Is soil significantly slower than hydro?

I've been running hydro for awhile and the only reason I wanna switch is because my hydro buds don't have the same taste from when I used to run soil. It's been awhile tho and my hydro plants grow pretty quick. Trying not to set myself back another 2-3 weeks

About a week. Some less, some more - strain wise that is..

It's more worth the wait for the soil in my book.......Boom Done on that!

Hydro will kill it in veg.In bloom ive found its about the same.My first try at dirt was an old plant that was pre flowering a lot.7 days into 12/12 it already had little Christmas tree shaped buds.As said above pending on strain.

My theory is most soil growers are riding a high 5s ph, barely getting any cal mag or phos, so they switch to bottles because "ph don't matter in soil" according to the internet. Or they have no microbes and think organic sucks.

The fastest way to grow soil is to run a wick in fabric pot. John Wick Tek I just coined that

I grew hydro for years and switched to organic soil and never will go back. I don't notice much if any difference in time or yield and the quality is superior. The hardest part about switching is getting used to not constantly checking ph and ppm and water temperature and for slime and to make sure the pumps are all running and the air stones aren't clogged and on and on. Not to mention the endless additives and nutrient res changes and always new nutrient lines to try or better yielding methods with more cool stuff to buy. Now I mostly just water and train my plants so I feel like I'm actually doing something as a "gardener". It's so simple it's almost boring. Lol

Personally I don't give a flying fling-flang about what my pot tastes like. It's the medicinal effects and the buzz I'm after.

I've been screwing around with soil/soilless the last few years and sick of it. I can triple my yields with a lot less hassle doing DWC so I'll soon be getting back into that. I'm getting into breeding for fem seeds and will use the pile of ProMix I have for those plants but to bulk up on meds it's DWC all the way.

10% of my crops will get a nice trim, slo-dy and good cure for some really decent smoke but the rest will get a quick snip to remove anything without sugar on it then processed for oil fresh off the plant to preserve as much of the terpenes etc as possible. Either drop the fresh buds into a pure hydrocarbon like naphtha to strip the resin out or into oils like coconut, MCT, olive etc for edibles full of the whole plant extract. No fancy PITA trimming, curing or other annoying BS needs to go on for that.

ChrispyCritter said:

I grew hydro for years and switched to organic soil and never will go back. I don't notice much if any difference in time or yield and the quality is superior. The hardest part about switching is getting used to not constantly checking ph and ppm and water temperature and for slime and to make sure the pumps are all running and the air stones aren't clogged and on and on. Not to mention the endless additives and nutrient res changes and always new nutrient lines to try or better yielding methods with more cool stuff to buy. Now I mostly just water and train my plants so I feel like I'm actually doing something as a "gardener". It's so simple it's almost boring. Lol

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You were just doing DWC all wrong is what it was. Some people are just better off finding what works for them and doing it that way. I find DWC easy as hell compared to playing in the dirt. Others find the opposite so we should all do what works best for them.

What's BEST is what works best for you and we could sure save a lot of bickering and BS if we all allowed each other to do their own thing without trying to convert each other like we're all a bunch of freakin' proselytizers screaming DO IT MY WAY OR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HELL!!!! LOL

Good luck and good growing!

Huge difference between soil weed and hydro, imo.
Taste matters to me, terps also.
If u are gonna sell yeah hydro or autos are the way to go. Head stash? MUST be soil grown.

OldMedUser said:

Personally I don't give a flying fling-flang about what my pot tastes like. It's the medicinal effects and the buzz I'm after.

I've been screwing around with soil/soilless the last few years and sick of it. I can triple my yields with a lot less hassle doing DWC so I'll soon be getting back into that. I'm getting into breeding for fem seeds and will use the pile of ProMix I have for those plants but to bulk up on meds it's DWC all the way.

10% of my crops will get a nice trim, slo-dy and good cure for some really decent smoke but the rest will get a quick snip to remove anything without sugar on it then processed for oil fresh off the plant to preserve as much of the terpenes etc as possible. Either drop the fresh buds into a pure hydrocarbon like naphtha to strip the resin out or into oils like coconut, MCT, olive etc for edibles full of the whole plant extract. No fancy PITA trimming, curing or other annoying BS needs to go on for that.

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What ?

Mullalulla said:

What ?

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If you can't read English then run that thru Google translate maybe.

@OldMedUser I agree what works for us is best for us. I'm not trying to change anyone or argue about it at all. I do care about taste along with effects so I was just pointing that out. No debate here with me about anthing. There are a lot of ways to poke the same hole. There's even more than one hole to poke. Rock on roller.
Did you say triple your yield with dwc? Wow! I'm pretty sure I wasn't doing my hydro 3 x wrong but damn.

OldMedUser said:

If you can't read English then run that thru Google translate maybe.

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OldMedUser said:

Personally I don't give a flying fling-flang about what my pot tastes like.

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I think it would be this. The different tastes are what most like more than effect. I dont mind smoking twice as much if the flavor is appealing. High test that tastes like shit is a disappointment to me

Boatguy said:

I think it would be this. The different tastes are what most like more than effect. I dont mind smoking twice as much if the flavor is appealing. High test that tastes like shit is a disappointment to me

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I'm not that much of a connoisseur when it comes to pot even after 50+ years of smoking everything from old mexican brick pot as a teen to some of the so-called primo organic stuff. The worst stuff I've smoked is street pot that tastes like bug spray and burns like a piece of old hemp rope but knocks you on your ass. Yuck! A buddy buys legal pot from the store in the city here in Alberta and it tastes crappier than the worst pot I've ever grown and I grew my first buds in 1978.

10 years ago I grew a couple clones from the same mom. One in some special organic soil I bought at the hydro store in Edmonton and one in a DWC ScroG. Dried and cured the same way I couldn't tell the difference nor could any of the dozen or so friends I asked to test it. I gave them an eighth each in two baggies just marked A & B and asked for feedback. Most claimed it was the same pot and I was just jerking them around. Only one or two actually picked the organic over the hydro. As many chose the hydro as the best so no significance there.

The only real difference of note was I got 8oz off the DWC and 2.5 oz off the organic one.

There are plenty of organic growers who can do a hell of a lot better than I can so more power to them but it sure ain't my thing.

If I didn't need pot for medicine I wouldn't bother growing at all. I'd find a buddy that likes growing good pot and just buy a 1/2 oz a month off him/her. Last March the wife was diagnosed with tumors on her liver that we still don't know for sure what they are but I'm making RSO for her the last 6 months and if she finally gets a proper diagnosis and it's bad news then we're gonna need lots more. She hasn't smoked pot or used it any other way for 15 years. Doesn't drink either but like me smokes way too much tobacco. I probably smoke less than a half gram/day doing single hits of sativa in my pipe for depression but eat a good heaping tsp of CBD cocobudder every evening for the arthritis. Seems to help with prostate issues too.

OldMedUser said:

The only real difference of note was I got 8oz off the DWC and 2.5 oz off the organic one.

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This figure has me wanting to try hydro. I havent seen anyone pulling that much more yield per watt, soil over hydro.
Wasnt trying to knock any form of growing, just surprised that flavor doesnt matter to you. Not saying organic tastes any better

Sorry to hear about your wife. I hope those tumors go away or turn out benign. I really do.

Soil is definitely slower is terms of the way plants absorb what is in it. The vast amounts of oxygen a plants root system has access to in a hydro grow has a lot to do with why things go so fast. That and the speed of soluble nutrients: can always use nutrients to correct a deficiency. In an active organic soil high amounts of chelated salts can be detrimental to fungi and microbial bodies that feed the plants and help regulate ph. Nutes used in soil defeats the purpose imo but I also understand that clean water sources and access to compost is not the same for everyone.
In a living soil grow you need to give them what is needed before it is. You have to add things already decomposed or ready to break down before the roots ever touch the earth. If you put everything for a full grow cycle into the mix at the start then all you'll need to give the plants is water.
Roots need to breathe; O2 to the roots is as important as everything else. This is why hydro kicks soils ass every time in a yield contest given the same veg time. So that being said; organically grown buds represent the full flavor profile of the cultivated strain. I never fully realized this until I started growing in living soi; will never go back.
Synth nutrients can give the weed a wierd taste; no matter how well you flush at the end some of whatever soluble stuff you exposed the roots to will be absorbed into the flesh of the plant. This is why wine grapes taste different from different regions with different mineral content and ph of the soil. So I say grow your own head stash in organic soil. If you are looking for a return on investment/profits grow a hydro system.

Soil is so lazy

Samwell Seed Well said:

Soil is so lazy

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lol,ya it is boring.IM gonna try dirt for this summers outdoor grow.God help me! Im a hydro guy.

I tried dirt once the come down was to long

Im all about that

Shaved compressed wood right now, so light and porosive

Boatguy said:

This figure has me wanting to try hydro. I havent seen anyone pulling that much more yield per watt, soil over hydro.
Wasnt trying to knock any form of growing, just surprised that flavor doesnt matter to you. Not saying organic tastes any better

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People growing well in hydro seem to not do well in organics and vice-versa tho I'm sure those with truly green thumbs can do well in both. I'm not one of those people tho and until I got into growing pot couldn't keep a house plant alive to save my own life.

We always had a big productive veggie garden at home when I was a kid and I spent a lot time out there helping mom but that stuff didn't stick I guess. She taught me how to cook early on and when it comes to measuring and making things work right I'm good at that so DWC fits better for my analytical type mind I guess. I went back to school in my 30s to get a diploma in environmental chemistry and my precision work in the various labs were what got me thru because I sucked at most exams. Labs were worth 40% of the total marks for each course and I rarely got less than 90% for lab write-ups tho often got less than 50% on exams. I think organic growing depends on too many esoteric variables where hydro is much more precise. I can never tell for sure what's going on in soil but can read my plants like a book in DWC.

It doesn't cost much do set up a DWC grow with a RubberMaid tub. $10 for a tub that holds 35L or the taller ones that hold 50L. $25 for a decent dual outlet air pump, $10 for a couple of 12" airstones and another $5 for some silicon air tubing at any PetSmart store. Nute cost depends on what you have to buy. I use AN 3-part for DWC and bought gallon jugs of all 3 for $124 a few years ago but you can get 1L bottles for $40 or so. A small, 25oml jug of Big Bud is all you really need tho I bought the 500g of powder when I got the nutes for $80. The powder has a much longer shelf life and in bulk like that is a lot cheaper if you use it all. They sell smaller packs of the powder too.

With the AN pH Perfect nutes and RO water you never have to check pH. Just ppm and you don't ever have to change nutes if you don't want too tho after the stretch is when I might change once to change feeding to Lucas Formula style. Certainly don't have to change nutes during veg. Just check ppm and add small amounts of nutes to keep it at the target level or raise it as plants get bigger. Do not follow AN's nute charts! Or anyone elses either. I start clones at 300ppm or 1ml/L each of all 3 nutes and work up from there as the plants get bigger to no more than 800 for all but the hungriest kushes. Less is more!

Never having to worry about the pH is why I recommend AN. Huge time saver and the base nutes often cost less than other 3-part ones. They work pretty damn good too and I used them long before they came out with the pH Perfect technology.

If it doesn't work out you can probably flog the gear and nutes to get half your investment back and unless you kill the plants the pot you get should at least cover your losses.