I was worried about root aphids myself, since these little buggers are so... resilient. But I haven't seen one. I have my feed tubes covered with.... yellow sticky paper lol. They all die on the sticky paper trying to get into the tube. I sat around watching and killing the odd fliers and watched them fly in and out of the drain hole. So maybe my treatments up top were being negated by unfettered access down low.
Not sure what "better quality soil" means in this context. I'm using a premium water-only soil. It could be the soil. It could be the bag of EWC, or the bag of ancient forest, or the straw, or hell -- even the bagged organic Dr Earth as far as I know. Not really prepared to do it all myself in house quite yet. The only organics in my basement are the organics I brought in. All medium used during this grow will be discarded though. No huge loss there.
I haven't been growing that long, but I've tried a few methods. Coco, rockwool, dwc, rdwc, now organic. I think organic is the future, and it's most certainly the craze right now for home growers. I probably enjoyed RDWC most of the hydro flavors but a chiller is a bridge too far. F that, especially since I run (or want to run) staggered, perpetual, multi-strain autos.
I had the soil covered with straw, then a feeding cycle came around and I put some fresh EWC+Compost so it's kinda naked under the cover right now. So that's probably my bad. I've heard no naked soil long enough you'd think it would stick, but I thought the cover negated some of that. Heck the instructions just say mound the soil up I think.
Last night I did some more thorough scouting. The coco girls are ready finally, reached the few clear, mostly cloudy, couple amber phase. They'll come down this weekend. I was only able to find 3 thrips despite smacking quite a few leaves. Since I am so late in flower, my thrip protocol right now is pretty simple. I semi-gently smack the stems with some pvc, followed up with a bleach mop of the area around it. Anything that falls off is shortly dead. I haven't been seeing many, it pisses off the gnats more than the thrips I think. lol.
My thinking with the cover (not borne of experience of ANY kind, lol)
- It would be easier to monitor soil conditions
- I would be more likely to top water BTI or whatever daily
Anyhow the old saying "Tell a man there is a billion stars in the sky and he'll believe you. Tell a man that bench has wet paint on it and he has to touch it to be sure" applies 100% to me.
What about a coverless SIP. That way you have the option top or bottom. Some of the sip designs I've seen are more like hempy buckets without a fill tube.
I think the panacea would be a huge bed, no-till style with some cannabis, some herbs, maybe some veggies, some banker flowers, etc. But bringing THAT much dirt into my basement into a quasi-permanent configuration freaks me out. I wish we could just plant them outside like tomatoes. Ah well....
Thanks all.
