Help making decisions... strain, media, etc

@MattyBear Roger that… I really have no problem tossing after each grow. I’m not going to be doing any kind of volume, and there is a LOT to be said for being able to sanitize and not carry over any “nasties” from one crop to another.

Coir… pith right? I’m not sure if it is any more avail or not. My closest lady has dumped most all the gardening stuff in favor of the animal side. I’ll check a few other garden supply places.

I’m a little concerned about coir… never used/prepped it. I HAVE built soil from scratch starting with Canadian peat bales, vermiculite, and 6 kinds of different composts… worked great for SFG, but I don’t want that in my house.

Might consider building peat/verm/perl/dolo/ et al. soilless sub if I can figure out the Mych stuff and ratios.

Thanks again!

Back over to working on the grow space design:

I gotta get the ventillation basics on order and figure out how to hack up a few controllers…

The coco I bought comes prewashed and ready to use out of the bag. The bricks need to be rinsed and amended with calmag to charge before using. I prefer buying the washed coco because it’s easier and I’m lazy haha

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@MattyBear Well… pre-washed sounds like it could be workable, should I decide to go that route. :smiley:

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Went media shopping today… Came up with NADA, zilch, a big fat zero!! :frowning:
Not a shop with hydro/soil-less supplies within 100+ miles. I’ve got a coupe of more places to call tomorrow, but it is looking more and more like I’ll have to ship the stuff in or compromise bigly… no soil-less media AT ALL. Pretty much nothing that I want except basic amendments like bone and blood meal and a few micronutes in bags with dust on them.

On the PLUS side, I got my Apera PC-60 5-in-1 meter calibrated and ran tests on my two water supplies:

Tap (via undercounter 2-stage filtration):
pH - 6.43
EC - 0.274 mS
TDS - 194 ppm
Sal - 140 ppm
Sample Temp: 75.4 F/ 24.1 C

Well (ran for 60 seconds first, but first time pumped in months):
pH - 7.93
EC - 0.426 mS
TDS - 303 ppm
Sal - 210 ppm
Sample Temp: 73.6 F/ 23.1 C

Well water had a distinct sulphur smell that I rarely pick up… probably from sitting idle. Wonder what is making the pH so high?

@MattyBear @Hogmaster @ThcinKC

You around Walmart order it online and you can pick it up

Pro-Mix HP? Which one? I looked and couldn’t find it… at least not for less than Amazon…

@MattyBear - WHICH Pro-Mix HP? Again… sorry…

PRO-MIX HP BIOSTIMULANT
PRO-MIX HP BIOFUNGICIDE
PRO-MIX HP MYCORRHIZAE
PRO-MIX HP BIOFUNGICIDE + MYCORRHIZAE <— cheapest I can find right now.
or just plain ole PRO-MIX HP

Regular pots with drain holes, or fabric pots?

Thanks!

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Pretty sure it’s this one or the one with bio fungicide

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Yea! I’m gonna grab a couple of 2.8 cu ft. bags of the PRO-MIX HP BIOFUNGICIDE + MYCORRHIZAE from Amazon then… It’s the cheapest right now, and Prime shipping… which is unusual for bulk items. This should last me a couple or three grows.

Do you have container recommendations?

3 or 5 gallon containers are most popular for indoor grows. I’d get the fabric pots if you can

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Thanks @MattyBear. Dropped an order for 5 gal smart pots, 1 gal nursery pots, 2 sizes of thick clear saucers for underpot, and finally found (and ordered) the domes that fit my Heavy Duty “PermaNest” 1020 trays. They are only 3" tall domes, so I hope they work for starts.

The acquisition list is finally starting to shrink a bit…

Still “need”:

  • Air stone and pump for aerating/mixing nutrient solutions
  • Mycorrhizal Inoculant Powder form (no idea which to get, Root Magic?) Saw this on several videos… Seems to make sense to take back small advantages in view of the high stress of transplanting. Right or Wrong?
  • Solo Cups - no, I really don’t have any in the house. :slight_smile:
  • Cloning powder (unsure as to brand or concentration)
  • Additional pH and TDS calibration solutions to back up the tiny bottles that came in the kits.
  • pH Up and pH Down - No idea which brand to trust here. Recommendations?
  • pipettes - Likely disposable, since I am not really set up to clean/sanitize labware here.
  • syringes - various sizes to measure liquid concentrates accurately. I only have one 250 ml graduated cylinder
  • Pruning and trimming scissors (I use Fiskars for other scissors, but I’m guessing the top notch Bonsai scissors makers would have something to offer here, too)
  • Some sort of magnifying device: microscope or a cell phone clip on… this can await additional research, but I’d like to have it on-hand. Just want to be able to take up-close, clear pics with SGS8 camera.

Anyone have any compelling recommendations as to specific brands, et al. for any of the above stuff?

@dbrn32 @Hogmaster @MattyBear @ThcinKC @AAA @TommyBahama

The grow room stuff started arriving today as well, so it will be a busy weekend. Yea! :sweat_smile:

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I’m using this. Can’t tell if it’s “working”, but seems to be good:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077CS6B18/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_qc2YCbQR9Q6MG

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Spent some hours reading about Mycorrhizal fungi today… Turns out there is a whole doctorate to be had just on this subject. Bottom line… not just any Myco will work as intended… supposedly, if you mix endo and ecto types on a plant that only needs endo, you may just be shooting yourself in the foot… or at least wasting time/$$. Cannabis needs endo… So an endo only myco product is better than a combo… Apparently it’s NOT just a who has the highest species count.

Also read that it is possible that a high phosphorous level in the soil MAY prevent ANY myco activity… though the evidence was weaker on this…

Lots of other info, but I finally chose Humbolt Nutrients MycoMadness because is has 8 varieties of endo… no ecto, and also has some purportedly beneficial bacteria and the additives to sustain them.

Who knows… I’ll try it and see what happens:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007QVAYJ8

I’m no scientist, but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night.

No plants only need endo or ecto. It needs it all. It’s a complete living system. Ying and Yang.

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I’m with you brother… I’m a big believer in balance too… And I am most definitely not trying to argue a position. I don’t know enough to even HAVE a position. :slight_smile: Just reporting what I found in my admittedly shallow research. Trying to be careful with content quotes and links, so here are excerpts I found:

And here is a quote:

Here’s the part that concerns me:

The article I quoted from cites some research stating that even pure ENDOMYCORRHIZAE with cannabis can become not only not helpful, but parasitic at Phosphorus concentrations around 30 ppm… Not destructively, but from the standpoint that the fungi stop delivering nutrient plus ups to the plant but STILL continue to take the carbohydrate demand FROM the plant.

And I’m pretty sure the phosphorus concentration supplied to our plants on any kind of nute regimen will vastly exceed 30 ppm… especially if you ever want to see a bud put on.

So, I guess the question becomes… Does it make any sense to do this at all?

I would be interested to see a side-by-side done, where the ONLY variable between two groups of clones was that one group was inoculated and the other was not.

I may reconsider using this stuff until I know more.

@MattyBear @Hogmaster @AAA - Are there any fungi experts on these forums?

@garrigan62 is a Fun-guy expert. Maybe he can shed some light on the Mykos subject.

I appreciate your research and Im not saying what you found is wrong, I just think there is more going on then we can understand.

Let’s see what the panel says. Sorry if I came off as being absolute in my response. We are all just learning.

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Absolutely no apologies necessary… at all… seriously. I hope and look forward to folks chiming in on this. :smile:

I’ve got so many “irons in the fire” trying to get everything ordered, delivered, built, etc, that I appreciate any help I can get… for sure.

I think it is going to wind up more complicated than either of us imagine.
For instance… the product I am planning to use ALSO has a bunch of different species bacilli bacteria in it… So, those guys do lots of other things I don’t want to even get into right now… eat certain bad fungi, interrupt pest life cycles, etc.

And I got to thinking about it… but there are LOTS of molds that can get in soil and in/around our plants roots… Some of them obviously harmful. EVEN IF it winds up true that ENDOMYCORRHIZAE fungi are a little parasitic at higher P concentrations in the soil, they may STILL be greatly beneficial in a symbiotic setup on our plants’ root systems. Just a swag here… but it they are already in the neighborhood and forming colonies, they may well crowd out and/or prevent the less desirable candidates from attacking.

Just a thought… could be fantasy, I don’t know… I’m a little sleep deprived at the moment. Have been up all night working remotely for a client. :drooling_face::dizzy_face::nerd_face:

@garrigan62 … Do you have any info? I think I’ve noticed that you are kind of a grow media guy, right? Or do I have that mixed up too? :smiley:

Im using great white is that ok?

Great White what, @Homegrown420:smile:

A ways back, I posted the readings off my sediment/carbon filtered tap water (municipal) and my well water. (quoted below) Could y’all offer opinions as to which I could use as is (if either) and/or whether I should work on getting setup to supply myself with a sufficient supply of DI water?

I have no idea what the composition of the solids in either supply I have ARE… likely calcium mostly, based on what I saw when they hit pay on my water well, the geology around the shallower municipal well, and the lack of any real deposits indicating iron, et al in our plumbing… mostly just lime deposits.

Is it worth the cost of removing the unknown DS in either supply in order to have that additional room to put targeted DS in?

That is assuming that I understand correctly that what is there NOW subtracts from the overall TDS I can put in to support plant growth.

@MattyBear @Hogmaster @dbrn32 Don’t know who else to tag here… In Pro-Mix, I assume I am feeding mostly like hydro, and should therefore be mostly talking to hydro folks on this question. Please feel free to tag this out to others. :smile:

Great white. Mycorrhizae

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