super soil not yielding well, not hot enough?

This is the current version of my own custom super soil. Can't follow subs recipe because I can't get a few of the same ingredients, most importantly, the quality organic potting mix like roots or fox farm.

Here is what I currently run...


20 gallons organic generic potting soil
5 gallons perlite
5 cups worm castings
150 ML Bat Guano (high phos)
150 ML Fish bone meal (high phos)
300 ML rock phosphate
300 ML Green Sand
400 ML Blood Meal
250 ML Dolomite lime
250 ML Epsom salts

Mix everything extremely well in a cement mixer, and dump into large garbage cans (this recipe fills two large cans) and let sit for a month or so. I then fill 5 gal pots 75% full of this mix, then just the organic potting soil on the top 25% with a little added perlite.

I've also been feeding with some earth worm casting tea (1 cup ewc with 2 tbsp molasses, and 2tbsp liquid kelp) bubbled vigorously for three days and then fed to the girls at a diluted ration of 2 cups of tea mixed into 1 gallon of water. They get this every other week or so.

Plants are currently around 4-5ft tall, 49 days into flowering under 600 watt hps - all plants getting plenty of light, fresh air, and watered when pots feel light to lift.

Problem: at 49 days into flower, I'm seeing very poor results with regard to the bud development. At this point with regular chemical nutes I was about twice as heavy as they are now, and with only a couple weeks to go until chop, I'm concerned I've really wasted my time with the organics this run. I know it's not exactly sub's recipe, but he boasts growth and yield similar to hydro with his organic soil mix, and I'm looking worse than just regular ol sunshine mix #4 and bottled nutes, so obviously I'm not doing something right.

I was hoping you all in the know could take a quick look at my mix recipe, and let me know if there is anything I'm missing, or if I just have been under-feeding or something. I have a very hard time distinguishing nutritional deficiencies, so I just don't know how to tell if they aren't getting enough food, or if I'm over feeding them and burning them.

I'm running multiple strains, and all look healthy, but just dismal yields all around so far.

Again, they look healthy, but the buds just aren't packing on any density.

Important Note: Around 35 days of flowering I started to notice flowering progress slowing down quite a bit. At this point, they had been in the 5 gallon buckets with the 75% super soil for 4 weeks of veg, and 5 weeks of flowering.

Maybe they just ran out of food? I have no idea how to tell what is left in the soil for them to eat, so someone with more experience in organic soil mixes, please help me out.

Thanks in advance.

ALSO: I decided to top-dress each pot with 1 cup of earth worm castings, 2 tablespoons of high P bat guano, and 2 tablespoons of organic power bloom mix (2-9-4), and then water it in good. I've seen a little bit of an improvement over the past three days since I top-dressed, but it's hard to notice.

Ok, so in Summary:

• Is my soil mix lacking something, and is this why my buds aren't filling out?
• How can you tell with an organic soil mix when you need to ammend with more food? Should I just always assume that after living in the pots for 8 weeks, they will be depleted?
• How long does it take powdered organic fertilizers like guano to "kick in" so to speak. With chemical nutes, I would see an improvement rapidly if there was a deficiency, but with organics, I have yet to see anything happen quickly. I never know if I've just not added enough extra food, or if there is just a major delayed reaction time between when I feed, and when the plant starts to look better.

Thanks for any and all advice you can offer. Appreciate you all taking the time to look over my problem.

Bug

brew a guano/wormcasting tea

there is alot of things wrong with your supersoil. First off i think you have too much perlite in there, not enough worm castings, fish bone meal, or any of the amendments your sopposed to use. theres no point in adding rock phosphate because it releases so slowly in the soil that there is no benefit. and you need some azomite. Theres so much shit wrong with that recipe i suggest you go back to the original super soil recipe and follow that

75% is alot. Sub said in hsi last episode of Weed Nerd #14 that dosent use much unless it was "?" i forgot but one strain made go WOW thats alot of SS.

You two took the words from my head

i use 75% because it's not as as subs.

These are the ingredients i have access to. What to you think would be a better mix with the ingredients I already have?

I can't follow the exact recipe. I just simply can't get a lot of products where I live.

Also, I use Greensand which is loaded with trace elements, so I don't think the Azomite is needed too.

Order online.....that's what I did....only thing I bought locally was ewc and roots organic......

Too expensive to order soil online. I'm limited to generic organic potting mix, or bales of sunshine and promix.

No roots or fox farm to be found anywhere.

The rest of the ingredients, I can manage to get locally or order online.

That's exactly my point......everything else is cheap and easy to order online......

I would personally use a lot more worm castings. Most people I know have worm castings account for 25-50% of their soil mix.

Edit: How's your N rating, it seems a little bit low to me, but I wouldn't know without looking at all the NPK ratios. Do you know how to calculate weighted percentages? If so, see if you need to add more N. Mexican Bat guano is an excellent source of N if it is available to you. It looks like you already have Jamaican bat guano, tends to be high in P.

Hi

250 ml dolomite is what sub use for 400L of mix.It seem very high for only 20 gal.

it's used to control pH , may be your problem.

More earth worm Castings lots of trace elements......Bone meal, Crushed oyster shells

Buggins said:

I can't follow the exact recipe. I just simply can't get a lot of products where I live.

Also, I use Greensand which is loaded with trace elements, so I don't think the Azomite is needed too.

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Azomite is one of the VERY few things that I'll pay shipping on. It's that worth it. I also use greensand and other sources of trace.

Your mix looks light, but it's hard to tell with all the different measurements. Can you get everything to one set?

Gallons and ML and such just don't compute well for me. Metric or Standard, but not both. LOL

Wet

Wetdog said:

Azomite is one of the VERY few things that I'll pay shipping on. It's that worth it. I also use greensand and other sources of trace.

Your mix looks light, but it's hard to tell with all the different measurements. Can you get everything to one set?

Gallons and ML and such just don't compute well for me. Metric or Standard, but not both. LOL

Wet

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Sorry, that is a little confusing. I've added the metric amounts, as well as the NPK values for the ferts I'm using.

80 L (20 gal) local organic potting mix
20L (5 gal) perlite
1.25L (5 cups) worm castings
400 ml Blood Meal (12-0-0)
300 ml rock phosphate (0-3-1)
300 ml Green Sand

250 ml Dolomite lime
250 ml Epsom salts
150 ml Bat Guano (0-15-1)
150 ml Fish bone meal (4-22-1)

What do I need to do in order to make this mix yield well?

I have a feeling the roots organic soil that sub uses adds a great degree of 'richness' to the mix. It's so hard to find decent organic potting soil around here, and the stuff I found had no npk values listed, so I have no idea what it's actually providing for the plants.

In fact, because of this, I was considering going back to sunshine mix or promix for the base soil because it's easy to get. If this was the case, would I just have to increase the amounts of my nutes by about 10-20% or something?

Thanks for the help folks.

I've through that before.

I think your mix is fine. You got a lot of perlite in there but that's ok too.

ARe you feeding/top dressing your plants with a nice thick layer of SS mix at days 25-30 as Subcool would recommend when using his recipe? I think your plants is hungry -pictures would help.

I find keeping the soil water moist instead of putting it through the wet/dry paradigm cycle works much so much better for the plants and yield. Water makes amended nutes more available which is especially important for the first 5 weeks into 12/12.

I did not top dress.

Maybe this was the problem.

To me it seems it takes a lot longer for organic nutes to take effect. I top dressed with 1 cup of EWC, and two tablespoons of an organic power bloom formula (2-9-4), last week (around week 6/7) but this may have been too little too late.

Buggins said:

I did not top dress.

Maybe this was the problem.

To me it seems it takes a lot longer for organic nutes to take effect. I top dressed with 1 cup of EWC, and two tablespoons of an organic power bloom formula (2-9-4), last week (around week 6/7) but this may have been too little too late.

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In general, with organics it DOES take longer to see an effect. Organic nutes must first be broken down into ionic form by beneficial bacteria. With chemical fertilizers the nutrients are immediately available since they are already in mineral form, ready for uptake by the plant. Organics is an art form and takes patience and adjustments to your recipe to get things right. You'll get there.

Ok, so I did some calling around today to try and find some decent base soil so I can use Sub's exact recipe. Nope. Nothing. Can't even order fox farm or roots soil, they won't allow it across the border.

Everywhere has sunshine mix #4, and Promix HP. Does anyone know what I would have to add to sunshine or promix in order to make it an acceptable base soil?

If I can figure out how to replace the base soil, then I can just use the rest of sub's recipe to the T, and thus cut down on a lot of my guess-work.

If this has been covered somewhere else, just let me know, but so far multiple searches haven't turned up much.

jesus of Cannabis said:

75% is alot. Sub said in hsi last episode of Weed Nerd #14 that dosent use much unless it was "?" i forgot but one strain made go WOW thats alot of SS.

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Pretty sure it was Jack's Cleaner.