Grow Mediums Growpito Technologies LLC - Welcome & Contact Information
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The bag I got, which fills approximately 12 - 1 gallon pots, is around 60 USD. His VP shared some grows that were done with six year old media and probably for breakdown used enzymes for the old roots. It's pricey for a new grower but it will be the last 60 you spend ever unless you increase your grow OP.
My First Grow
Me vs. 00 Seeds Automatik Collections 600w Top Fed DTW
My First Grow
Me vs. 00 Seeds Automatik Collections 600w Top Fed DTW
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- ALL AUTOS BABY and some photos
Wow this I have to try we are ruining the peat bogs. And they are the home of those cute little nutes
Here is a good read and why we need mediums like this.
Ask Natural Life:
Does Peat Moss Have a Place
In the Ecological Garden?by Wendy Priesnitz
Q: For many years, bales of peat moss have been on my list of garden supplies each spring and I’ve never given a thought to where peat moss came from. But earlier, this year, a friend suggested to me that peat is not a sustainable resource and that gardeners around the world are moving away from using it. So now I’m beginning to wonder: Does peat moss have a place in the ecological garden? And if not, what are the concerns?
A: For many years, there has been a debate between peat producers and conservationists as to the long term effects of the use of peat moss as a gardening material. That argument is getting louder as our knowledge of the dangers of global warming increase. And it now looks like peat moss has no place in your garden.
Peat can be derived from different materials, but the bulk of it sold commercially in North America is from Canadian sphagnum moss. Peat is simply the decomposed product of the moss and more logically could be called “moss peat.” Although peat was dried and burned in some countries as a source of fuel for centuries, only since the 1940s has it been used on any scale for horticulture. It is typically sold screened and dried, in either bags or compressed bales, to be mixed in with your garden soil. It is often sterilized, for starting cuttings or seeds. Most commercial potting soils contain peat. It is useful for growing plants requiring an acidic (lower pH) environment. It also has good water and air holding qualities, although it is virtually devoid of nutrients.
Mining the Resource
Peat moss develops in a peat bog or “peatland,” which is a special type of wetland on which decomposing moss has accumulated to a depth of at least 16 inches. Peat accumulation is around one millimeter (1/25th of an inch) per year. Approximately three percent of the earth’s surface is covered with peat bogs that have been developing for thousands of years. Finland has the largest expanse in the world, followed by Canada, Ireland and Sweden.
The peat moss is commercially harvested (or “mined” – depending on which side of the debate you’re on) from these bogs. The process involves digging a network of drainage ditches and settling basins so that the water drains away from the wetland and the bog begins to dry out and die. Once that happens, all surface vegetation is removed and the deposit is ready for peat production. The surface peat layer is dried by the sun and wind. The topmost layer is typically harrowed to enhance the drying process. After a few days, the dry peat layer is collected using a large vacuum harvester or other equipment, then transported to a processing facility for screening and packaging.
Important Ecosystems
Peat bogs are seen by some scientists to be as important and fragile as rainforests, and that’s where the concern lies about the use of peat moss by gardeners. Peat companies are destroying these fragile, unique and valuable bog ecosystems by removing the peat.
Wetland loss due to agriculture and development is a major biodiversity problem worldwide, threatening wildlife habitat. But peat bogs have their own special ecosystem issues and threats. They are home to rare wildlife, including untold numbers of highly specialized native plants, many of which may be endangered and found only in the peat bog.
Peat bogs are also a rich source of social and environmental information. The highly acidic conditions in peat bogs result in very slow decay. That means they provide a unique and irreplaceable record of climate, vegetation and human activity dating back 10,000 years. There have been some remarkable finds in peat bogs, including people buried thousands of years ago and wooden artifacts that have not survived elsewhere.
Peat bogs, like other wetlands, are Nature’s water purifiers. They contribute to healthy watersheds and, in some areas, to safe drinking water for nearby populations, filtering an estimated ten percent of global freshwater resources. They also provide effective flood prevention. Destroying a bog destroys these benefits. In addition, the ditches required to extract the peat lower the water table and often negatively impact local waterways.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of peat bogs to a healthy environment is as “global coolers,” helping to fight climate change. As the mosses grow, they absorb carbon dioxide, which is locked up within the plant structure as the plants turn to peat. Scientists think these bogs contain more carbon than all the world’s tropical rainforests. But when the bogs are drained for peat extraction or otherwise disturbed, the peat starts to decompose and the carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere, where it acts as a potent greenhouse gas.
In the U.K., the National Trust estimates that country’s bogs store carbon equivalent to about 20 years’ worth of national industrial emissions. Fearful that two centuries of damage is causing the bogs to dry out, releasing the carbon into the atmosphere, the Trust is urging the government to conserve and protect the country’s declining number of peat bogs as a way of curbing climate change.
Hardly Renewable
Approximately 99 percent of Canada’s total national production comes from the combined operations of the 20 corporate groups that form the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association (CSPMA.) Collectively, they mine about .02 percent of the country’s 270 million acres of peat bogs, the majority of which are in southern and southeastern Quebec and eastern and northeastern New Brunswick. In spite of that small footprint, Canada is the leading world peat producer and the market is steadily growing in size, especially in the U.S.
At pains to defend the sustainability of the resource, the CSPMA quotes an issue paper entitled Canadian Peat Harvesting and the Environment published by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council that claimed peat in Canada is growing more than 70 times as fast as it is being harvested.
Canadian government regulations require that bogs be returned to functioning wetlands once extraction is complete. Before beginning, a producer must take all necessary steps to reduce impact on the environment, record the flora and fauna present on the bog for restoration purposes, and cooperate with local environmental groups. During harvest, the producer must minimize the acreage being harvested, leave a buffer zone around the bog, leave a layer of peat when harvesting stops and design drainage ditches so the water table can be restored.
Restoration
Whether peat bog restoration is, in fact, possible, is a matter of some debate. Some wetland experts say that since a peat bog takes thousands of years to evolve, once destroyed it can never be fully reclaimed. It is also noted that when the peat is removed, the underlying soil is often too rich in nutrients for habitat restoration.
However, the CSPMA has been experimenting with restoring harvested bogs. By 2001, ten peat producers had initiated large scale restoration projects using technology developed by Laval University’s Peat Ecological Research Group and published in the CSPMA’s Peatland Restoration Guide. At the same time, the Wetlands Conservation Council published a paper on the Canadian peat industry, which described the choices for reclamation of harvested bogs as returning it to a functioning peat bog or, where that is “impractical or impossible,” farming the land, planting trees or returning it to a functioning wetland or wildlife habitat.
In the U.K., in 2013, the Yorkshire Peat Partnership announced that it has restored more than a quarter of Yorkshire’s peatlands in a multi-million pound project that aims to preserve vital habitats and help cut global warming.
The North American Wetlands Conservation Council estimates that harvested peatlands can be restored to “ecologically balanced systems” – if not peat bogs – within five to twenty years after peat harvesting.
Environmental researchers rightly note that even reclaiming the land into a wetland alters the ecology of an area, puts some species at risk and can never bring back the historic features of the bog. Not only is ecolonization by the native flora and fauna probably not going to happen, the complex water tables in adjacent undrained areas are also put under threat.
Some wetlands scientists point out that a managed bog bears little resemblance to a natural one. Like tree farms, these peatlands tend toward monoculture, lacking the biodiversity of an un-harvested bog.
Alternatives to Peat
There are many alternatives to peat moss, some of which are cheaper (often free) and may work better. In fact, the use of peat in horticulture is almost completely unnecessary.
Peat is often used as a soil improver but other materials perform better, since peat has little or no nutrient value. Wood-waste, spent mushroom compost, composted garden or green kitchen waste, leaf mold or well-rotted farmyard manure are more effective and less expensive soil enrichers.
Peat is a poor mulch, tending to dry out and blow away. There are many other more suitable materials available. You could try chipped bark, shredded tree prunings, straw, cocoa shells (a byproduct of the chocolate industry,) spent mushroom compost, composted garden waste or leaf mold.
As a growing medium, commercial nurseries are finding that alternatives like leaf mold compost or coir work well and are even better than peat in some circumstances.
Coir (pronounced “koi’er”) is the fibrous outer husk of a coconut that is used to make rope and mats. During the fiber stripping process, the pulp surrounding the coir fibers is removed as a waste material. And it is now being satisfactorily used as a replacement for peat moss. Unfortunately, coir must be transported from places like Sri Lanka and the Philippines where it is produced, so it’s better to look for things that are more local.
A company in Washington State has developed another peat substitute originating in the dairy industry. It takes dairy fiber from an anaerobic digester at a dairy biogas plant and converts it into a high value peat moss substitute designed for the horticulture industry.
The jury is still out on the question of whether or not sphagnum peat moss can be considered a renewable resource at the level at which it is harvested in Canada. However, with the wide range of alternatives available, I don’t see the need to damage fragile ecosystems that provide natural water filtration, house rare plants and wildlife, and help mitigate global warming.
I am going to get this and not look back.
Here is a good read and why we need mediums like this.
Ask Natural Life:
Does Peat Moss Have a Place
In the Ecological Garden?by Wendy Priesnitz
Q: For many years, bales of peat moss have been on my list of garden supplies each spring and I’ve never given a thought to where peat moss came from. But earlier, this year, a friend suggested to me that peat is not a sustainable resource and that gardeners around the world are moving away from using it. So now I’m beginning to wonder: Does peat moss have a place in the ecological garden? And if not, what are the concerns?
A: For many years, there has been a debate between peat producers and conservationists as to the long term effects of the use of peat moss as a gardening material. That argument is getting louder as our knowledge of the dangers of global warming increase. And it now looks like peat moss has no place in your garden.
Peat can be derived from different materials, but the bulk of it sold commercially in North America is from Canadian sphagnum moss. Peat is simply the decomposed product of the moss and more logically could be called “moss peat.” Although peat was dried and burned in some countries as a source of fuel for centuries, only since the 1940s has it been used on any scale for horticulture. It is typically sold screened and dried, in either bags or compressed bales, to be mixed in with your garden soil. It is often sterilized, for starting cuttings or seeds. Most commercial potting soils contain peat. It is useful for growing plants requiring an acidic (lower pH) environment. It also has good water and air holding qualities, although it is virtually devoid of nutrients.
Mining the Resource
Peat moss develops in a peat bog or “peatland,” which is a special type of wetland on which decomposing moss has accumulated to a depth of at least 16 inches. Peat accumulation is around one millimeter (1/25th of an inch) per year. Approximately three percent of the earth’s surface is covered with peat bogs that have been developing for thousands of years. Finland has the largest expanse in the world, followed by Canada, Ireland and Sweden.
The peat moss is commercially harvested (or “mined” – depending on which side of the debate you’re on) from these bogs. The process involves digging a network of drainage ditches and settling basins so that the water drains away from the wetland and the bog begins to dry out and die. Once that happens, all surface vegetation is removed and the deposit is ready for peat production. The surface peat layer is dried by the sun and wind. The topmost layer is typically harrowed to enhance the drying process. After a few days, the dry peat layer is collected using a large vacuum harvester or other equipment, then transported to a processing facility for screening and packaging.
Important Ecosystems
Peat bogs are seen by some scientists to be as important and fragile as rainforests, and that’s where the concern lies about the use of peat moss by gardeners. Peat companies are destroying these fragile, unique and valuable bog ecosystems by removing the peat.
Wetland loss due to agriculture and development is a major biodiversity problem worldwide, threatening wildlife habitat. But peat bogs have their own special ecosystem issues and threats. They are home to rare wildlife, including untold numbers of highly specialized native plants, many of which may be endangered and found only in the peat bog.
Peat bogs are also a rich source of social and environmental information. The highly acidic conditions in peat bogs result in very slow decay. That means they provide a unique and irreplaceable record of climate, vegetation and human activity dating back 10,000 years. There have been some remarkable finds in peat bogs, including people buried thousands of years ago and wooden artifacts that have not survived elsewhere.
Peat bogs, like other wetlands, are Nature’s water purifiers. They contribute to healthy watersheds and, in some areas, to safe drinking water for nearby populations, filtering an estimated ten percent of global freshwater resources. They also provide effective flood prevention. Destroying a bog destroys these benefits. In addition, the ditches required to extract the peat lower the water table and often negatively impact local waterways.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of peat bogs to a healthy environment is as “global coolers,” helping to fight climate change. As the mosses grow, they absorb carbon dioxide, which is locked up within the plant structure as the plants turn to peat. Scientists think these bogs contain more carbon than all the world’s tropical rainforests. But when the bogs are drained for peat extraction or otherwise disturbed, the peat starts to decompose and the carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere, where it acts as a potent greenhouse gas.
In the U.K., the National Trust estimates that country’s bogs store carbon equivalent to about 20 years’ worth of national industrial emissions. Fearful that two centuries of damage is causing the bogs to dry out, releasing the carbon into the atmosphere, the Trust is urging the government to conserve and protect the country’s declining number of peat bogs as a way of curbing climate change.
Hardly Renewable
Approximately 99 percent of Canada’s total national production comes from the combined operations of the 20 corporate groups that form the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association (CSPMA.) Collectively, they mine about .02 percent of the country’s 270 million acres of peat bogs, the majority of which are in southern and southeastern Quebec and eastern and northeastern New Brunswick. In spite of that small footprint, Canada is the leading world peat producer and the market is steadily growing in size, especially in the U.S.
At pains to defend the sustainability of the resource, the CSPMA quotes an issue paper entitled Canadian Peat Harvesting and the Environment published by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council that claimed peat in Canada is growing more than 70 times as fast as it is being harvested.
Canadian government regulations require that bogs be returned to functioning wetlands once extraction is complete. Before beginning, a producer must take all necessary steps to reduce impact on the environment, record the flora and fauna present on the bog for restoration purposes, and cooperate with local environmental groups. During harvest, the producer must minimize the acreage being harvested, leave a buffer zone around the bog, leave a layer of peat when harvesting stops and design drainage ditches so the water table can be restored.
Restoration
Whether peat bog restoration is, in fact, possible, is a matter of some debate. Some wetland experts say that since a peat bog takes thousands of years to evolve, once destroyed it can never be fully reclaimed. It is also noted that when the peat is removed, the underlying soil is often too rich in nutrients for habitat restoration.
However, the CSPMA has been experimenting with restoring harvested bogs. By 2001, ten peat producers had initiated large scale restoration projects using technology developed by Laval University’s Peat Ecological Research Group and published in the CSPMA’s Peatland Restoration Guide. At the same time, the Wetlands Conservation Council published a paper on the Canadian peat industry, which described the choices for reclamation of harvested bogs as returning it to a functioning peat bog or, where that is “impractical or impossible,” farming the land, planting trees or returning it to a functioning wetland or wildlife habitat.
In the U.K., in 2013, the Yorkshire Peat Partnership announced that it has restored more than a quarter of Yorkshire’s peatlands in a multi-million pound project that aims to preserve vital habitats and help cut global warming.
The North American Wetlands Conservation Council estimates that harvested peatlands can be restored to “ecologically balanced systems” – if not peat bogs – within five to twenty years after peat harvesting.
Environmental researchers rightly note that even reclaiming the land into a wetland alters the ecology of an area, puts some species at risk and can never bring back the historic features of the bog. Not only is ecolonization by the native flora and fauna probably not going to happen, the complex water tables in adjacent undrained areas are also put under threat.
Some wetlands scientists point out that a managed bog bears little resemblance to a natural one. Like tree farms, these peatlands tend toward monoculture, lacking the biodiversity of an un-harvested bog.
Alternatives to Peat
There are many alternatives to peat moss, some of which are cheaper (often free) and may work better. In fact, the use of peat in horticulture is almost completely unnecessary.
Peat is often used as a soil improver but other materials perform better, since peat has little or no nutrient value. Wood-waste, spent mushroom compost, composted garden or green kitchen waste, leaf mold or well-rotted farmyard manure are more effective and less expensive soil enrichers.
Peat is a poor mulch, tending to dry out and blow away. There are many other more suitable materials available. You could try chipped bark, shredded tree prunings, straw, cocoa shells (a byproduct of the chocolate industry,) spent mushroom compost, composted garden waste or leaf mold.
As a growing medium, commercial nurseries are finding that alternatives like leaf mold compost or coir work well and are even better than peat in some circumstances.
Coir (pronounced “koi’er”) is the fibrous outer husk of a coconut that is used to make rope and mats. During the fiber stripping process, the pulp surrounding the coir fibers is removed as a waste material. And it is now being satisfactorily used as a replacement for peat moss. Unfortunately, coir must be transported from places like Sri Lanka and the Philippines where it is produced, so it’s better to look for things that are more local.
A company in Washington State has developed another peat substitute originating in the dairy industry. It takes dairy fiber from an anaerobic digester at a dairy biogas plant and converts it into a high value peat moss substitute designed for the horticulture industry.
The jury is still out on the question of whether or not sphagnum peat moss can be considered a renewable resource at the level at which it is harvested in Canada. However, with the wide range of alternatives available, I don’t see the need to damage fragile ecosystems that provide natural water filtration, house rare plants and wildlife, and help mitigate global warming.
I am going to get this and not look back.
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Well I'm back from my tour of the rest facility given by @coalminer and I'm definitely impressed.
I spent about an hour with him and the VP talking about growing and especially growing in their Sim mix. No reason to go over what they already have on their website but I'll give some first impressions.
Facility has rows of flood and drain tables in different configurations with lights above waiting for their next grow. We got in and pretty soon we're touching this growing media and it isn't like rockwool but like hundreds of spun fibers all throughout that while dry were light and fluffy but not rigid like rockwool cubes. Touching the wet medium it was wet but even a small handful when squeezed held so much water it wasn't like the feel of soil or coco and definitely didn't leave my hands dirty.
Some interesting things mentioned in our conversations were how much water retention the media had and how much water even one fiber could could hold. Coal miner mentioned being away for a week and only watering 25% more and returning to alive plants because the media had retained so much water. He showed me the roots of some plants that had been grow in the media and how there were so many feeder roots after one grow. He suggest flood and drain for best growth but hand watering or whatever other methods seems to be fine as well. He didn't mention specific pot sizes as a factor for growth or the amount of feeds beyond one every three days being necessary so I'm sure these will be things to play with in the future.
This isn't like coco and doesn't need perlite or other amendments but he suggested beneficials which they offer. Also CaliMagic isn't mandatory. The last interesting thing was the ability to sow directly to the media though CM suggest a transplant. Another interesting topic was infestation and that by the nature of their Sim mix it just isn't a problem.
What has drawn my interest is that it is reusable, high water retention, very airy and doesn't seem to compact. The root systems he showed me were expansive and being in hard sided pots they still achieved so much growth. I did receive a free sample, grateful for and thank you again, and hopefully I'll be putting it to use mid to late October.
Once again a big thanks to @coalminer for letting me come through and providing a huge amount of information on the product. He it's passionate about this growing media and saving water.
My First Grow
Me vs. 00 Seeds Automatik Collections 600w Top Fed DTW
Thanks for sharing! 
Great read and info @F.N. Tried to rep,but got to spread some around first!
I see the one plant growing and it looks to be leaning over could just be the nature of the plant. with the medium so light does it give a 3-4’ plant enough weight in the base to keep the plants upright. Two bags $120 plus shipping maybe lot of money but if I’m still using it 6 years later well worth the investment. Would like to see some decent sized plants in a 3-5 gallon container. Decisions r tough lol.
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Hey bud have U started a grow with this medium yet. Wondering what u think of it.
coalminer
AFN Authorized Vendor
Hi Mizzo, check out the Indoor Grow Journals section. I have a thread showing the start to finish, 8 Extrema in Growpito. The Plant you see is a begonia. The Extrema Grow was from a legal environment. Netting or Yo Yo's maybe needed depending on some strains. Here are a couple of flowers grown in Growpito, in a legal state
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CM
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CM
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Hey @coalminer any idea on cost of shipping for one bag and two bags. Also is $60 a bag correct and I believe Damien50 said that 1.5 cubicft bag would fill about 12 gallons. So could I expect to fill 4 3 gallon pots with one bag of growpito.
