Organic no till soil emitting CO2?

Has anyone experienced their soil putting off mass amounts of CO2? I grow in a sealed room. Yesterday, I added a 3x6 no till bed with 200 gallons of new freshly mixed soil and watered it in. This morning I woke up to my Pulse Pro alerting me that my CO2 levels were 9000+ PPMs. Yes, nine thousand. I thought the Pulse had broken so I started looking into the warranty information on it. Then I went into the room and to my surprise, my autopilot CO2 monitor read "HI". I immediately turned on my fans and within minutes both CO2 monitors started coming down. I left a small intake fan running and my levels are still hovering around 1200PPM which is fine but I've just never heard of freshly mixed super soil emitting CO2, let alone a massive amount like mine was.

Anyone else experience this?

No, and I use a lot of SS. Did you put anything fresh in your SS? It sounds like fermintation. There are only two in my grow room now, but maybe I should put a CO2 meter in. I need to watch that because the grow room is actualy 1/2 of my (would be) lab where I make extracts and edibles. In Oklahoma it's not that easy to have a working lab so you have to be careful not to break any laws. That gets real serious.

Which Super Soil recipe do you use?

DancesWithWeeds said:

No, and I use a lot of SS. Did you put anything fresh in your SS? It sounds like fermintation. There are only two in my grow room now, but maybe I should put a CO2 meter in. I need to watch that because the grow room is actualy 1/2 of my (would be) lab where I make extracts and edibles. In Oklahoma it's not that easy to have a working lab so you have to be careful not to break any laws. That gets real serious.

Which Super Soil recipe do you use?

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15 cu ft Peat Moss
6 cu ft worm castings
6 cu ft compost
1 cu ft Build a soil bio char
56 lbs of Build a soil craft mix
some granular humate
some perlite & pumice

Is your room sealed? My mix is putting off some heat as well so theres definitely some aerobic activity going on. I think theres some mycelium that inoculated the mix and now its emitting CO2. I cant be sure of that but it feels similar to what goes on when I was growing mushrooms.

Blazin Budz said:

15 cu ft Peat Moss
6 cu ft worm castings
6 cu ft compost
1 cu ft Build a soil bio char
56 lbs of Build a soil craft mix
some granular humate
some perlite & pumice

Is your room sealed? My mix is putting off some heat as well so theres definitely some aerobic activity going on. I think theres some mycelium that inoculated the mix and now its emitting CO2. I cant be sure of that but it feels similar to what goes on when I was growing mushrooms.

Click to expand...

Sounds pretty standard to me in a sealed up room. I’ve never seen it that high but I remember one time I mixed a bunch of dirt and it was reading 2000+ on the controller. That seemed to go down quickly. Just be careful. I think over 3000 is toxic but I could be wrong.

green_machine_two9er said:

Sounds pretty standard to me in a sealed up room. I’ve never seen it that high but I remember one time I mixed a bunch of dirt and it was reading 2000+ on the controller. That seemed to go down quickly. Just be careful. I think over 3000 is toxic but I could be wrong.

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I have also had readings of 1500-2000ppm with nothing but soil. And this was in a tent that was not sealed. CO2 is a natural byproduct of the decomposition process and, in fact, is a sign that your soil is working as intended.


Did you let the soil sit for a few days prior to mixing? Regardless, over time, as your organic inputs decompose more your CO2 readings will go down as things decompose more fully.

This actually works out perfectly, because by the time you trigger 12/12, things will have decomposed more, and your readings won't be so high. Does your CO2 monitor double as a controller? You may be able to plug your inline fan into the controller to help bring the CO2 down. Worst case scenario, put your fan on a timer or something.

Give it another 4-6 weeks and your readings will taper down significantly. In the meantime, give yourself a pat on the back because the soil you made is so good that it is producing that much CO2.

All the best.

kratos015 said:

Does your CO2 monitor double as a controller? You may be able to plug your inline fan into the controller to help bring the CO2 down. Worst case scenario, put your fan on a timer or something.

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Thanks for the response. I actually have 3 monitors in my room and one of them is my controller. I used to have a controller and I bought and autopilot monitor just to make sure the controller was being consistent. Then later on down the road, I bought a pulse pro which also has a CO2 monitor in it.

But yea, my controller has a fan exhaust feature on it that I've never used. I actually sent it in for repairs but I plan on using the feature as soon as I get it back.

The organic sector doesn't want the world to know how much co2 comes off a slab of compost. Fungal activity. It's what they do.