How fast does a plant break down organic matter like composts, worm castings and guano’s? Will feeding liquid nutrients slow their degradation? Essentially how long does what I put in my soil provide nutrients.
How fast do amendments break down
by Grahem_Guy_Grows | Jun 18, 2020 | Grower Questions | 5 comments
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fast answer, the plant does not break down compost guano or castings the microbes do, they then feed the plant. you should choose between a grow where you feed nutes (you choose what the plant eats) or do organic(the plant chooses what the plant eats). its tough trying mix the 2. KISS (keep-it-simple-sometimes). it all depends on what the plants require to what gets depleted in the soil and how quickly. are you supporting a small plant? large plant? if you have an all organic grow using dry ammendments depending on your pot size it could last as long as a full grow cycle. the larger the pot the larger the battery. I use 25gallon bags so I can get a full cycle with just teas. I would recommend a top dress when planting and when going into flower though.
With organic growing, your soil is like a battery charged up with nutrition and your plant slowly drains the battery as it grows.
How long the amendments in your soil will provide nutrients depends on:
A) how big is your pot? (how big is your battery?)
A big pot will hold a lot of nutrients, a small pot holds a lot less.
B) how much amendment did you put in your soil? (How charged is your battery?)
Did you charge your soil up with a lot of nutrients? Or just a little?
C) how much nutrient is your plant consuming? (How fast is your plant draining the battery?)
Are you growing a big plant that needs a lot of food? Or is this a small plant that only needs a little food?
How things play out totally depends on the details of your setup. It’s up to the grower to read the situation and plan accordingly. This might seem complicated, but all it really takes is a little bit of knowledge about the amendments and soil you are working with in your grow.
I recommend staring with someone else’s system and adapting it from there.
For example… if you are using the build a soil mix in a 15 gal pot, you can follow their schedule for how much to topdress and when. Since a lot of people are using this system there are pretty good guidelines for how to use it. The guidelines will give you a good place to start from, and you can watch how your plants react and adapt your methods from there.
the rate at which different dry amendments break down to available mineralized forms will varie based on what it is, and many other factors like density and diversity of microbes,fungi, and yeasts in your soil, as well as temp and water levels, etc.
that said, i cannot tell you exact rate of breakdown, but when i mix my soils from scratch i let them age in tote for no less then 3 weeks, but norm wait 4-8 weeks before i use it, when i tried using my blends before that time the plants would show diff kinds of nute issues. let it go proper amount of time and everything looked green and healthy
Soup and PheelinGroovey423’s answers were spot on. I’ve been using soil I built from BuildASoil’s kits for a while now and grow in 5gallon and 7gallon fabric pots. I top dress right before flower and I use BuildABloom 2x per week throughout flower. Aside from that I feed biology with almost every watering – aerated compost tea, Recharge, Rootwise Microbe Complete & Enzymes, Mammoth P, etc. I hardly ever have a nutrient deficiency. When I do, I know that I actually have a microbe deficiency. I’ve had soil tests run after a grow cycle and I’ve never had my soil completely drained of ANY nutrient. Sure, it’s lower than I started with and it told me what to amend with; but there was still a good amount of nutrition locked in that soil. The point being, in organic growing, we don’t look at nutrient levels the same way as a hydro grower keeps track of various nutrient levels in very specific terms, at each feeding. I quit testing soil as often because I’ve found that reamending with BuildASoil’s kits after each cycle gives me soil that performs time after time….as long as I focus on feeding the biology.
As to your question about feeding liquid nutrients: I can see where you could get this question from but the easiest answer is “NO” and ‘feeding bottled nutrients into organic soil is counterproductive and a bad idea.” Bottled nutrients (for the most part) can hurt or even destroy the microbial life in your soil; which, after reading all this about microbes, hopefully you’ll understand. Most of those nutrients are toxic to microbes. Think of it like this…. If you’re living a very healthy organic lifestyle and got hungry one day and decided to get IV (intravenous) feeding for a couple of days, would you be healthier or better off? Sure, you could survive for a very long time on IV nutrition or a stomach tube. But you could never be as healthy and happy and flourish like you do when you eat high quality, organically grown food. I like that analogy. I’ll give you an example… If you inoculate you’re plant early with mycorrhizae and that fungi grows a nice network in your soil, ready to supply your plant with all the Phosphorous it needs in flower, and THEN you start feeding your plant bottled Phosphorous, the mycorrhizae will shut down and stop working. So, why bother with the myco? If you’re going to grow in soil and try to produce truly organic cannabis, you should really avoid bottled nutrients like the plague, IMO.
If you’re wanting to dive into understanding soil, I HIGHLY recommend reading Jeff Lowenfels’ series, “Teaming with” that starts with”Teaming with Microbes.” It ought to be in every serious gardeners library; at least if you’re trying to grow organically. Followed by Steve Solomon’s book, “ The Intelligent Gardener.” The key to soil isn’t really about getting ‘lots’ of nutrition into it – it’s about getting ‘enough’ nutrition that’s “BALANCED!” Almost any well balanced soil, with enough biology maintained in it, will grow good cannabis. That’s why these known soil recipes work so well. Someone has taken the time to test and experiment and come up with a recipe that’s balanced. Unbalanced soil causes lockouts faster than pH and can even contribute to poor buffering; which is the cause of pH problems in soil.
If you’re truly curious about the rate at which your plants use various nutrients, the ONLY way to know is soil testing. Test before you grow and then test the soil on the day you harvest. Use somebody like Logan Labs. The difference between the two tests is how much that plant ate. However, this will be strain dependent AND each plant may be unique as well. Sorry for the verbose reply but I hope you’ll find something useful in it.
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