage etc. Organic chelates are a far superior product and with the price of quality Cannabis still being very high in many places, the added cost of certain organic inputs is far lower than the potential return.
Ok okay we are see from different ends of the spectrum. Some time I will take you to the dark side of public reporting. It’s all public. I can show you how to get the most, from the nanny state. They collect the most interesting details.
The most interesting thing has been the bouncing production numbers from grower to grow and growers with monthly numbers bouncing in individual grows. One grower last month started with zero plant added fifty and was zero at the end and no sales. Happened about 18 weeks before that a bad crop. One ok crop in the middle. What do think is happening behind those closed doors?
As far as I know the Sanborn field studies looked at added manure vs salts and controls. I’d be happy to be pointed to one of their studies that implements a microbial regimen and something better than manure, which is known to be a poor organic input for reasons of imbalance in both nutrients and microbial communities.
With that fact about manure in mind, from “SOIL HEALTH ASSESSMENT OF THE SANBORN FIELD
LONG-TERM EXPERIMENTAL STUDY” by Norkaew et Al. (2018):
“Results Showed that annual dairy cow (Bos Taurus) manure applications had the greatest effect on all soil health indicators and had the largest overall soil health score compared to full
fertility and no fertilizer treatments. Moreover, continuous wheat with manure application
presented the best combination of effects on soil properties with the largest score for most
soil health indicators and an overall health score of 82 out of 100 classified as very high
which is the best.”
So I’m not sure the Sanborn field is a very useful argument for conventional… But again, this long term study is inadequate at best in my opinion.
