Organic Nutrients and CO2

I've been running organics for about 3 months now. I've had two organic cycles but I am having a hell of a time with plant health. The girls look ragged as fuck by the end. I am running many cultivars some fade waaaaay too early. Others seemed to be so lush and greens and happy. Then all yellow nitrogen deprived in just a few days. . I've really enjoyed the smoke so far from it so quality has been ok. But I know the plants can do a lot more. I've been using Gaia 4-4-4 and power bloom 2-8-4 mixed in promix bio stimulant soilless medium. I water with worm castings juice from red wiggles, dark brown sugar snd some Epsom salts also I've been powdering all my egg shells and mixing them in the soil. Plus the tap water is super hard here 330ppm out of the tap. I mix the soil and nutrients in a few large plastic bins and turn it over frequently and add water for a few weeks before use.

Now I am moving everything to a larger room with more plants and I really wanted to do large organic planters to simplify my watering. But I am not confident I can get the organic soil to perform well enough for CO2 supplementation.

Are there any organic nutrients that are immediately available? Or do they need to be broken down by the soil microbes to be considered "organic".??


For example this AK47 started fading week 3. Photo below is from middle of week 3. In week 5 now and I feel like the buds aren't as big as before. And she never turned red or anything on previous cycles.


And below is an Alien OG 4 days ago


And then this is how she looks today


Again faded way too early. She has another month to go roughly.

I need help I don't want to quit the organic thing but my girls are suffering!!

super pictures and plants bud! The leaves color is a concern as you want green as shit all the way till the end if a master gardener. I do like those purple leaves though and it does make good bud. they cool. why don't you dial back the nuts and try seabird guano. Makes a super nut entire grow. Then you can supplement your little heart out of the other organic nerds stuff all you want. I try to dial it in so less effort and time in the garden the better

I would honestly look seriously at this method https://www.rollitup.org/t/greens-probiotic-method.985411/
My first time running it, but I’m sold!

MidnightSun72 said:

I've been running organics for about 3 months now. I've had two organic cycles but I am having a hell of a time with plant health. The girls look ragged as fuck by the end. I am running many cultivars some fade waaaaay too early. Others seemed to be so lush and greens and happy. Then all yellow nitrogen deprived in just a few days. . I've really enjoyed the smoke so far from it so quality has been ok. But I know the plants can do a lot more. I've been using Gaia 4-4-4 and power bloom 2-8-4 mixed in promix bio stimulant soilless medium. I water with worm castings juice from red wiggles, dark brown sugar snd some Epsom salts also I've been powdering all my egg shells and mixing them in the soil. Plus the tap water is super hard here 330ppm out of the tap. I mix the soil and nutrients in a few large plastic bins and turn it over frequently and add water for a few weeks before use.

Now I am moving everything to a larger room with more plants and I really wanted to do large organic planters to simplify my watering. But I am not confident I can get the organic soil to perform well enough for CO2 supplementation.

Are there any organic nutrients that are immediately available? Or do they need to be broken down by the soil microbes to be considered "organic".??


For example this AK47 started fading week 3. Photo below is from middle of week 3. In week 5 now and I feel like the buds aren't as big as before. And she never turned red or anything on previous cycles.
View attachment 4857095

And below is an Alien OG 4 days ago
View attachment 4857092

And then this is how she looks today
View attachment 4857093

Again faded way too early. She has another month to go roughly.

I need help I don't want to quit the organic thing but my girls are suffering!!

Click to expand...

What's that yellow stuff in the background? And a whole plant pic might be more useful to see what's going on with your plants. How are the lowest fan leaves doing? What are the temps in there and other environmental conditions?

Northwood said:

What's that yellow stuff in the background? And a whole plant pic might be more useful to see what's going on with your plants. How are the lowest fan leaves doing? What are the temps in there and other environmental conditions?

Click to expand...

Day temps are 26-27*C. Night temps 18*C or 67-68ish
yellow stuff in the background. Just probably yellowing leaves on some of the older AKs.

here's a full pic of the AK47


Alien OG

This is how the last batch of organic girls came out looking just before harvest. This was a batch of Sandstorm by Cannabiogen cut from a mom I have.


This is them drying,


so the weed quality is good. Smokes really well. Smells better on organic. It's just not as good yield or vigour and the fade is super early. I know they aren't getting what they need.

Your soil should be 1/3 compost or ewc. Sounds to me like soil was not built properly.
If your giving anything but water the majority of the time something is wrong.
Brown sugar?? And epsom ??? And casting juice every water???


Check out my sticky thread for true water only organics.

what’s your watering schedules look like daily???

what size pots are those??

I've been there, started in organics with potting soil and dry organic fertilizer, had okay results. Tried a few liquid organic nutes with pretty good results too. The problem was, my outdoor organic plants were just knocking it out of the park, while indoors they were just okay. What made the biggest difference is...bigger pots and "living soil." Start with a Cootz type mix and really encourage the growth of a rhizosphere. Mix up the soil and let it "cook" for a month or two, and add a few different microbe/fungi products at the start along with some malted barley. Use more than one type of compost in the soil too-worm castings and something else that's really good, like Oly Mountain Fish compost. It's expensive, but this soil will potentially last indefinitely, so it's good to do it right the first time. Once the soil is done, put it into BIG pots. Some people say 15 gallon is the minimum...that sounds about right to me, but 20 is better. I'm cooking up a 4x4 bed right now for indoors, going to do the whole shebang, cover crops, predatory insects, all that good stuff.
The problem you are having stems from not having a well developed rhizosphere, and not enough available nutrients. If you were to take that soil, add a few amendments like alfalfa meal, gypsum, maybe more aeration like pumice, perlite etc, then compost it for another 30 days-the residual fertilizer you already applied would be more available and I bet you'd have a killer grow. When you first start a living soil, people find their later grows are better than their first grow, in the same soil. Little things can have a big impact on your success, like ewc tea, aloe, mulch, etc. Organic growing is a bit complicated to do right in the beginning...and initially costly...but in the long run, over many grows in the same soil, it's super simple and pretty cheap.
Be sure you look up each amendment you use in the heavy metal database. https://apps1.cdfa.ca.gov/fertilizerproducts/ My biggest issue with organics is that some of the most highly recommended soil amendments are universally high in arsenic, cadmium and/or lead. There are always substitutes you can use if you run into any of these.
Good luck!
and fyi, you can still grow killer bud in plain coco + maxibloom-I honestly like both methods, and maxibloom is actually free of heavy metals and cheap to get started. I like organics for my head stash though!

I don't use the worm juice every water. More like every third watering, Epsom salts every third watering as well. I do use the brown sugar every other watering.
Girls get water every 2-3 days. At peak they need water once per day.

They are 1.6 gallons pots 9" diameter at the top.

so I'll pick up some EWC and try that out.
I am starting a big cycle in the next week or two. So do you think I should cook all the soil a while and run synth nutrients in the mean time? Or is there an organic method that I can proceed with without delay?

Your sugars & salts have built up. Brown sugar IMO is a no no. You're feeding it organically but you have ambient air co2 is that correct? No co2 supplemented at all? There are lots of natural fertilizers that can be bioavailable to your plant within 1hr.. IMO you need more air flow to your roots and less compact soil. Go fabric pots or melt more holes in the plastics for drainage(not now tho lol)

Highlife42 said:

Your sugars & salts have built up. Brown sugar IMO is a no no. You're feeding it organically but you have ambient air co2 is that correct? No co2 supplemented at all? There are lots of natural fertilizers that can be bioavailable to your plant within 1hr.. IMO you need more air flow to your roots and less compact soil. Go fabric pots or melt more holes in the plastics for drainage(not now tho lol)

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I had some girls in fabric pots and they do the exact same thing.
Also this promix drains really well. I'd say equal to promix HP easily.

I am currently not supplementing with CO2 and the soil is not keeping up with the girls. I'll cut the sugar ASAP. I am about to start up my bigger room and I don't think my current soil can deal with feeding girls on CO2.

can anyone recommend an economic powder or liquid based organic nutrient line.
Thanks so much for all the advice so far guys it's gold.

Its not the pots. Looks like they are or have been over-watered causing respiration/transpiration issues with the plant not being able to cycle all of its processes. When you add more nutes or organic things that need broken down-You need more molecules that form bonds, to break down energy. Im seeing CO2 being underutilized, when no machines or anything is needed for co2. It creates the last leg of the cycle for the plant to process what you give it. If you feed it big, the plant goes into overdrive wanting to use that energy but also needs everything operating efficiently to use it and get rid of it.

Nutrient line: Get a compost bucket. Collect fruit scraps. Ferment them.

MidnightSun72 said:

I don't use the worm juice every water. More like every third watering, Epsom salts every third watering as well. I do use the brown sugar every other watering.
Girls get water every 2-3 days. At peak they need water once per day.

They are 1.6 gallons pots 9" diameter at the top.

so I'll pick up some EWC and try that out.
I am starting a big cycle in the next week or two. So do you think I should cook all the soil a while and run synth nutrients in the mean time? Or is there an organic method that I can proceed with without delay?

Click to expand...

In terms of the commonly available liquid organic nutrients, either canna bio or bio bizz are pretty decent-I know bio bizz has non detectable levels of heavy metals. A lot of organic nutrients have surprisingly high levels-Earth Juice, Nectar for the Gods, etc. I don't recommend using these nutrients because they are just too crazy expensive. They all try to sell you a dozen bottles and there are always a few that are like $80 per liter. I wouldn't use mineral salts in soil that you intend to be organic, but if this is different soil then I'd go with maxibloom, it's just easy-mode.

Watering is so difficult with small pots and no mulch,the soil must remain damp but not wet.Big pots and a thick layer of mulch is easier but still a bit tricky.As a newb myself ive switched to SIPS,now i can focus on my dirt as watering is taken care off.

Nice bud!

I think plants organic soil (whatever that means) need bigger pots. More room for roots, more room for a healthy bunch of microbes and more volume of amended soil soil to provide nutrients for your plants. Maybe you could move into bigger pots with some more fresh soil right about the time you put your plants in flower. Theoretically this could carry them a little further.

I agree about not using brown sugar anymore.

I think the purple color in your leaves is being caused by some micro nutrient deficiency. Molybdenum or something stupid like that. Anyway the newest way to handle these micro nutrient issues is with Soybean Meal. The beans contain the micronutrients plus amino acids to help with uptake. Plus they provide nitrogen to keep your leaves green. You can top dress with this stuff. Or mix it into your soil and let it break down before you plant,so the good stuff is in your soil. Or you can do some combination.

Definitely get some Work Castings and either mix them in with your soil before you put plants in it. Or use it to top dress plants that are already going.

Organic nutrient sources like kelp meal, crab shell, guano, are Partially available right away. Some portion of most amendments is water soluble and available fast. The rest breaks down and is available more slowly.

Anyway, bottom line is you need to feed your plants More. Moving forward, you've got to decide on a strategy.

You can try to improve your soil with more amendments so it's loaded enough to feed your plants and keep them healthy. So you could gather some alfalfa meal, kelp meal and crab shell, worm castings and dolomite lime (for example) and mix it yourself. Or you could get a pre mixed "nutrient kit" from Build A Soil to add to your pro mix.

You can keep going with your "empty" soil and do weekly top dressing. Maybe use your Gia Green and a tablespoon of soybean meal or alfalfa meal with a cup of worm castings every two weeks.

I don't know much about bottled organic stuff. But that's the 3rd way. Some guys seem to do great with that stuff.