Grow Mediums Kindsoil Official Test Team Grow Battle

[pop22]

Great idea!

It IS tubing, and I've used it on several breaks over the past year now and it's awesome! Lets everything breath but it's still rigid enough that it supports the branch, and you can always cut a longer length if you need it! Forms a beautiful little "knuckle"

 

[pop22]

You know, I like Sweet Seeds. when they are right, they kick ass! BUT, I've had more failed seeds and mutants than any other strain I've grow, and I've grown more than a few! The Ice Cool I'm using for the Kind Soil Trial are horrible mutants, but I had a Red Poison that was the worst plant I've ever grown! Beginning to wonder if anyone else is running into this! Maybe Sweet Seeds needs to do some quality control!

A few of mine are coming along nicely, a couple looking interesting now, but the two stalled seedlings haven't changed in over a week grrr... That great test I had all planned out is a crushed dream by now lol. It's down to bandaids and duct tape hah! All plants are still getting just pH'ed well water, using Earth Juice crystals, the pH down specifically, bringing the water from ~8.2 to 6.3.

First the KindSoil babies, the one rockstar Cream Mandarine XL is really rockin hard, got pistils starting up too.
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The triple potted Blackberry Stone is shaping up okay. I suspect they're a few days to a week from hitting the KindSoil and a good growth spurt. One is moving faster, I wonder if it's male.
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And the two stuck babies, I'm losing faith in them. Everyone's had some slow starters before, but this is way too long. They're the same age as the other Sweet Seeds but not doing anything. I'm trying to come up with a solution... At this point I guess it's time to pull them and replace. Again, I'm out of autofems, so it would have to be more multipots of auto reg beans. :/
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Ughhh.. It is what it is. Sorry my test is going so flawed guys lol.

The ones in just my soil are fine, the older set is not nearly as big as the one in KindSoil as I expected. Still looking just fine for this stage.
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Should have pistils soon. This one is a little behind.
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The multipot dragons look fun, never done any multipotting to sex out males before.. It's kinda fun seeing three in one pot!
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Don't know why those thrree are smaller, except being a few more inches from the lamp.
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That's all I got for now. I'll come up with some fix for the stalled ones.

 

[Grim Reefer]

Looking great in here fellas. I should be starting my photos in Kind soil on PPN in about 2 weeks, finally eh?

 

[pop22]

I'm not buying your idea that acids used to ph water build up in the soil! There is no evidence to support that. the acids used for ph adjustment breakdown, just like everything else. Acidic soil is caused by the plants themselves in the everyday process of of ion exchange thru the roots causing concentraions of acids. What does the roots exchange for mineral ions? Hydrogen ions (H+ ) or Hydroxyl ions ( OH- ). Plants tend to favor H+. This exchange means the plant is actively acidifying the soil at the same time as decomposition of organic matter in the soil ( and organic nutrients etc ), leading to carbonic acid buildup. H+ is acid ( PH= measurement of H+ ). the plant exchanges H+ for amonium and the soil acidifies over time. During flower, plants exchange even more H+ for more K and Mg also acidifying the soil. P uptake does the opposite, but the transport of H+ for the other needs exceeds its nulifying benefit. So it would seem to me, the issue is caused by a very active plant, or the organic matter feeding the soil.

So really quick cheaper soil probes are the worst products out there.. they are very inaccurate not designed for our substrates and generally you can stick it in 7-8 different places and get 7-8 different readings. if your adding a 1/4 tsp to even a 1/8 TSP like you re-did it to ... (of citric acid to 1.3 gallons) your possibly way over using it. I use 1/4 tsp citric acid per 15 gallons of water to take the water from 7.2-7.3 down to 6.6.

I'm assuming there is a H+ build up occurring IF YOUR METERS reading right. But let me be really clear on how in accurate those meters are, especially direct test. just pushing that meter through layers of soil can totally screw up the readings. You should be doing something like a soil slurry for testing and either using a real high quality soil meter or at the very worst liquid tests. even liquid tests can be off.

our soil carries PH buffers to keep the PH range in the area it needs to be. All soils become acidic over time but your looking at such a short grow time that theres no possible way your soil has dropped that much on its own, let alone gone to something as low as 5.0 without something causing it to drop that low.... however what can and will happen is when any acids are being over used or built up over time the soils can become more and more acidic due to H+ concentration.. again IF THAT METERS CORRECT your problem would stem more from that but honestly id put money on the meter being off because its not designed to read the coir/pete substrates... Below is my actual soil ph meter.. it can be directly inserted but i personally do slushes with De-ionized water. I am going to go get a bottle of water really quick today and post a buch of soil tests.. a lot of them we have actual lab tests to show some control so you can see the meter is correct and i will post the results here on the forum... also in the below pics i made a quick step by step just to show you the amount we use of crystals to water and how the ph drops in 15 gallons.. which should show you that 1/8 tsp per 1.3 gallons is way overkill and could be creating the acidic soil readings. View attachment 603886View attachment 603887




heres the water PH photos: photo one shows the water PH meter stable at 7.0 ... photo 2 is the water PH of the 15 gallons before PH adjusting .... photo 3 is the amount of citric acid crystals being added to 15 gallons (1/4 tsp) photo 4 is me shaking the thing up and photo 5 is the final PH 6.6 after the crystals adjust.

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[pop22]

Here's mine and it will do soil, water,etc.

visit growgreenmi.com i go there a lot for my meters i think they have it at like 170 or something around there right now.

 

[Anthropolis]

Funny you mentioned that, as I've had lots of fails personally with Sweet Seeds, but I always just wrote it off as something I screwed up on my end. Once I lost two full packs of their beans, 3x Ice Cools and 3x Cream Mandarine (original, not XL's), in breeder packs so they weren't mishandled or anything.

When you can only afford a couple packs of beans at a time, and ate counting on those beans for yer personal medicine, a full loss like that is rather disheartening. This round I lost 5 of 8, that's not so great... I still love Sweet Seeds gear though. I'll probably keep buying it lol.

You know, I like Sweet Seeds. when they are right, they kick ass! BUT, I've had more failed seeds and mutants than any other strain I've grow, and I've grown more than a few! The Ice Cool I'm using for the Kind Soil Trial are horrible mutants, but I had a Red Poison that was the worst plant I've ever grown! Beginning to wonder if anyone else is running into this! Maybe Sweet Seeds needs to do some quality control!

 

[Ripper]

I will be popping my first sweet seeds soon I hope I have no issues but will definitely report if I do.

 

[Eyes on Fire]

@pop22 yeah man,I concur bro,truly man. I (as per usual) tend to not say anything most times,almost always in fact since Im tired of repeating myself always LOL but its a dense and very POTENT soil,as most tend to be with photos in mind as a right outta the bag water only systems tend to do. now what set KS apart is the fact you have the salts and the calcium in there in varying forms..three combo forms if I recall right(6 total in varying manners,im combo) but unless its straight up acidic(which I dont believe it is its just alomst causticly strong is all) soil. but as we all know when you introduce an acid or heavy salt additive in any matter you almost instantly chance the composition of ANY soil,much less a highly active and naturally yet potent living soil. and Ive seen this time and again. as you have too. but that book really covers a lot of that and the one straw method(philosophy) which also ids a very differently thought of way and philosophy to do living soils and so on without little interference from any introduced additive short of simple yet building and food boosted compost teas. its thee same exact process it just varies from dense potent foods to less active soils which means really,,light or heavy AACT's or similar. adjusted for the soil. water should play little role inho assuming that its a decently decent quality and is alive essentially..not dead water. O2 must be added or present. and added salts and heavier acids will tend to piss off and dehydrate as well as straight up kill the life leaching the foods from the soil MUCh faster and throwing the PH of any living based soil outta whack.. no whut I mean vern? LOL!

 

[pop22]

I'm having great sucess with thir Photo period Green Poison. I've got a 5 pack of autos also.......we'll see! I LOVE their Trainwreck, but I too can't afford to buy bum seeds..

Funny you mentioned that, as I've had lots of fails personally with Sweet Seeds, but I always just wrote it off as something I screwed up on my end. Once I lost two full packs of their beans, 3x Ice Cools and 3x Cream Mandarine (original, not XL's), in breeder packs so they weren't mishandled or anything.

When you can only afford a couple packs of beans at a time, and ate counting on those beans for yer personal medicine, a full loss like that is rather disheartening. This round I lost 5 of 8, that's not so great... I still love Sweet Seeds gear though. I'll probably keep buying it lol.

 

[pop22]

If I were to continue down the path of super soil/ TLO I'd probably consider working with Kind soil. But I'm too much like you, I can't do method growing....lol! Because my brain never stops asking: " But what if...... ". Then, a couple days ago, I had an epiphany after reading a book called: Compost Everything! Great book! Even if you think you know compost, its worth a read! And it lead me to no till gardening. Its what I planned for my new raised beds for my veggies. Then I thought: I can do this in the greenhouse too! So this fall, I'll build a 4' x 8' x 16" raised bed. Then I thought, why not try it indoors! And I'm going to very shortly, in fact, I'm going to surprise a certain group of people here when I reveal it!

@pop22 yeah man,I concur bro,truly man. I (as per usual) tend to not say anything most times,almost always in fact since Im tired of repeating myself always LOL but its a dense and very POTENT soil,as most tend to be with photos in mind as a right outta the bag water only systems tend to do. now what set KS apart is the fact you have the salts and the calcium in there in varying forms..three combo forms if I recall right(6 total in varying manners,im combo) but unless its straight up acidic(which I dont believe it is its just alomst causticly strong is all) soil. but as we all know when you introduce an acid or heavy salt additive in any matter you almost instantly chance the composition of ANY soil,much less a highly active and naturally yet potent living soil. and Ive seen this time and again. as you have too. but that book really covers a lot of that and the one straw method(philosophy) which also ids a very differently thought of way and philosophy to do living soils and so on without little interference from any introduced additive short of simple yet building and food boosted compost teas. its thee same exact process it just varies from dense potent foods to less active soils which means really,,light or heavy AACT's or similar. adjusted for the soil. water should play little role inho assuming that its a decently decent quality and is alive essentially..not dead water. O2 must be added or present. and added salts and heavier acids will tend to piss off and dehydrate as well as straight up kill the life leaching the foods from the soil MUCh faster and throwing the PH of any living based soil outta whack.. no whut I mean vern? LOL!