Sage Advice for New or Apprentice Growers of Cannabis

Grow from Home
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I have a great empathy for new growers!
You want to enjoy growing cannabis, but you are faced with an onslaught of decisions regarding choices of planting media and nutrient programs. (I’m only addressing these two aspects of your grow!)

With a lifetime of experience in commercial ag, and a very strong background in chemistry and plant physiology, I feel compelled to offer you my best advice for successfully growing cannabis, from your very first grow!

First a disclaimer: I have no vested interest in materials or products that I am recommending here.
Second, A great grower, and nice guy named Tony recently sent me some information that impressed and astounded me to such an extent that I felt compelled to share it here!
Third, I’m addressing FIRST TIME GROWERS! There are many pros here who have already gone through the excruciating/costly trial and error of finally developing a ‘trick’ nutrient program!

Planting media: Highly suggest that you begin with a well-drained, fairly inert planting media! Highly recommend you choose from SUNSHINE#4, Root Organic, or Pro-Mix which you should be able to find rather easily!

NUTRIENTS…OMG there are only about half a billion of them to choose from! STOP!!!

https://thegreensunshineco.com/product/earth-dust-all-natural-plant-nutrients/

When Tony gave me this link the other day, I looked at each and every ingredient, their efficiency and availability…my reaction was "FINALLY, OMG it just doesn’t get any better than this for the newbie grower!’

Why was I so impressed?? I have truly never seen a COMPLETE, germination to harvest nutrient line in just two bags!!!
Advantages to the new grower may not be apparent so I want to highlight a few:

  1. You’re not going to be buying 8 bottles of dry or liquid nutrients or endure conflicting mixes.
  2. NO mixing, pHing, or worrying that your plants ‘might need something else’
  3. Low N-P-K numbers imply tremendous safety factor for newbies…
  4. As your plants Grow through their life cycle, you simply add more and the concentrations used are both adequate and forgiving!!

If you are seeking advice on any grow room tents, lights, gadgets, whatever you will find MANY EXCELLENT growers here on GN that can save you a LOT of $$$$$$$ with their experience!

Remember, this is all in thanks to Tony and will give you the BEST cost effective and SAFE program for getting a great start in growing DANK BUD!! (LOL, after you get a grow or two under your belt, I might have some magic to offer!)

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Very good advice and RESEARCH about the hobby you’re undertaking.
Don’t depend on second hand info from just anybody on these sites not everyone is your friend.

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IMHO, I think most (especially here!) are well intentioned. It’s just that newbies are confronted with a vast array of hyperbole and conflicting advice!
My experience has been that if someone can successfully get a grow or two under their belts, they’ll at least have some time to accumulate knowledge for making their decisions!!

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Count me in! :+1:.

I grow organic using Natures Living Soil, similar to the link above. Except Earthdust seems cheaper!

If I didn’t already have NLS on hand I’d give it a try. Maybe next time!

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I did just order BBP though, @TheMadFlascher!

Exited to see it at work in person!

:v:. :green_heart:. & thanks

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Yeppers tried and true Growers with results to see. No broscience. True horticulture being taught.

That’s why Growers Network Family is the best. Many sites have great Growers but they don’t have what we have.

We have our own tissue culture, chemistry, gene expression, and tons of commercial professionals to gain insight from.

Only going to get better, the more we develop the cannafam.

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Ok so the question is have you or anyone else used it? I watched his pitch on YouTube probably a year and a half or two years ago, looked interesting but I had just done battle keeping my plants alive with another “living soil nightmare”, so I passed.

It was in fact the living soil amendment that another poster uses. I put it in a blend of coco and peat, and decided to use the mix it in to the soil beforehand completely and “cook it” for a couple weeks. But the one I used said for a couple of months so I did. Grow started off beautiful then went to shit completely, with extreme nitrogen excess. The other option was to make a layered pot with a zone of hot soil on the bottom. I didn’t like that concept so I mixed and cooked.

I’m still gunshy because of the one I tried.

Marty

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Marty,
I have a grower that is using it now with great success w/BBP.
I looked at every ingredient in that earth dust and was VERY impressed!
Take for instance the microbial mix: 5 Bacillus species bacteria and 4 Glomus species…just so happens that ALL these species are very beneficial AND they all have a high likelihood of establishing colonies!
VERY IMPRESSIVE! Most microbial mixes will have up to 60 different species…but guess what…there’s probably only 5 in there that will actually colonize and survive in the soil!
If you look at the ingredients this stuff even has some Azomite in it!
Keep in mind I’m recommending this for FIRST TIME or APPRENTICE growers…but hey, if you can find a better one let me know and I will gladly review it!
Thanks Bob

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I know you have pics lol…put em’ up Ol fart lol…

Marty

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That’s the one that burnt my plants up around the 4th week of flower. Followed the directions to the “letter” did the mix completely in soil then cook in tub version of their instructions. They seem to have two kinds of reviews, people either like me hate it, or love it.

Marty

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That’s nuts! My third grow wth NLS and I always have to feed about week 4.

I burned my plants this time but that was my damn fault for feeding too much.

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I read reviews on it before I got it, and saw the same thing mentioned that happened to me. I got it anyway, and got the bad end of the reviews. I contacted them via email and never even got a responce. I finally flushed with about 15 gal of water per pot twice in a row and saved my grow from total disater. The only thing I can think of is that they don’t have very good quality control, and they mix it wrong sometimes. I didn’t add any additional nutes to the coco/peat cooked mix I used. Weighted the “dust” on a scale and mixed it a pot at a time to make sure that it was right, then combined it all into two tubs and cooked it for the better part of 3 months in the dark. Like I said it did great at the beginning, then suddenly it just started cooking my plants, extremely dark leaves, curled down and bowed in to the center. When something like that happenes to you, you get gun shy real fast lol. I’m not the only one that has had that experience with it. I first read the warning about it on a couple of different grow forums before I bought it. I will always give something a fair chance, as I have found that a lot of times people don’t follow instructions and cause their own problems, then blame it on the product, but in my case it was perfectly done to their instructions. Even if I had made a mistake on the mix I did it six separate times and checked the instructions for amount to use per gallon of soil, so I don’t think it was me, unless I screwed up 6 times in a row. Still have a partial bag of it.

Anyway glad you like it and have had good luck with it.

Marty

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They certainly have great reviews, other than a lot of mentions of getting fungus gnats from it. Course that could be from the coco, or just introduced naturally. I am getting weary of the constant mixing too. I think I might just give it a try, I have always liked the concept of living soil, and in fact have been a orgainc grower outside making my own compost and heavy mulching for over 40 years. But only outside. I never wanted to get all the bug problems inside so I shied away from making my own living soil and bringing it inside. Tried it once on regular house plants way back when. Made up my super living soil using all organic rock dusts guano etc. Cooked it outside then potted my plants up and got more bugs than Carter has liver pills lol. And since I got my fungus gnats from my coco, that isn’t a real deciding factor for me. I really like the concept of living soil, you just can’t fool mother nature.

Thanks for the great product review Bob !

Marty

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@sssportsmfg well OK , Here’s the most recent from Feb 12

IMG951869001
IMG951869001600×800 96.5 KB

Earth Dust plus BBP (applied on normal schedule since 14 days old)

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Just saying!
If a new grower can accomplish this right out of the gate, without ANY anxiety about pH, EC, how to use 8 bottles of nuets, I’d say that’s pretty anxiety free (!)

Again, my goal here is just giving new growers a fighting chance!!

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As you know not a new grower…but am looking to go organic it just tastes and smells SO much better. I am kinda half and half right now. I put Kelp meal, insect frass, Fulvic acid, Azomite, and diastic malt in my coco now. Which I would continue to do even using this stuff. I have slowly added organics to my coco as long as it didn’t fubar things until I have gotten to this brew of soil amendments. And this was one of my best grows ever, I just didn’t downgrade my synthetic nutes which I should have with all these organics providing slow release nutes, and burned them slightly mid grow. Flushed twice with Recharge and everything returned to normal. I am going to try this and go totally organic if it works as advertised. It is very inexpensive too. Just $59 for both base and bloom. 4 lbs of each. That is a cheap grow for sure. Thanks for the heads up Bob, I very much listen when you speak, just wanted to know if anyone was using it. Those plants are very healthy looking for sure.

Marty

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You know I just looked at that again, those are tiny pots. He/she must be amending the top layer pretty regular with no more medium than there is? What are those 1 gal pots?

Marty

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Marty, I believe they are.
Don’t know if that is his final pot…
The other beauty about using it with BBP is that when you see that nutrient demand kick in you simply use another half tablespoon oe whatever…

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I sent a email to the company asking them how much I would need for a 15 week grow in 7 gal of coco/peat. Lets see how long it takes them to respond. At least the new nutes I got are powder lol. So they should stay good if I keep them bone dry.

Marty

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OK, so first contact is a good one. Sent them that email asking how much I would need for my grow that I listed above about an hour ago, and already got the answer. So I think they will be a top notch company to deal with. I need 8 lbs of each or 4/4lb bags. $99.00 bucks, still cheap. I already have the coco/peat and all the rest, so I’m gonna order this up and start cooking some soil as I get my little ones going. Will have to learn to do the “a little water each day thing” versus watering every 3-4 days until runoff, but I have also long wondered if that wouldn’t be better to keep the coco constantly moist rather than the wet/dry thing.

Marty

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