4x8 geo planter... No till or ROLS?

keepsake said:

I plan to put my fabric pots on a container that holds 6 inches of perlite. I will always keep water in the container. This is a wicking system of some sort. What do you think of this idea?

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Lightgreen2k said:

Perlite doesnt wick. You should get the growstones jeremey is BAS as you are trying to do the samething you saw him do. Do it the sameway.

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kratos015 said:

I could be wrong here, but unless I'm mistaken the perlite is just for putting the smart pots on top of so they aren't sitting directly in water. I'm pretty sure perlite does in fact wick, however it's all part of a system as a whole. It isn't just the perlite doing the wicking with this method, but the fabric pots and soil contribute to this as well. From what I've read at least, I have no personal experience with SIP myself.

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Lightgreen2k said:

@kratos015 So with the sip, the plants will be using capilliar action to get the nutrients from the trey below. Earthboxes and growboxes have a system that allows water to touch the medium.

Anyhow @Thai_Lights what was your soil mix.?

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kratos015 said:

Ohh no way so people put nutrients in there too? Thanks for chiming in, always heard about SIP but have absolutely zero experience with them so its nice to learn.

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Thai_Lights said:

Plants seen to be really digging the bed...a bit tricky to water but the plants will be big in no time. Kelp/ewc foliar tomorrow will post some pics.

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kratos015 said:

No-till is essentially a ROLS soil, you just re-amend it instead of recycle it. The soil gets "recycled" by adding more organic nutrients into the mix and allowing it to sit until the microbiology develops. However, with a no-till bed we take care of things by simply top dressing the no-till beds with the same organic amendments we used when we first re-amended the soil. Like me for example; I only use kelp/crab/neem meal for my amendments. When I make a new soil, I amend it with 1/2 cup of all 3 amendments. However when I top dress, I use around 1/4 cup of each instead and then cover that with some compost or EWC.. depends on what I have available. So no-till pretty much is ROLS, we just don't dump the pots at harvest is all, simply top dressing it with the same amendments and some compost will constantly keep your microbes happy. The other thing that's nice about no-till is they are typically done in large containers and as I pointed out above, you'll have a much more diverse population of microbes in a no-till than you ever could in a ROLS grow. There have been studies shown that demonstrate that there are actually specific species of bacteria in a living soil that are responsible for developing terpenes in it's host plant which could explain why people experience exponentially better results in no-till beds depending on how old the soil web is. Think of your microbiology as a city. In ROLS, this city only has 3-4 months to develop until it gets destroyed and started from scratch. However in no-till, this city never stops developing until you dump it out and recycle it. The result is not just a more diverse population of microbes, but an infinitely more sturdy population as well. Eventually your no-till bed's population of microbes will get to a point that you experience explosive growth immediately upon transplant because your no-till bed is filled with an entire web of microbes just itching for a new host plant to achieve symbiosis with. As a result of these factors, you will experience better yields, potency, and even flavor because you have a massive amount of soil filled to the brim with little microbes waiting to attach themselves to another plant.

However, unlike ROLS there are quite a few cons associated with a no-till grow that make learning no-till quite the learning curve. I had the pleasure of figuring out a lot of these cons the hard way of course xD

The thing you have to consider about your no-till bed is the rate at which your medium decomposes. Take a 30g pot for example, it starts off with 10g of peat/perlite/compost each on average right? Well, within a few months (depending on the size of your pot) that 10g of peat will react with the organic amendments in the medium, as a result that 10g of peat will eventually become 10g of compost over time. While this sounds great in theory it actually causes a ridiculous amount of problems if you aren't careful. While compost has incredible water retention properties, it is absolute shit when it comes to drainage. Eventually that 30g pot will become 20g compost and 10g aeration/drainage, which means your no-till bed will not be draining properly. If your no-till bed isn't draining properly then there likely isn't much oxygen either, if any at all. So your no-till bed will then proceed to go anaerobic due to a lack of oxygen and on top of that, you put yourself at risk for root rot as well because the roots are constantly saturated in water. And if that wasn't enough, your pH will also be thrown out of whack because the medium is literally flooded with water.

I found this one out the hard way, and that's why I don't follow the 1:1:1 ratio of peat/compost/aeration anymore for no-till beds. If you follow that ratio, your bed will start to cause you more trouble than you thought possible because eventually that 1:1:1 ratio of peat/compost/aeration becomes a 2:1 ratio of compost/aeration making it incredibly difficult for the roots to move and breathe as well as creating an environment that only anaerobic bacteria can survive in. The other issue you'll run into with no-till beds is soil compaction, which is pretty much unavoidable no matter what you do. When you have such a large mass of soil you will always have soil compaction over time, there is literally nothing you can do to avoid soil compaction, all you can do is slow down the rate at which your soil compacts.. never stop it.

So because of the above issues with soil compaction as well as organic matter constantly decomposing, you actually don't want to follow the 1:1:1 ratio or you will experience these issues by your 2nd no-till cycle. To compensate for these issues, I've begun using 50% perlite, 30% peat, and 20% compost.. I'll likely end up switching to 50% perlite, 40% peat, and 10% compost. In ROLS, the reason you want the compost ratio to be equal to your peat/aeration is because you'll be recycling the mix again long before you run into any of these issues. For this reason, you want 33% compost in your mix because in the 3-4 months the mix is in pots it won't decompose fast enough to provide your plants with the amount of compost it needs. However, with no-till you'll be going for much longer than 3-4 months, as a result you want to account for the fact that your medium will decompose over time when you first create your no-till mix. I've started running 50% aeration/drainage for this exact reason, perlite doesn't decompose and you can run your no-till beds for a good 1-2 years before you have to recycle them. Your no-till bed will only need to be recycled once the 40% peat/10% compost decomposes to become 0% peat/50% compost. Eventually your no-till bed will decompose into nothing but perlite and compost, which requires you to empty the pots, mix everything with more peat moss and amendments, and start all over again.

Having 50% perlite in your mix will help to mitigate some of the effects of soil compaction, it will offer you plenty of drainage to compensate for your compost ratio increasing with every month that passes, and ensures that your bed will last as long as possible.

No-till beds require a lot more maintenance than ROLS itself too. With ROLS it's entirely possible to do nothing but water for the entire cycle and get excellent results because you won't have plants in the pots long enough for them to use all of the organic matter in your soil. However, with no-till beds eventually the microbes/roots will deplete your soil of any and all organic nutrients. For this reason, you'll need to top dress your bed every 3-6 weeks depending on how much or little your plants eat. You top dress with the same organic amendments you used when you first made the soil, then cover that top dress with a little compost or EWC and water it. This will need to be done every 3-6 weeks to ensure there are never any deficiencies.

If you have little to no experience with a living organic soil of any sort, I highly recommend starting with the ROLS method first until you get a better understanding of organics as a whole. It will be much easier on you and will be much less to focus on. Once you start experiencing success with the ROLS method then you can perhaps look into no-till, do a side by side for 6-12 months and see which one you prefer. I apologize for the lengthy reply and hope I was able to help, if you have any questions feel free to shoot them my way and I'll help to the best of my ability.

tl;dr

ROLS or no-till are both capable of amazing results. ROLS is vastly easier to manage by a long shot, however no-till will give you unique benefits that a ROLS grow can never possibly provide albeit at the cost of extra maintenance and a bigger learning curve.

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kratos015 said:

I've heard incredible things about SIP containers but have yet to try them myself. I was actually considering this method alongside the blumats. SIP containers are wonderful, but the only issue with them is how pricey buying all that perlite can be after a certain amount of pots. If you only have one or two pots you're doing this with then it shouldn't cost much, but if you're doing dozens upon dozens of plants this way the cost of perlite will add up quite quickly. SIP is good for a small scale grow, but should you decide to expand your grow you'll find the costs for SIP get quite pricey and Blumats would actually be a cheaper solution. SIP is great though because, like the blumats, it essentially puts the soil in charge of water uptake via wicking.



There are two reasons people will typically "cook" their soil and the phrase "cooking your soil" can actually refer to one of the following two reasons. The first reason to cook your soil is dependent on the organic amendments you chose to use. Things like kelp meal, neem meal, crab meal, and the like decompose quite slowly over time and as a result don't need to "cook" because it isn't decomposing at a rapid rate. Conversely, amendments like blood meal, alfalfa meal, and any kind of guano decompose rapidly. I'm not sure if you have a compost pile or have ever toyed around with one, but a compost pile can get upwards of 160F depending on how quickly the material in it is decomposing. So typically when people say "cooking" they actually mean decomposing.

Your kelp or crab meal will react slowly with the peat and things won't get too hot if you choose these types of amendments, so you typically don't have to actually "cook" the soil, only inoculate it but I'll get into that below in a bit. Since kelp/crab/etc meals don't decompose very quickly, the soil will never get too hot so you don't need to allow it to decompose before using it. Manure works kind of the same way, using straight manure puts you at a high risk of burning your girls, so it's better to combine the manure with peat moss and let it sit until it becomes compost.

However when you use something "hot" like blood meal and guanos they decompose at such a rapid rate that it'll straight bring the temps of your soil to anywhere between 100-160F. In this case, cooking (letting it decompose first) is mandatory otherwise you run the risk of exposing your roots to the above temps which will kill them off right quick.

The other reason you'll see people use the phrase "cook your soil" is in reference to inoculating it with the microbes that will actually process all of your organic material. The C:N reactions will decompose these materials over time, but not nearly as quickly as microbes will.. plus your microbes are what build a relationship with your roots, not the amendments we use, so we definitely want microbes going as soon as possible. Fortunately, inoculating your soil is incredibly simple now ever since I stumbled across the "Growers Recharge" product that I can't recommend highly enough. You used to have to brew an EWC and/or compost tea of some sort to inoculate your soil with, now you can just grab a jar of recharge, mix 1/2 tsp of it per 1 gallon of water and you're good to go. You could even use a fish hydrolysate/emulsion to inoculate your soil. Fish hydrolysate and emulsion are also products that I just can't recommend highly enough, but as you pointed out they stink! Keep the scent of fish/seafood products in mind if you have cats, I have to be careful watering my veggies with the stuff because it drives my cats insane xD

As for direct sowing the seeds, that is definitely the absolute best method to use to start seedlings.. however it does come at the cost of a learning curve for sure. Using the paper towel method is pretty much foolproof in terms of getting high germination rates.. the problem with the towel method though is that sometimes the roots grow into the towel and have to be ripped out which can cause issues. Furthermore, the seedlings can be planted improperly also causing issues.. and issues at that stage can be life and death.

The reason direct sowing is difficult is because instead of using a towel/bag to control the moisture and humidity, you now have to do so yourself. Your soil has to be perfectly and consistently moist to direct sow. If the soil is too wet the seedling will die the instant the taproot pokes out as it will drown. If the soil is too dry, it straight won't do a damn thing. If the soil gets too dry when the taproot comes out, it can wither and die quite easily. If you're wanting to direct sow, a pump sprayer will be your best friend because it will help keep your soil moist without adding too much water, and at a gentle mist that won't disturb your seeds. Direct sowing is the shit, especially if you direct sow into the final pot. The plants will never see transplant stress and will never experience shock in the seedling stage, which translates into faster growth

Just keep in mind that it is at the cost of a learning curve and is something that will need to be dialed in. I can get 90%+ germination rates all day with the towel method. When I first attempted direct sowing though, my germination rates went down to 40-50%. Using my pump sprayer to water direct sowed seeds has brought my germination rates back up to the 90% they once were at, but it took a bit of troubleshooting on my part.

HTH!

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