Roots organic or Fox Farm ocean?

[ap77]

Hi i was wondering which one would be better for my first grow and what else would you mix them with?

 

[Musturd]

Hi ap,

I use Roots and have learned to add some Dolomite Lime (1-2 Tblspn per gallon) and One quarter of a Mosquito dunk crushed into each 3 gallon pot. The Lime helps stabalize the PH and the dunks is preventive I had some gnats in my first grow. Learning your soil is part of learning so allthough I had a couple issues I stuck with Roots. Oh yea it's not so hot as to hurt your seedlings but with autos I dont feed till about 4 weeks Theres lots of stuff in the soil. With lime in the Roots soil You will use less cal mag. Both are good my


Grow Baby

 

[Guerrilla]

baby! I love ocean forest! Throw in a 8 quart bag of perlite and keep it off the girls for about 3 weeks! Seedling soil for three weeks! Then expose the ffof!

 

[Musturd]

Hey Guerilla way to back me up buddy,

Ap as you can tell there are many different ways to do things. Both are Good:thumbs:

Haha I love this weed

 

[namspy]

hey musturd started a grow in roots but didnt add the lime can this be added at any time have two pk in 3 gal pots plants are about 6 days out of ground have been giving them a cup of water every other day
can you mix the lime in water?

 

[Musturd]

Very hard to add effectivly after potting, if your plants are really young you can add some on top and scratch it in a bit but not as good as adding early. This is a hot topic on another thread but lime allowed me to not worry about ph unless theres an issue. Without lime I logged ph in and ph out and was always trying to get it in the sweet zone 6.5. Now 6.5 in very close out and I only check every other water and just a couple of my 10 plants. I wish roots would add at production if they are saying that its good as is.

 

[kingjetorl]

I just ph my water at 6.2 my roots out of the bag is about 7. so I do not see a real reason for adding lime.

 

[Musturd]

So your depending on the buffering , I would rather have stability. Many ways to do things, just what works for me.

ph is getting like politics we all got our own opinions :smokebuds:

 

[X]

ph is getting like politics we all got our own opinions

Unfortunately, if you get around the forums much, one could easily draw that conclusion.

Science is not influenced by opinion. The problem is that most of our members don't understand much about pH or why it seems unimportant to one person, and of paramount importance to another... on the surface it seems like there are successes and failures from both camps... so, people experiment.

It's pretty safe to add lime at the amounts that have been discussed, even if you don't need any. It's still not going to drive your pH above 7.0. When we look at a pH chart, we see that most of the more common lock-outs are toward the bottom of the pH range (below 6.2).

Back to the original question... Roots or ...

I haven't used Roots. Before I started using my own compost, I used OF and never had an issue. I always pH'd my water and buffered the fert mix before feeding, but I never checked the mix itself. I quit using it because of anxiety about future grows, based on all the negativity about it and because, once I started to understand a little about organics, I realized its easier and far less expensive to go TLO.

 

[GCase]

:checkph: