Ah lads,
Thank you all for sharing your expertise. Since I'm a rookie, my plan was to experiment with different grow mediums. I definitely like the idea of using Dry's organic compost method a lot (everyone's right btw, great response. Thank you). How do I access your thread? Real Newb here. Tes, I like your simple and clean approach as well. I will definitely take your guys' advice with me.
I'm pretty set on trying hydro with 400 watt hps using the "grow boss's" technique so I knew I wasn't avoiding pH all together. I wanted to put two girls outside in a 7 gallon bucket and just let them go with a Scrog. I thought it sounded simpler and would provide less room for error to use organic soil because I was under the impression that pH wasn't a worry. Me being a newb, I bought the first bag I saw that said organic on it (Roots organic coco mix).
Now I'm at a loss; should I stick with this mix? I can still take it back. Why do you prefer peat mixes, Grease? What's a cec rate? What should I transplant my pods into next? Also, unrelated topic; I noticed today there's small green spots forming on a couple Root Riot pods. Are they junk now? The babies themselves look healthy.
Definitely will be investing in an RO machine as I have no access to a glacier here in Boston. Btw for the record, I am not the real Doug Mirabelli, nor did I play football with you, Grease haha. I made the name a few years back out of randomness.
sorry my man, didn't see you asked me a question there.
so peat is the media I use for the base of my mix, I have tried coco as well and I had much better results with the peat, I speculate it's because of the superior cation exchange capacity.
Now, you inquired on that, and a simple explanation is to think of the tiny pieces of organic material in the soil as sorta like sponges, some can hold more than others, and some don't hold any at all (sand for example)
but essentially the CEC is the ability of the material to hold onto positively charged cations (potassium, calcium, mag, etc)
now that is not the whole story though, as organic material also has the ability to attract anions as well
the actual CEC rate is the measuring of only the negative charged sites in specific, but it's relevant also to the anions as well.
The CEC role is important also to the soils ability to buffer any potential issues as well, from, for example, overfeeding or having ph issues.
it also can play a role in certain soils for it's superior ability to hold water as well, but that can also create issues too, and leads me back to what I always say, and that is organic soil tend to need much more aeration than the typical 33%
especially if the mix is heavy in compost or castings
here is a more specific scientific explanation on it.
http://soilminerals.com/Cation_Exchange_Simplified.htm