Soil Amendments: Trying to K.I.S.S without out oversimplifying

Hey everyone. Long time listener, first time caller

I'm looking at changing up our current "soil" mix and was hoping to get some feedback.

We grow indoor and currently use (recipe is from my former grower):
1 bale(3.8cuft) Promix MP
5 gallons ewc
1 gallon insect frass
4 cups azomite
3 gallons perlite

We mix fresh for each new crop and do not let the mix cook, usually planting 48 hours after mixing and watering in with RO>CalMag>Age Old Grow. We plant directly in the soil without layering soil at the bottom and coco choir on top. We are on municipal water so we water with RO water>CalMag and we feed with RO>CalMag>Age old grow/bloom every 3-5 days.

We get good results but i was wanting to try to boost my mix and start recycling it as well. After reading quite a bit here and a few other places, I was concerned my mix was oversimplified. Unfortunately the more i read, the more I want to add (the options are seemingly endless!). I finally settled on this mix below and was hoping to get some feedback from those with more experience than i have.

1 bale (3.8cuft) Promix MP (we already have quite a bit of this so I need to use it)
5 gallons ewc
1 gallon insect frass
4 cups azomite
3 cups fish bone meal
3 cups kelp meal
2 cups alfalfa meal(I put a little less of this in because I read to be careful as it could be "hot")
3 cups neem meal
1 cup gypsum
1 cup epsom salt
3 gallons perlite

My thought is to mix this fresh, then at harvest I'll no till this into a compost pile. Next crop will be another fresh mix and by the time that crop is harvested, the soil from this crop should be ready to reamend and reuse.

With this new mix i hope to have a fortified enough soil to change the feeding to RO>CalMag>Age Old Grow/Bloom>Molasses once a week without additional top dress or tea.

SO many questions!
1. The Promix has mycorrhizae and the ewc and frass have beneficial bacteria. Is this sufficient or do i need to consider adding Rhizobacteria or Trichoderma?
2. How does the amendment list look? Am i getting too "carried away"? Is it reasonable to expect some benefit from this or would i be just as well off sticking with my current, simpler mix?
3. How do the amendment proportions look?
4. Recommend any deletions, additions or substitutions to this list?
5. Should i be ok planting straight into this?
6. Can I reasonably expect this soil to be sufficient for the once a week feeding mentioned without teas or top dressing? Obviously i will monitor for a address any deficiencies as they arise. I'm just wondering if i need to go ahead and plan for a more frequent or different feeding schedule
7. Any obvious nutrient excesses or deficiencies stick out with this mix? (I was a little concerned about the combination of epsom salt and gypsum both because of the double dose of sulfur and because we use cal mag with our watering (3ml/gal) and feeding (5ml/gal)
8. I like sulfur for terps. Will the sulfur in this mix last through harvest or do i need to consider additions during the grow?
9. Is there much risk of fertilizer burn with this mix?
10. When its time to compost the soil, I'll cut the stalk at soil level. Is it beneficial to put the stalk and leaves through a chipper and add back into the compost pile?

I'm sure i'll have more questions, but that will get me started. Thanks for any and all help or criticism!

What is the expanded/fluffed out, amount of the bale of promix, in CF or gallons?

The amounts of stuff you want to add makes no sense until you have the amount of 'base' mix you're adding it to.

*I* make from scratch, but my 'base' mix is always 2cf and I measure stuff accordingly.

Wet

1 bale of Promix is 3.8cuft.

I’ve just started using promix myself. The 3.8 bales claim they are compressed and expand to 7 cubic foot loose. Here learning myself going the same route. My current recipe is untested so following along!

A bale of pro-mix expands to 6cf just opened one tonight but everything u mentioned should be fine . One thing I noticed u said was about the alfalfa meaI don’t think that is a hot mix , hot mixes are blood meal, Guanos, stuff like thatmaybe neem seed not sure about that tho.
I use about 40% pro mix bx
30% Malibu’s best pro mix
30% ewc
And down to earth bio-live, and DTE rose and flower for nutes,
And bi-weekly compost teas,

as for you if ur not gonna do compost teas make sure u water with molasses often to keep those microbes alive,
And I contacted multiple companies about letting soil “cook” and although it allows the nutes to become more available it also wastes valuable nutes while ur letting it cook , I mix everything when I transplant and have not noticed a difference

Thank you @M.O. and @CTGrown203 ! I had thought the 3.8cuft listed on the package was uncompressed. I appreciate the info!
@CTGrown203 , I also appreciate that feedback on cooking the mix. I will be doing molasses every week with the feeds, which i think will be enough to keep the microbes going

So, if 1 bale is 6-7 cuft uncompressed, and I'm adding approx 1 cuft in ewc and frass, i have a total of 7-8 cuft of mix and I believe the proper amount of amendments is 2-3 cups per cuft of mix?

This will keep you from spending money on microbes.

LinguaPeel said:

This will keep you from spending money on microbes.

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Thank you! I get an audio render error when i try to play it, but i'll try an a different computer tomorrow. I assume from your post, the point is you don't need to spend money on microbe inoculants? I'm curious as to why that is (hopefully at 3 hours long, they took the time to explain ).

I appreciate you taking the time to post this!

keep it simple... pick out a brand of powdered organics that already has most of the things you want to buy individually and just add that to the soil mix. Gelato 4 weeks third run of Promix Organic, WC, Perlite. Dr Earth Bud and Bloom and Agricolas Minerals, other than two light teas, water only.



OG Kush from second run of the same soil

Nice looking plants @Hash Hound and thanks for the advice!

LinguaPeel said:

This will keep you from spending money on microbes.

Click to expand...

3 hours long! can you sum it up as to why I shouldn't spend $ on microbes?

@Hash Hound in response to your keep it simple comment, i ran across this today


I did a search and only found 2 mentions of it on this site, but the mix looks terrific. Was curious if you, or anyone else, have any experience with mother earth meal mix?

I've never heard of it, and it might be to high in nitrogen for flowering.
I think any decent all in one will work.
All in one organics I've used with good/great results DrEarth, Fox Farm Happy Frog, Epsoma, and Roots makes a like of dry powders they claim they did all the work for you for supersoil in their Uprising line. I mostly use the bloom versions but have also used the veg. Never had a bad grow.
A lot of guys like Gia Green and Down to Earth but I have no experience with either.
And there's a line I'm trying called Organically Done I just ordered.
https://organicallydone.com/products.html

And I recently started using a mineral mix and the plants seem to love it.
I trying to dial in the amounts, but I'm at 50/50 Minerals/PowdersOrganics and you see the results above.
http://www.soilminerals.com/Agricolas4-8-4_MainPage.htm

Hash Hound said:

I've never heard of it, and it might be to high in nitrogen for flowering.
I think any decent all in one will work.
All in one organics I've used with good/great results DrEarth, Fox Farm Happy Frog, Epsoma, and Roots makes a like of dry powders they claim they did all the work for you for supersoil in their Uprising line. I mostly use the bloom versions but have also used the veg. Never had a bad grow.
A lot of guys like Gia Green and Down to Earth but I have no experience with either.
And there's a line I'm trying called Organically Done I just ordered.
https://organicallydone.com/products.html

And I recently started using a mineral mix and the plants seem to love it.
I trying to dial in the amounts, but I'm at 50/50 Minerals/PowdersOrganics and you see the results above.
http://www.soilminerals.com/Agricolas4-8-4_MainPage.htm

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Found this the other day and might have used it if I needed more soil. It might give you a selection big enough.
I went with this other soil because I'm lazy and don't grow very much at a time. The soil mix works nice but they sell other stuff too.
https://shop.kindsoil.com/products/kind-soil-5lb-bag

Thank you both!

Hash Hound said:

keep it simple... pick out a brand of powdered organics that already has most of the things you want to buy individually and just add that to the soil mix. Gelato 4 weeks third run of Promix Organic, WC, Perlite. Dr Earth Bud and Bloom and Agricolas Minerals, other than two light teas, water only.

View attachment 4555565

OG Kush from second run of the same soil

View attachment 4555568

Click to expand...

Hash Hound said:

keep it simple... pick out a brand of powdered organics that already has most of the things you want to buy individually and just add that to the soil mix. Gelato 4 weeks third run of Promix Organic, WC, Perlite. Dr Earth Bud and Bloom and Agricolas Minerals, other than two light teas, water only.

View attachment 4555565

OG Kush from second run of the same soil

View attachment 4555568

Click to expand...

Looks tasty! What ratios did you do on the mix?

1qft Promix Organic, 1g WC, 1g perlite, 1/2c Agricola, 1/2c DrEarth B&B cook for a month.

next run I want to try the Agricolas by itself to see how it works.

rkmcdon said:

I like sulfur for terps. Will the sulfur in this mix last through harvest or do i need to consider additions during the grow?

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Would be interesting to hear others input on this. I used epsom salts in my outdoor soil mix last year and felt it was a waste because it's water soluble. Was looking at using gypsum for calcium and sulphur this year instead. I read that it won't affect the levels very much because it needs to be broken down, but I have doubts because eggshells need to be broken down too and they are commonly used.

I just add buildasoils craft blend. It's got all the goodies in there

bio live is best mix IMO ore mix IMO. I’ve found it’s best to stay away from pot branded mixes, you’re paying for a lot of marketing and pseudoscience BS. Epsoma tomato tone is another good option