"Hydroponically grown Cannabis is less flavorful compared to soil grown."

buckfastley said:

Which of these aspects stand out to you as most significant?

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In soil, the buffer that soil provides cannot be duplicated in hydro. Soil is far more forgiving. In hydro, the control you have over feeding cannot be duplicated in soil. Hydro gives you complete control of what and when the plant feeds. You can raise and lower the amount as often as you want. If someone TRULY knows what they are doing, the only true difference between hydro and soil is basically the yield. Hydro definitely has a higher yield potential.

And don't forget that every user is different . Truthfully I doubt I could tell one from the other, never have had good sense of smell.

I like digging in dirt rather than checking pumps. I think dirt gives you a more "organic" feeling which carries over to the enjoyment of my ganja.
Nothing better than seeing earthworms in the soil.

I’ve been gardening with organics for decades. I enjoy the process including hunting down & preparing inputs. My wife doesn’t understand why I grind rabbit poop & other stuff when I could go with bottled nutes like her Tower Garden. The woman hasn’t even held a PH meter either.

Plants mostly use both tricomes and terpenes as some kind of evolutionary defense mechanisms against environmental stressors. We do not fully understand the role that Stress, or environment has in the development of these compounds. It's also reasonable to suspect that the complex microbiological interactions in a living soils rootzone may also have some sort of effect. As well as the diversity of their diet.


We do know is that Terroir does effect the physical expressions of identical plants. For example in Humboldt County where often an identical clone will be grown in 2 very different microclimates and show different expressions.

We also know that Terroir has some sort of effect on the finished product. Just look to the wine industry, they've been paying attention to this stuff for centuries.

Ultimately though, both hydro and organics can be both amazing, or terrible. For home growing, the choice between hydro and organics is going to just come down to the personality and philosophy of the grower. They are very different styles of achieving the same thing, and each of them suits a different type of person.

I’ve grown in almost every medium there is and the only difference I’ve seen between hydro and soil/coco is that plants get bigger, quicker in hydro. Yield is also increased when done right in hydro but in my experience it’s only marginal when compared to coco

It's all about the microbes. Just a couple examples of how microbes increase secondary metabolites (of which flavor compounds are in cannabis):

[Vs Hydroponics without microbes] "plants in the aquaponics treatment had greater Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), cannabidiolic acid (CBDA), and the terpenes ß-pinene and limonene, relative to their congeners grown in the other rootzones investigated. "
Brandon Yep, Nigel V. Gale, Youbin Zheng,
Comparing hydroponic and aquaponic rootzones on the growth of two drug-type Cannabis sativa L. cultivars during the flowering stage,
Industrial Crops and Products,
Volume 157,
2020,
112881,
ISSN 0926-6690,

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(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926669020307986)

"Non-encapsulated fungus Trichoderma viride enhanced the synthesis of plant secondary metabolites only in hydroponics cultivation signifying the importance of its encapsulation."
Jurić, S., Sopko Stracenski, K., Król-Kilińska, Ż. et al. The enhancement of plant secondary metabolites content in Lactuca sativa L. by encapsulated bioactive agents. Sci Rep 10, 3737 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60690-3

" The major EO compounds, cis- and trans-sabinene hydrate, γ-terpinene, carvacrol, and thymol, showed increased biosynthesis. Carvacrol was the only terpene showing significant increase of R% in plants inoculated with A. brasilense. Plant growth parameters (shoot and root fresh and dry weights, numbers of leaves and nodes) were evaluated. Shoot fresh weight was significantly increased by all three PGPR species, but only P. fluorescens and A. brasilense increased root dry weight. "
J. Agric. Food Chem. 2010, 58, 1, 650–654
Publication Dateecember 11, 2009
https://doi.org/10.1021/jf9030629


"Essential oil yield was also significantly increased relative to non-inoculated plants, without alteration of oil composition. P. fluorescens has clear commercial potential for economic cultivation "
Erika Banchio, Pablo C. Bogino, Julio Zygadlo, Walter Giordano,
Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria improve growth and essential oil yield in Origanum majorana L.,
Biochemical Systematics and Ecology,
Volume 36, Issue 10,
2008,
Pages 766-771,
ISSN 0305-1978,

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Getting right to the basics of this, the difference between the nutrients taken in by plants, be they organic of manufactured are........... none! The ionic froms that plants can use are identical from either source. Nutrients that can't be used in there natural form and chelated, IE, turned into the ionic form the plants can use. Bacteria do so using amino acids, most plant food manufacturers use EDTA to chelate with. EDTA is used as a preservative in foods. One company, Greenleaf Nutrients uses Amino acids for chelation. The end product via either process is identical. So there is nothing in an organic medium that will make the final product "better" in any way, in fact, when grown in the same environment, you would not tell the apart chemically or subjectively.
Organics has one advantage, it's simplicity, make a good mix, add water, watch them grow!

pop22 said:

Getting right to the basics of this, the difference between the nutrients taken in by plants, be they organic of manufactured are........... none! The ionic froms that plants can use are identical from either source. Nutrients that can't be used in there natural form and chelated, IE, turned into the ionic form the plants can use. Bacteria do so using amino acids, most plant food manufacturers use EDTA to chelate with. EDTA is used as a preservative in foods. One company, Greenleaf Nutrients uses Amino acids for chelation. The end product via either process is identical. So there is nothing in an organic medium that will make the final product "better" in any way, in fact, when grown in the same environment, you would not tell the apart chemically or subjectively.
Organics has one advantage, it's simplicity, make a good mix, add water, watch them grow!

Click to expand...

I completely agree.

Climate and irrigation habits affect the end product more than what the medium is that is being used. Managing how often irrigation occurs and creating temperature differentials between day/night affects quite a bit. Sugar levels as well as general uptake is affected by both of those factors attributing to the end result. Climate involves temp, humidity, and light intensity.