When's the Right Time to Top-Dress?

Richard Drysift said:

It’s like you gotta put it in there way before they actually need it. I think it’s a lot better to amend spent soil heavily after a harvest and just give water for most of the grow as opposed to trying to fix deficiencies mid-grow.
Chicken manure is a pretty fast form of N. I throw a handful or two into each container. Also spikes work great. You can diy a spike out of the soil amendments you have or just buy them. Jobes AP spikes are made of feather and bone meal along with mycorrhizae. Btw if myco is not something you use regularly get some in granular form and sprinkle in the hole at each transplant. Plan to transplant to fresh mix at least 3 times during the entire grow; it’s not easy to keep soil in a container highly active longer than 60 days.

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GiovanniJones said:

A confusing thing about organic growing for me is the delayed response of top dressing. With bottled nutes, it seems possible that deficiencies can quickly be corrected as soon as they're observed. However, in organic grows, I've read that it takes about a month or so for organic amendments to turn into nutrition that the plants can use. Hypothetically, if I see, for example, a nitrogen deficiency and I top-dress with something like blood meal or feather meal, it's going to take a month for it to help the plant while it's further starved of nitrogen.

On the other hand, if hypothetically my plants need more food, woule it be better to top-dress with composted soil or earthworm castings because the little microbes have already been working the soil for a while and the nutrients are more readily available?

Am I thinking right here? To summarize, if I use amendments, I'd have to anticipate nutrient needs a month early. If I use composted amendments, the nutrients would help my plants much sooner. Is this correct? If that's the case, I should always have some hot, fresh living soil on hand for top-dressing.

Thanks again.

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youraveragehorticulturist said:

The right time to top dress is a week or two before you need it!

My soil is pretty much Coot's Mix + some fish bone meal. I was consistently getting yellowing starting in the fourth week of flowering. Now I top dress with an All In One Bloom mix (like Joe Blow) during the 2nd week of flower so it's already there when the plants are hungry for it.

I was inspired by Richard Drysift talking about being proactive with his spikes, just sticking a few in early flower.

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GiovanniJones said:

A confusing thing about organic growing for me is the delayed response of top dressing. With bottled nutes, it seems possible that deficiencies can quickly be corrected as soon as they're observed. However, in organic grows, I've read that it takes about a month or so for organic amendments to turn into nutrition that the plants can use. Hypothetically, if I see, for example, a nitrogen deficiency and I top-dress with something like blood meal or feather meal, it's going to take a month for it to help the plant while it's further starved of nitrogen.

On the other hand, if hypothetically my plants need more food, woule it be better to top-dress with composted soil or earthworm castings because the little microbes have already been working the soil for a while and the nutrients are more readily available?

Am I thinking right here? To summarize, if I use amendments, I'd have to anticipate nutrient needs a month early. If I use composted amendments, the nutrients would help my plants much sooner. Is this correct? If that's the case, I should always have some hot, fresh living soil on hand for top-dressing.

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

Richard Drysift said:

It’s like you gotta put it in there way before they actually need it. I think it’s a lot better to amend spent soil heavily after a harvest and just give water for most of the grow as opposed to trying to fix deficiencies mid-grow.
Chicken manure is a pretty fast form of N. I throw a handful or two into each container. Also spikes work great. You can diy a spike out of the soil amendments you have or just buy them. Jobes AP spikes are made of feather and bone meal along with mycorrhizae. Btw if myco is not something you use regularly get some in granular form and sprinkle in the hole at each transplant. Plan to transplant to fresh mix at least 3 times during the entire grow; it’s not easy to keep soil in a container highly active longer than 60 days.

Click to expand...

bum said:

I would not use Jobe's products for cannabis. ESPECIALLY SPIKES. In my research I have found them to be high in heavy metals. Fertilizers are one of the preferred methods of 'hazardous waste recycling' (look it up) and a number of Jobe's retail products have tested into the thousands of ppm for lead, cadmium, and others. Spikes are a convenient way of inconspicuously packing hazardous waste into a retail products, which is totally legal in the glorious USA. This is why all your fertilizer bags container a disclaimer about metals.

If you think OMRI is paying attention, they aren't.

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rkmcdon said:

I up pot from 1 to 10 gallon pots the day i flip to flower and then top dress ewc's, kelp, biolive, guano, neem and MBP (with pumice, rice hull and biochar mixed in for aeration) around day 28-30

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GiovanniJones said:

A confusing thing about organic growing for me is the delayed response of top dressing. With bottled nutes, it seems possible that deficiencies can quickly be corrected as soon as they're observed. However, in organic grows, I've read that it takes about a month or so for organic amendments to turn into nutrition that the plants can use. Hypothetically, if I see, for example, a nitrogen deficiency and I top-dress with something like blood meal or feather meal, it's going to take a month for it to help the plant while it's further starved of nitrogen.

On the other hand, if hypothetically my plants need more food, woule it be better to top-dress with composted soil or earthworm castings because the little microbes have already been working the soil for a while and the nutrients are more readily available?

Am I thinking right here? To summarize, if I use amendments, I'd have to anticipate nutrient needs a month early. If I use composted amendments, the nutrients would help my plants much sooner. Is this correct? If that's the case, I should always have some hot, fresh living soil on hand for top-dressing.

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

Richard Drysift said:

It’s like you gotta put it in there way before they actually need it. I think it’s a lot better to amend spent soil heavily after a harvest and just give water for most of the grow as opposed to trying to fix deficiencies mid-grow.
Chicken manure is a pretty fast form of N. I throw a handful or two into each container. Also spikes work great. You can diy a spike out of the soil amendments you have or just buy them. Jobes AP spikes are made of feather and bone meal along with mycorrhizae. Btw if myco is not something you use regularly get some in granular form and sprinkle in the hole at each transplant. Plan to transplant to fresh mix at least 3 times during the entire grow; it’s not easy to keep soil in a container highly active longer than 60 days.

Click to expand...