If Smart Pots accumulate calcium deposits on the bags after use, those recycled plastic bags straight leech them out… along with your medium. Life cycle on recycled plastic bags is about half of a Smart Pot. Thanks again for contributing to this thread on how to set up a no till garden.
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My cousin does living soil beds for his indoor licensed production. His biggest issue comes when flipping beds, he gets a 2 week stall before plants look healthy again. He says he went to a roundtable of living soil growers where this was everyone’s number 1 issue. I suggested that he try mixing his amendments into a microbe rich soil 2 weeks prior to flipping, keeping the mixture moist, and placing it in his veg room where it will stay warm. Then use that to ammend the beds before transplanting. He is going to try it, I’ll try to remember to provide feedback here.
My other suggestion was to try warming his soil with radiant heat with tubing and cycling warm water in the bottom of his beds to aid the microbes’ breakdown of organics throughout the grow cycle. This would be more of a longterm ongoing benefit rather than transplanting benefit. He keeps his rooms pretty dang cool.
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There are so many different variations of growing that you could consider “living soil.” Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single experienced grower that I know who does not incorporate some sort of biology into their program at this point, aside from some large scale corporations that are trying to perfect the mix of low quality salts and standardizing it rather than improving their processes (good luck with that!). (Our product line also contains five strains of beneficial bacillus.)
I do believe that, particularly in areas where the environment can provide all or many of the necessary items to propagate these types of soil networks and dressings to feed the biology that you are referencing, this method of growing is one of the higher roads a grower can take. I do not think that it is the most consistent and practical for every situation though. However, this is just opinion, and there are a lot of other valid opinions in this thread.
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Yes we saw Crockett Family farm did a radiant heating under the custom Smart Pot tray liners we made. Makes perfect sense, especially for the cooler months.
I’m curious about the 2 week stall. From what I’ve heard of no till, the transplants are supposed to take off fast mostly due to the microbial network being in tact. Very curious was to what that delay was caused by.
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Yep, I’ve been a bottle nute user but have also been using organics and microbes in the mix for almost that whole time. I agree that it seems to be the hardest road to go down but when things get dialed in, seems like it might be the easiest/best? To be continued!
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@Farmer_Dan I create formulas with over 1 billion cfu (pure culture) in dry powder formulas . Best deals on microbes 25 lb and 100 lb containers available. Check out the tech sheet
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is this meant to be a “base feed” for microbes and their food? This is your product?
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royalknightagriculture.com seems to be down , link not working for me
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When I first opened this doc, I apparently didn’t save it, but it looked awesome at first glance. Any chance you can re post that link, it says the link isn’t there anymore 
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My guess is available nitrogen, cannabis is a heavy feeding plant and I don’t think there is enough nitrogen released from amendments fast enough. This is why I suggested mixing it with some of their living soil ahead of time and amending that way. It is an experiment at this point, no evidence to support anything at this time. Apparently, this is a common issue among his group of associates working with the same model. We shall see.
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I wonder if a soil with an ample amnt of nitrogen fixing bacteria would avoid a N deficiency? A non organic but clean fix is ammonia sulfate, which can go to the roots or be sprayed on foliage. 
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I am skeptical of the ability of N fixing to provide enough N on demand, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. It seems going from vigorous veg growth to depleted post harvest soil with no interval for flipping is a tall order in an organic system. Overall, they are losing a full cycle every year due to this problem. My cousin wants to avoid non-organic inputs. I did suggest that maybe 1 or 2 100ppm doses of sodium nitrate (OMRI) may also buy the time needed for organics to release enough N, but cautioned the problems with sodium build up in a bed that is reused multiple times without flushing, so I am a bit weary of that path.
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Living soil is an expense low producing gimmick. You cant feed the world with organics. 87% more land would be required. They’re a reason agricultural uses synthetics. There’s a reason Latin America sells us half our produce and will be selling us half our weed soon as it’s legal to import. At 6 gallon a day per plant the future surely isn’t soil. You want to be good to the planet? Then stop growing in it all at. Hydro has owned soil from day 1. Cheaper, faster, less resources used, same nutrients in final product.
Just another salesman here to pitch you the industry way and promote plastic no one needs. This entire site is littered with useless sales pitches, misinformation, and meaningless posts to garner profile views.
EDIT: Google "living soil’ and if it doesn’t auto complete cannabis (mine did) first article you’ll get will be about cannabis. If living soil was a real thing, not just organics relabeled to sell a few more overpriced boxes of raw nutrients, the entire first page wouldn’t be about weed.
You dumb this community down for a buck.
Totally agree on organics (not hydro in general, especially in my market, but I believe so in a flower market), however, my cousin gets $2600/lb in Oregon where he would otherwise be getting half at best. He is an outlier, being well know and well branded for organics. He gets the premium for his lower yields and that make it worth it as marketing strategy. My extract market does not pay for the difference in expense and unrealized yield, so I’ll take the 2x yield increase with synthetics. I grow in native soil, I’d be hard pressed to believe it more expensive than hydro pound for pound. Not challenging quality, I grow biomass for rec markets. Moral of the story, market and branding can make the difference, and if you are getting compensated for the cost of both inputs and unrealized yield, it can be worth it.
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Below is the best quote from an actual scientist i can find to start to lead misguided organic living soil believers down a road of truth.
When it comes to how plants obtain their nutrient content, it’s a matter of straightforward science, says Dr. Merle Jensen, a founder of Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona.
“We have to go with the side of science. The nutrient goes into the plant in the same ionic form, [whether it’s from the soil or from soilless media], period,” he says.”
What this means is microbes don’t do magic tricks. They (inefficiently) break down (some not nearly all) solid nutrients to a water soluble state and the material they work with (the nutes) are the exact same weather out of a bottle of synthetic or an overpriced box of organic. Calcium is calcium. Nitrogen is nitrogen. What goes in is the same and what comes out is the same. This has also been scientifically proven. Organic and synthetic grown produce is the same. Sometimes they’ll find more Vit C in a fruit grown in the soil organically, sometimes they find more in a berry grown synthetic hydro. It’s a wash and proves organic a waste of money.
So that being said, if you use more resources to do something it causes more harm to the planet. If you use more water, more nutes, and more electricity to grow weed you can charge more for it this is true, because people are stupid and think that must mean it’s better or done in a manner better for the planet. In the case of organic living soil this is a complete lie. Soil uses 6 gallons of water a plant per day, 6X the water hydro does. You are simply out of touch if you think that’s a future that’s even possible. We aren’t far from growers being told they can not have 6 gallons a a day per cannabis plant.
@smartpotseric Your lack of words and add pictures only prove me right. You know you’re just here shilling for a buck and living soil is just another hydro store scam running its way though an uneducated community.
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My field application of water last year was 0.63 gallons per plant per day (250,000 gallons for the season per acre with 3300 plants per acre). So, according to your math, field production is better since that puts me at less the 2/3 of hydro’s use. My power consumption for the growing season is 250kWh/acre. Drying using around 1250kWh of power. Overwintering mother plants, cloning, and start production uses about 16,000kWh of power. Fuel consumption around 8 gallons of diesel, and 4 gallons of gasoline per acre. Yield 4,300lbs of useable material per acre, meaning 58 gallons of water, 0.036oz of fuel, and 4.07kWh of power per pound.
Unlike many growers who don’t care about tracking inputs, I do since this is quickly turning into a margins game. I’m not sure where you are getting your numbers to base your assumptions.
How do your treat your effluent from hydro in a way that minimizes environmental impact? One of the biggest issues locally is the mismanagement of waste associate with cannabis production, however that applies to all of agriculture as well. My county’s Water & Soil Conversation District is highly concerned about effluent from hydro. I’ve started working more closely with them to better manage soil and water quality, it leads to grants for testing and irrigation equipment.
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You’re not counting rainfall or underground water sources if you’re in an open field. That a big cheat to me to only count what you pay for not what you actually take. Sun’s the only thing you should steal and not count, yet most grow indoors. Most greenhouses are in the wrong geographical area and still paying for too much light, but i digress…
One? Two crops a yr? Sure it’ll pay the bills, and if you talk the talk and have bad hydro growers around to point fingers at im sure grants and fun toys ensue, but growing in the soil is not better for the planet than not growing in the soil at all.
Personally i don’t have hydro effluent since going 1:1 RO. Zero ppm to start and what i feed they eat. Shouldn’t be a need to dump if you stay away from salt based nutes imo. Small res hydro as well, say 2 gallons per plant on hand. Plants will clean that little water for you.
Thanks for the numbers i always like to see what people are paying and outdoor is a good one to come in cheap. I noticed you left out nutrients per lb. You got that figured? I’m at $27
EDIT: I googled my stats and found where it says a potted plant can use 6 gallons in a day but thats high now that i look around. I see some claim 1 gallon per day per lb but again outdoor and not counting whats already there to use.
I’m biased, because I started growing in a soilless mix, and organic nutes. I say started, but I only vegged my first lil bag seeds for 8 weeks, went to aero, and never looked back. My take is, if you’re using synthetic nutes, you should only use hydro. It uses less water than soil, it’s been proven scientifically. No real waste if you’re running a dehumidifier and ac. Hydro is faster at everything, including the negatives, so you have to monitor it. Biggest question, why are you transitioning?
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I just re-read your initial post, I totally disagree about anything dirt being the future. That’s super backwards. On any grow size, hands down. Eventually, someone will figure out how to make organic nutes atomize small enough to go thru the sprayers.
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