Cannabis Nutrient Deficiencies? Pests? Diseases?
An easier and faster way to diagnose your cannabis plants when symptoms first appear!
An easier and faster way to diagnose your cannabis plants when symptoms first appear!
by Kenny | Jan 01, 2024
More than just dirt, our understanding of soil, and the living microorganisms that inhabit it, continuously progress.
You do not need a degree or even a deep understanding of science or soil composition to learn how to transform unbalanced soil into a vibrant habitat that is rich with microbes and nutrients that not only yields you a bountiful crop but requires minimal upkeep.
While most store-bought products focus on feeding the plant itself, creating a soil that is alive ensures that your plant is not just surviving, but is thriving thanks to the biome of living soil that is rich with healthy and beneficial bacteria and fungi, and other nutrients.
Give your cannabis plant what it really wants…an optimal living soil to establish its roots and flourish!
Living soil is more than just dirt in the ground or the potting soil you buy from the store.
Living soils are healthy and balanced.
It does not create just a sustainable environment for root systems and microorganisms to survive, but it enriches the surrounding soil by providing a strong structure for it.
Living soil does what nature has been doing long before agriculture, breaking down organic matter and using those nutrients as needed for both the plant and soil.
Simply put, living soils are a biome all of their own. Just like any investment, when you make the effort to put in the work at the beginning with your soil, you will set yourself up for long-term gains while saving yourself the headache of scheduled feedings to make sure your cannabis plant has all the proper nutrients it needs.
Living soil creates a maintainable food web that builds a structure that supports a diverse collection of living microorganisms that work together, such as
Bacteria like pseudomonas bacteria
Mycorrhizae Fungi
While preventing the growth of harmful bacteria, pest nematodes, and other undesirables that are detrimental to the health of your cannabis plant and your soil.
Because living soil recycles nutrients, once your soil is established, you will have less need for fertilizer.
Less fertilizer means
you’ll be spending less time feeding your soil.
An opportunity to invest your money into other areas of your growing journey.
Regardless if you are growing outdoors or using an indoor grow room, living soil goes a long way.
A difference between your indoor grow room vs growing cannabis plants outdoors, is that you will need to add more amendments each time you harvest.
You’ll need to complete this because once your soil is brought back to life with rich living soil nutrients, your cannabis plants and cover crops root systems will be communicating with the soil through the use of pheromones and you want to make sure that your microbes and fungi continue to live or you risk starting all over again.
It is with these pheromones that cannabis plants are able to pull the nutrients they need from the living soil, as needed.
What a time saver!
Now that you’re aware of the benefits of living soil and it’s rich living soil nutrients, what else sets living soil apart from other soils?
When you’re first getting started on your growing cannabis journey, you’ll find yourself asking questions about what’s even the difference between different soils.
What makes living soil so superior?
Why shouldn’t regular soil be just enough?
If living soil is the best, then what even is super soil?
To understand the soil, it always helps to look at its history.
Before humans began to embrace agriculture, soil was left largely untouched. Its greatest threat was from migrating herds and stampedes. Even with migration and early farming, the soil still had the conditions and time to repair and replenish itself.
Because of rapid farming, construction, and deforestation, the soil is no longer able to regenerate as quickly as it previously had.
Soil can no longer keep up.
The soil becomes hardened and compacted, oftentimes filled with inorganic matter leftover from litter and construction sites.
The nutrients are unable to recycle themselves and this prompts the root system to send out their S.O.S. pheromones throughout an area, which stunts the overall growth of the region.
If you’ve ever tried to dig a hole and could barely get the blade in, imagine how challenging it is for water or air to penetrate the soil period, let alone as deeply as needed for root systems and other microbes to thrive.
Because of this now compacted soil, roots are no longer able to grow downward, deep into the soil. Instead, they’re forced to grow outward, expanding underneath topsoil while becoming exposed to erosion from water and wind.
Since most regular soil has been compacted to a degree, regular soil is limited with what nutrients it has available and has poorer water retention.
By itself, your plant can still flourish… but you will need to spend more time checking the soil and making sure that the conditions are optimal for your cannabis plant to grow. With that extra time spent, you’ll also be spending more money trying to maintain or even correct various issues.
Using regular soil in addition to your composting, however, is a great way to begin to develop healthier soil.
Living soil is the best. It’s what nature’s been doing all along and super soil is just another name for living soil.
The term “super-soil” was coined by the late cannabis breeder, Dave Bowman, also known as Subcool.
A rose by any other name, would still smell just as sweet, right?
Once you start to learn how our soil works and just how much life is in soil, it will be hard to see living soil as anything less than super anyway.
Making living soil for your indoor grow room is easy. The hardest part is not even hard as much as it just requires future planning. When it comes to preparing living soil, you must wait for your soil to cook.
As with any living creation, to create a dynamic ecosystem within your soil, you must let it cook for a period of time.
This cooking process gives bacteria and fungi the opportunity to break down the amendments. This cooking time varies between 1 to 3 months, depending on your goals for your cannabis plant.
Do you want a short season with flower or a full season?
For a short season, you’ll need to cook your soil for a month. For a full season, give your new habitat time to grow for three months.
During this time, your soil will be hot.
It’s cooking after all…
If you add any seeds or clones during this time, they may suffer from nutrient burn and fail to grow.
Make sure to provide adequate watering during this time. Your soil does not need to be saturated or have any runoff. You want your soil to be just wet enough that the soil still clumps together instead of crumbling apart.
Whether you want to distribute your living soil in pots or a bed, using living soil in your indoor grow room will transform your cannabis plants.
Healthy roots love healthy soil and when you have healthy roots, you have a very happy and perky plant.
When it comes to mixing your ingredients for your living soil for your cannabis plants, you can mix everything together or you can mix amendments and bases separately to ensure a more even distribution of those amendments and other cannabis growing mediums.
Depending on your growing needs, you’ll need to adjust your mixes accordingly.
The recipe below yields around 50 gallons worth, which is suitable for growing with a small light.
Base Soil:
1 cu. Ft. peat moss
1 cu ft. compost
½ cu ft. humus
½ cu ft. of worm castings
16 cups of biochar
Amendments:
3 cups of Neem Seed Meal
3 cups of Kelp
3 cups of biolive/ crab meal
3 cups malted barley
1.5 cups of gypsum
8 cups of basalt
When you go to add your worm castings, you can remove any earthworms found during this time and add them again when you go to add your cannabis clone.
Now that you’ve put in the time creating a thriving and dynamic soil for your cannabis plants, it would be wasteful to use it for single use.
One of the great things about living biomes means it pretty much does everything. Until your soil is established, the only thing you’ll need to really maintain is replenishing amendments after you’ve harvested.
Absolutely no-tilling. Tilling will destroy the microbes.
Add cover crops.
Cover crops are a great addition that helps provide green manure as well as help aid in the overall structure of the soil. Since these plants do not get harvested, there are always living roots present in the soil and this allows mycorrhizal fungi to flourish in between harvests.
Once you’ve harvested your cannabis plant, leave the root ball in place so that it can be broken down into different nutrients the soil and future plants will need.
The longer your soil is established, the less you’ll have to tend to it.
Living soil is a long-term investment. When you take care of it, it will take care of you.
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