Old Reviews Organic vs Inorganic Nutrients: Is there really that big a difference in final product?

[GeorgeCloney]

i agree, it's the environment impact that is the downside of manufactured nutrients. However, we need to look further at what impact the modern concept of organic has on the environment also. The harvesting of peat destroying peat bogs. the harvesting of coco coir, which use to rot under the trees and replenish the soil, the mining of things like green sand, azomite, etc. burning wood to make bio-char,
( which isn't even close to having the same properties as the bio-char found in the Amazon ). When we want best practices in growing, we need to take a critical look all ALL currently used methods. all have their faults and all can be improved.

The experience of life tells me people always want the quick and easy today.
Perhaps marketing makes people believe that using bottled nutes is foolproof.That is until we invent a better fool. We do have the power to change things.
But we always tend to do so by comparison.
And marketing is the mastery of skewing numbers. If more people understand the benefits of organic there would be a cultural shift.
30 years ago we laughed at a new up and coming computer company that dared compete with HP and IBM.
HP and IBM aren't laughing anymore.
They started the marketing at the artsy crowd first. Then proved to the rest the vertues of their product.
Growing pot will be no different in the coming years.
Bottled nutes will be advertised as being 100% organic...
To please the bio crowd and convert the chem crowd.

 

[Waira]

i guess my question is.
if the soil breaks down the organics into an ionic compound for the plant to absorb, are the ionic compounds then non organic?

I think the first thing that's been skipped over here is a clear defninition of what "organic" means concerning growing, and even then, there's plenty of beefing over definitions.
Firstly, don't confuse Organic Chemistry (Carbon chemistry) with "organic" in the sense used for gardeners and organic growing. It is NOT the same thing at all....
--- Synthetic is simple: it's formulated from pure chemicals... Organic, I think broadly put, is derived from "natural" resources, plant or animal,... Some things like phosphate rock, gypsum, Si products (mineral sources in general), are not technically "organic", but since they come from the Earth as is (or minimally processed), not synthesized in a facility, they can be put under the organic umbrella as far as organic based sourcing goes.... The other part of "natural/organic sources" is that the components were not raised using any chemical fert's, pesti-/fungi-/herbicides....

gRoshi, at that stage, the term "organic" is no longer applicable; as mentioned already, the plant takes in nutrient ions only in specific forms, so whether the nitrate came from alfalfa meal or a beaker, it's all the same to the plants! Some things, like urea, the plant can take in physically, but it must be further broken down internally into the specific forms used in it's respective metabolism,....ammonium is where urea ends up, but this process requires energy inputs by such processing, "wasted" energy by some measure, and it's why ZERO legit cannabis nutes use urea as a N source that I've seen,... most use ammonium and nitrate...
Have a look in the Q&D Defc. Pic Depot here, I listed the specific ions absorbable by the plants for each nutrient....

 

[Master_gRoshi]

I think the first thing that's been skipped over here is a clear defninition of what "organic" means concerning growing, and even then, there's plenty of beefing over definitions.
Firstly, don't confuse Organic Chemistry (Carbon chemistry) with "organic" in the sense used for gardeners and organic growing. It is NOT the same thing at all....
--- Synthetic is simple: it's formulated from pure chemicals... Organic, I think broadly put, is derived from "natural" resources, plant or animal,... Some things like phosphate rock, gypsum, Si products (mineral sources in general), are not technically "organic", but since they come from the Earth as is (or minimally processed), not synthesized in a facility, they can be put under the organic umbrella as far as organic based sourcing goes.... The other part of "natural/organic sources" is that the components were not raised using any chemical fert's, pesti-/fungi-/herbicides....

gRoshi, at that stage, the term "organic" is no longer applicable; as mentioned already, the plant takes in nutrient ions only in specific forms, so whether the nitrate came from alfalfa meal or a beaker, it's all the same to the plants! Some things, like urea, the plant can take in physically, but it must be further broken down internally into the specific forms used in it's respective metabolism,....ammonium is where urea ends up, but this process requires energy inputs by such processing, "wasted" energy by some measure, and it's why ZERO legit cannabis nutes use urea as a N source that I've seen,... most use ammonium and nitrate...
Have a look in the Q&D Defc. Pic Depot here, I listed the specific ions absorbable by the plants for each nutrient....

thank you for breaking that down waira the wise.

 

[Hazyrook]

Good question. You ever buy organic vegetables? Ever notice they do not last but 1 day in the fridge before they go bad? Ever wonder if this happens to terps in organic weed?

If you actually look into why organic doesn't last as long, it has nothing to do with nutrients the plant was fed. Its because they coat the non organc in chemical preservatives that are not organic and therefor would not be able to put them on organic food and keep the organic label

 

[Waira]

Never ever ever wet trim ever.

il second that statement never wet trim as for organic vs non iv only done it once and ballsed it up so no help here really

I digress here, but....
This I don't understand,... I wet trim only for several reasons, and have tried dry trimming as well. There are lots of pro's and con's for both, that's a fact... But so far as this biologist knows, there is no direct "connection" between those cut leaf surfaces and the trichomes elsewhere,... loss of terpenes correlated to this makes no sense?... My thinking, drying them still untrimmed does protect the bud surfaces from the physical/mechanical activity that may burst bud trich' heads open, but in no way does it directly cause the loss of terpenes from trich' heads undisturbed,... Some have suggested that the "smothering/shielding" of the fans help preserve the terpenes,... that seems iffy to me, the coverage is anything but complete, or such covering could in fact promote mold by retaining moisture as well (of course all the other env. factors are in play here for proper drying and preserving as much terp content as possible)... If you found something appearing to connect the two, I'm betting it's something else... I have heard this before from other growers truth be told, but again, after looking into it best I can, I found nothing but anecdotal connection between the two, certainly nothing empirical. My mind is open for bizz on this, I just haven't found any solid explanation to ratify the correlation between these two things....
Keep in mind some monoterpenes are very volatile, even at 70F they vap'-off readily, and depending on the specific make up of what terp's are in the buds, this can have a huge impact of not just what remains, but how much by the time they fully dry and undergo final curing....

 

[Auto melt]

The thing with organics is your not feeding the actual plant instead the root zone, so many variables and variants I think k it's all about how you harvest the plant adjusting the temperatures so the plants flushed the notes out properly

 

[Trichome farmer]

I digress here, but....
This I don't understand,... I wet trim only for several reasons, and have tried dry trimming as well. There are lots of pro's and con's for both, that's a fact... But so far as this biologist knows, there is no direct "connection" between those cut leaf surfaces and the trichomes elsewhere,... loss of terpenes correlated to this makes no sense?... My thinking, drying them still untrimmed does protect the bud surfaces from the physical/mechanical activity that may burst bud trich' heads open, but in no way does it directly cause the loss of terpenes from trich' heads undisturbed,... Some have suggested that the "smothering/shielding" of the fans help preserve the terpenes,... that seems iffy to me, the coverage is anything but complete, or such covering could in fact promote mold by retaining moisture as well (of course all the other env. factors are in play here for proper drying and preserving as much terp content as possible)... If you found something appearing to connect the two, I'm betting it's something else... I have heard this before from other growers truth be told, but again, after looking into it best I can, I found nothing but anecdotal connection between the two, certainly nothing empirical. My mind is open for bizz on this, I just haven't found any solid explanation to ratify the correlation between these two things....
Keep in mind some monoterpenes are very volatile, even at 70F they vap'-off readily, and depending on the specific make up of what terp's are in the buds, this can have a huge impact of not just what remains, but how much by the time they fully dry and undergo final curing....

dry triming certainly produces a better bag/jar appeal for me and anytime iv wet trimmed i get that strong hay smell if i dry trim it seem to retain the smells much better for the mold worry i think it could be a issue if you left everything on but i only leave leaf matter with trichome coverage also there another variable i dont think you covered what about drying time wet vs dry i wait till i can snap a bud of the stalk but the main stalk will still be a bit bendy

 

[Waira]

dry triming certainly produces a better bag/jar appeal for me and anytime iv wet trimmed i get that strong hay smell if i dry trim it seem to retain the smells much better for the mold worry i think it could be a issue if you left everything on but i only leave leaf matter with trichome coverage also there another variable i dont think you covered what about drying time wet vs dry i wait till i can snap a bud of the stalk but the main stalk will still be a bit bendy

This is what I hear mate! A lot comes down to personal specifics, technique, handling,... I found dry bud/sugar leaves sheds more trichomes during the process, and the resin tends to be more gummy and sticky vs. in the fresh state. Plenty of variables there too, greasy resin is much nicer to deal with than sappy sticky stuff. I about died trimming the damn Gorilla Breath, lived up to her (parental) name there! I did some finish trim on dry, and it was much worse - ..stunning scissor hash though!
I course-trim wet these days, plus I find I need to break buds down some to aid drying. I'm at the mercy of ambient T/RH%, so I do more or less break down as is dictated by conditions... Also, I have no place to properly hang whole branches or plants in the right conditions, which I would prefer to do with branches, big tops alone... I use a mesh rack for drying, BTW,...
We're veering off course here (pardon all), but in short, the leaves do buffer moisture exchange for sure, so more or less is advantageous depending on conditions... If the RH% gets too low, and I don't have cooler T to balance it (drying speed that is), I'll slip the buds into paper bags, closed create higher localized RH% inside the bag, buffering the outside RH%... Best dry to date was with about 38-42%RH and 60-68T for a week, some Witch Doctor, and the aroma was rich and tasty.... What a stellar job @Magic did on that cross! I was impressed at how much better the lower T and RH% worked vs the usual for me, low 70's/50'sRH%...

 

[jay-toker]

I have grown with General Organics and Maxi products. Both produced good tasting, high-quality buds.

 

[Ripper]

I digress here, but....
This I don't understand,... I wet trim only for several reasons, and have tried dry trimming as well. There are lots of pro's and con's for both, that's a fact... But so far as this biologist knows, there is no direct "connection" between those cut leaf surfaces and the trichomes elsewhere,... loss of terpenes correlated to this makes no sense?... My thinking, drying them still untrimmed does protect the bud surfaces from the physical/mechanical activity that may burst bud trich' heads open, but in no way does it directly cause the loss of terpenes from trich' heads undisturbed,... Some have suggested that the "smothering/shielding" of the fans help preserve the terpenes,... that seems iffy to me, the coverage is anything but complete, or such covering could in fact promote mold by retaining moisture as well (of course all the other env. factors are in play here for proper drying and preserving as much terp content as possible)... If you found something appearing to connect the two, I'm betting it's something else... I have heard this before from other growers truth be told, but again, after looking into it best I can, I found nothing but anecdotal connection between the two, certainly nothing empirical. My mind is open for bizz on this, I just haven't found any solid explanation to ratify the correlation between these two things....
Keep in mind some monoterpenes are very volatile, even at 70F they vap'-off readily, and depending on the specific make up of what terp's are in the buds, this can have a huge impact of not just what remains, but how much by the time they fully dry and undergo final curing....

It is the time it takes to dry that makes the big difference. If you wet trim your flowers dry faster. A long slow drying process with the leaves attached allows more time for the chloroform to escape. I dry my whole plant at 60 RH at 70 degrees.?it takes 10 to 14 days and the buds are perfect 55 to 60 Rh and need no cure they are ready to smoke perfectly.