Experimenting with “coots” mix soil

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the soil food web and growing with heathy colonies of bacteria and fungi vs. bottle feeding.
Is one better than the other? I’m trying to find out.
I took 2 ilgm blue dream clones of approx the same size.


Both were planted in 7 gal fabric pots last week. The one on the left was sprinkled with mykos and put into ffof. The one on the right was sprinkled with mykos and put into “coots” mix style soil.

One week later I top dressed the “Coot” plant with a cover crop of clover and legumes, and lay alfalfa hay as a mulch.
Today I watered the ffof and used a malted barley/kelp/ful-power/aloe solution to water the “coot” plant.
This is today.


The plant on the right appears to be slightly outpacing the one on the left.

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Is there a synthetic side by side here, or is that coming later?

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Also, since @rap sparked the concept, I took 6 leftover clones and dropped them into the same “coot” mix and immediately placed them into flowering. It’s been 2 weeks.
The clones were a bit rough before transplant. They’ve really taken off.


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I’m doing the “coots” on the right, and my typical earth juice/ffof on the left.
It’ll let me know which works better for me.

I’ve also got 2 Durban poison clones I’m doing the same with.

@johnnystein

That pic reminds me it’s time to sweep. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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Earth juice doesn’t carry omri listing anymore, but that was merely to a change in listing requirements little while back and they refused to change their recipe to comply, right? I guess I’m still struggling with calling it synthetic.

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I wouldn’t exactly call it synthetic either.

I guess I could’ve used fox farms nutes too, but I’m really just trying to see if switching grow styles is worth it to me. I really like the no til concept, as well as large beds vs. individual pots and re amending soil vs piling it in the back yard.

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I am really liking the new soil with coots mix. You can see the nutes I am using on the thread and I am trying to simplify it as much as possible. I will be watching you 6 leftovers to see how you do :smiley:

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I’ve always got leftover clones that sit in too small a container for too long. I always cut more than I need :man_shrugging:t2:
Now I can just plop them into the same container sog style. Thanks for that.

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Keep us updated on this

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It’s been a week since the last post.
The Coot mix blue dream is outgrowing the ocean forest blue dream. (Coot is on the right).

The solo cup experiment is continuing, but the banner clones developed a calcium deficiency this week. I added some powdered dolomite lime to the watering. It seems to have stopped, but only time will tell.


Coot mix plants were watered with RO, malted barley tea. Kelp tea, alfalfa tea and top dressed with ground malted barley. (Not all on the same day). I also add 10ml ful power/gal and 1/4 tsp aloe flakes to the water/ tea just before using.

Ocean forest plant received just RO water this week.

If the explosive growth of the Coot plant continues at this rate, I may have to put it into flower next week.

As expected, the “coot” plant continued on its trajectory of excessive growth. I’m impressed. It has far outgrown the other clone planted in ffof.
“Coot” plant on left in first pic.


“Coot” plant on the right in this one.

This week the ffof got just RO water with a tiny bit of cal mag. The “coot” soil received aloe/ful power watering, a top dressing of malted barley, and today a neem/kelp/aloe/ful power mix.
The real sunlight provided a bit of a reality check.
First was this on the “coot” plant.


A sign of magnesium deficiency. A bit of epsom salt was watered in today. Hopefully that does the trick. Using RO water has its shortcomings.

Then, as I was feeling especially proud about the success of a new soil, there was this…


FUDGE!!! Except, I didn’t say fudge.
WPM. Gahhhhhhhhhhh!
I’ve been running my flower room at 75%rh, and have brought 1 harvest through completely wpm free. I figured I’d finally gotten rid of it.
Now that pesky mildew has returned in my veg area. Sometimes I’m on the verge of quitting all this. It’s pretty frustrating.
But, not today.

I cut off any leaves that showed fruiting bodies, (the white spots) . The wpm was only visible on the 2 plants (Durban poison and Blue dream) That I’d planted into coots mix soil. The ffof plants and clones show nothing. Perhaps the cover crop was retaining just a bit too much moisture?
The fan leaves were fairly large and other than the wpm, healthy.

Then I sprayed all the bigger plants in the veg room (even the visibly not infected) with Organic JMS stylet oil.


It’s scent free, taste free, and supposedly useable in flower. I’d sprayed it on a few wpm plants before and 10 day sprays kept all signs of the wpm away. It also never burnt the plants.
Then I put both Blue dream plants into the flowering room.

Perhaps hasty, since one is infected, but it may prove or disprove the high RH theory for eliminating wpm. I’m on the fence with this…

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And I deliberated exactly as long as it took me to re-read this last post.

Both blue dream plants were immediately removed from the flowering room and put into the “quarantine” tent. No sense risking my flowering room just to see if I’m right. Especially since I already have a fully functional 4’x8’ tent just sitting there. Lights are set to 12/12 as of today.

If I don’t see any signs of wpm by the time they’re into flower. I’ll put them back in to gen-pop.

Also snapped a couple pics of the “rap” style coot grow.
The 3 Bruce banners are screaming for calcium. The dolomite lime must be taking too long. I broke down and added some cal mag to their watering today. Hopefully it does more good than harm. Those discolored leaves will help airflow and light penetration after they’ve fully yellowed and dropped.

Judging by the density of these early flowers, the buds are going to be rock hard.

Curses!! Hope you caught it.

I caught it, that’s the problem :weary:

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Here’s a little update.
The 2 blue dreams were moved into my flowering room last week. I’ve hit them 2x with the stylet oil and there’s been zero sign of wpm. :+1:
They’re both quite big and taking up a lot of room. It’s my first go with the ilgm blue dream, next time I’ll flip sooner.
You can def see the Sativa traits as they flower. I’m in about week 2 right now. “Coot” mix in the right and ffof/earth juice on the left.

While the “coot” mix plant developed much faster than the other, their flowering has been equal. I’m hoping to get better size and or density from the “coot” mix.
“Coot” cola


Ffof/ej cola

Notes: since I’m using RO water I’ve noticed a bit of calcium and magnesium deficiencies in the “coot” and just a hint of magnesium in the other. Not sure if in the future I should try to supplement throughout the grow, or amend the soil with a bit more dolomite lime.

I’ve also been fighting aphids, so I’m sure they’ve taken their toll on the plants health. The leaves look just about spent.

The “Rap” style grow has both impressed and disappointed.
Both the Banner and Purple punch have suffered from calcium deficiencies. The purple punch also began some fox tailing.

The density and size of the banner buds are spectacular. As good as I’ve managed on full sized plants. Pics do not do them justice.


The purple punch… about average for size, but density is definitely higher than I’ve had in the past. You cannot compress these buds easily. They’re that solid

The banners could go another two weeks, and the purple punch are pretty done. I’ll probably put them into the dark tent by the end of the week. I can’t wait to taste them both and compare.

Ha. Just noticed one of these little devils posing for a photo op.

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Today I harvested my “rap” style grow.
The banner certainly loved the soil, the purple punch not so much.

Buds are super dense, but with fox-tailing at the end. It was a bit warm in the flowering room the last month (highs around 80-84f). I’ll blame it on that.
Scent seems to be generally more that my typical ej harvests.

Actual weight will have to be decided in a couple weeks, but from the look of things it should be a min of 2oz. Not terrible for an 11”x15” canopy (1.15sq ft).

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Mr. Slinger-
What did you decide about which soil to use- fox farms or the coots mix? I found coots mix at Build a soils website, and an using a version of it for the first time right now. I was just curious what you decided. Peace…

The blue dreams def had explosive growth during veg. I didn’t see the same explosiveness during flower. In fact, the earth juice-fox farms plant developed slightly more dense buds than the coots mix plant. I noticed no significant difference in taste or effect Between the two.
I think the worm castings I’m using may not be up to par. There def was a lot of calcium and nitrogen drop off by mid flower.

I’m still back and forth between the two methods. Right now I’m doing a coots vs fox farm, but using the same soil food web schedule for both.

Thanks for getting back to me on that. How’d you find out about coot’s mix? I am a new grower so I am just getting started growing (illegal state). Is it OK if I ask you for advice?
I started my first journal a week or so ago. Its called “growing again, or at least trying to”. Your welcome anytime. Peace…