Dude, Scotty, Guru, and the great DGC,
I’ve been listening for about a year and finally caught up with all 500 or whatever episodes. Always wanted to chime in but living in prohibition land and growing the dank I kept away from the internet community to keep me away from the cell.. recently moved to Oregon and here I am.. finally.. anyway,
Lets talk anaerobic bacteria. I recently mixed a new no-till soil mix to start my legal 4 plants using the same indoor setup I’ve always used except now i’m using 20 gallon smart pots.. (4×4 tent, advanced led XML 350 light, can fan + carbon filer, running negative pressure on the tent to allow higher pressure at the passive air intake ect.
The issue i’m having is the soil I mixed stinks like literal cow shit and I used no manure in my soil. Only pure organic plant compost, lava rock, sphagnum peat and some dry amendments for my micro nutes. I top dressed with an inch or two of pure vermi-compost straight from my worm bins, worms and all, planted some cover crop seed and watered with plain old de-chlorinated water to get things rocking and rolling.. For about 3 days things were great. All of my cover crop sprouted and the soil smelled like a handful of gardeners heaven. On the second time I watered, I noticed that the pots were leaking from the bottom so naturally I stopped watering and left it be.
The next day the bottoms of the pots had this brownish slime form around them and they stunk to high heaven like actual shit. I consider my self well read on the soil food web (all 3 of Jeff Lowenfels books and a shitload of Brownguy420 videos) and knew right away that the bottoms of the pots were over watered and have gone anaerobic due to them not being elevated from the ground at all. I ran to local home depot to get some 1 1/4″ PVC to lay in the bottom of my tent and place the smart pots on to bring them off the ground. I then threw a fan on the floor to get good air flow between the floor and the pots. A day later, and the shit smell has transformed from a septic system type of shit to a cow farm type of shit.
I know that what happened was the bottoms of the pots were retaining a lot of moisture due to over watering and lack of airflow causing it to go anaerobic, but the tops of the pots where the cover crop is growing and my clones are planted still smells like that same handful of greatness from the beginning. Do you think that my quick fix is enough to revert the anaerobic conditions at the bottom of my pots back to aerobic without having to dump the soil and spread around to dry? Any input helps!
Thanks guys and the DGC much love from Oregon
You need to get your pots back to “just moist” You ran into this problem because your 20 gal pots hold a lot more water than the 5, 7 or 10 gals you were probably use to AND the plant roots you have in the pot have not yet drilled down that deep. I would put them up on a pallet if you can to get more than ample air circulation. Combating an anaerobic condition can be rather difficult.
How far along are you? If you are not to deep into your grow , you may want to consider re-potting your girls temporarily, and dumping that anaerobic soil into the sun to disinfect it and dry it out. Then start again. Begin with a solid base of all the levels beneficial microbiology and biology in the SFW. Yeah PAIN IN THE ASS I KNOW – but may be worth the effort in the long run
Hey brotha, I highly recommend adding some lactobacillus. They’re facultative anaerobes and they’re really good at bioremediating smelly shit and turning it into outstanding plant food. You can make your own lactobacillus serum for $5-$10, just google ‘lactobacillus serum recipe’. 🤘🏻😜🤘🏻
I agree that LABs would help digest the anaerobic bacteria. To combat this in future plants, you can try lining the bottom of the container with lava rock, pumice, or whatever is cheap in your hood. This way the bottom of the pot can drain very easily. I also sub irrigate where I put the stones just a little so there is always air and water available to the ladies when the roots make it there.
Another most excellent way to fight the anaerobic bacteria is with bookaki.
*** another way to fight anaerobic bacteria is BOKASHI. Do not take my other advice. That shouldn’t help anything.
Follow up to my question. Thanks for mentioning on the show fellas and thank you Phud, Sustain, and Max. Super helpful comments and advice. I just let it sit for about a week and a half with no water and allowed the fans to dry it all out. The foul smell is completely gone and has reverted back to the good earth smell again. Since then, I’ve watered in with recharge, humic acid and some coconut at a much lower dose.. about 2 gallons of water for all four 20 gallon pots.. (lol 4-20..) and the ladies look GREAT! I don’t think the anaerobic conditions reached the root zone or vice versa during that short period so all is well. Thanks for all the support everyone. I love my DGC pals.