This was fun!
You will absolutely smack it if you do more outside. You clearly understand how to grow and what is needed!
I like that soil recipe! I love seeing what other people are doing. I’m definitely not a professional grower just a researcher with a passion!
Also…its not so much the size of the container you use (to a degree) its the density of the plants that are growing. I like options, you would be horrified with what I’m doing!
I have been saying the same thing without much proof.
This question is directed at both @DirtySlowToes and the @ThePotanist
What is your opinion on the use of mycorrhizae indoors?
Will extra large pots make a difference when using mycorrhizae indoors?
You can use a smaller pot because myc benefits go beyond just nutrient acquisition. You can feel pretty confident of inoculation if you have fresh spores (or a soil inoculant from somewhere outside, just check for pests) especially if you add your spores at the root zone when you plant into the container.
There is a caveat here, if you are using myc make sure you aren’t heavily feeding your plants. In the presence of excess nutrients plants stop benefiting as much as they don’t need to trade sugars for nutrients with fungus. This will absolutely effect your yield and shift the relationship from mutualistic to parasitic.
If you reuse soil, plant a cover in your pot after harvest and the roots will continue to feed the microbes, this will also help kick up soil respiration and help cycle nutrients from dead roots to soil.
I’ve done experiments with 4th graders illustrating the effects of mycorrhizae in small plots with high density plantings and with single plant plantings. I think the results are more apparent with high density, but we had noticeable and statistically significant differences in root length, shoot length, and yield in single planted pots as well.
Hey man. I read somewhere that cannabis benefits from the same myco fungi that grow on onion roots. My question is - Have you seen any research about this? Also, I have an established onion and garlic bed. Do you think there would be any problems or benefits from planting cannabis into these existing beds with the onions and garlic still growing there? Thank you.
Good question!
So when you talking myc arbuscular mychorizal fungi (AMF) are what you want. There are many genera and species of AMF but most of them are pretty general in what plants they associate with.
I’ve been growing Leeks and Scallions around my plants for a few years and will continue to do so in the future. I’ll try some onions this year too.
Some photos of my girls are here; [2023 Massachusetts Outdoor Growing]
(2023 Massachusetts Outdoor Growing) at Oct 4th, 92/146.
I try to use “Companion Planting” guidelines when possible and use flowers and herbs as
deterrents to insects and other critters.
Onions should be cool.
Hell yeah @sunra108 !! I love companion planting! Just another form of cover cropping. Plants send out a lot of chemical signals in the form of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Often these are used to warn neighboring plants of stress and prime secondary metabolites responses so they can produce more as deterrents. They also attract a lot of predatory and parasitic insects that are friends in the field.
Id love to talk more about companion planting sometime! I don’t think people use them to their fullest effect, and to the surprise of no one who has read my posts I have some opinions on why we should use them more
I have used yarrow and stinging nettle as companion plants with cannabis. I tried oregano but the plants died. Too much water. I feel that companion plants help a lot.
Yeah the hard part is finding the best companion!
I try to think of what I want a companion plant to do, what its function is. I like white clover because the roots don’t interfere with Cannabis and they can add some nitrogen for later on. Through in some broadleaves and flowers and you’ve got a lot of weed suppression, soil feeding, and pest control going on.
Have you ever used composted chicken shit and straw on cannabis? what do you think is the shortest amount of time to compost and add to plants.
@Magu I have used composted chicken litter before! I like straw as a thick top layer as it really helps to retain water.
When adding something that will need to breakdown to become available for plants, the rule of thumb is add 10-14 days early. The breakdown rate will depend on climate, microbial populations, and the carbon:nitrogen (C:N) of the material added. The higher the carbon the longer the breakdown process (why straw is good on top), if the ratio is low so high nitrogen, the faster it will breakdown
Yeah, I am into plant/fungi communication.
Really enjoy Paul Stamets work.
His “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World”
Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World - Search (bing.com)
discusses plant/fungi communications albeit more from a mycelium perspective than botanical but
it is all interwoven and interconnected. I find the discoveries and ever-increasing understanding of
how and why Nature functions from molecules to organisms fascinating.
I’ll be checking out your threads. I’ve got a lot to learn from you.
Appreciate the kind words! I hope I can help those who want to transition or improve their grows to more sustainable and ecological based ideas.
As an undergrad my first research project was looking at floral nectar production and priming based on mycelium mediated communication!
DM if you ever specific questions or just want to talk! Im very passionate about sustainable agriculture and Cannabis! If we don’t share the information then we can’t change for the better
Back in the 90’s I had a bud that owned a rabbit and chinchilla farm. He grew some of the best shit I’ve ever had composing those critter droppings. I’m pretty sure he was operating completely sustainable. He had one large raised bed in the barn that held 10 plants. He started them in these little pressed bricks of compost and just set them on top of the bed when they had roots shooting out after a couple weeks. I helped him once put a layer down to cook while the seedlings grew in the bricks. He would put a bunch of that scat in a concrete mixer with rock dust, leaf compost, and a bucket of bluegill scraps after fileting them, and a few shovels of soil from the old growth forest near by and let it mix for a week. We spread that out no till style and covered it. Dude was ahead of his time!
@Cannacryptic these are the things I am hear to learn about! I love that people are doing this!!
Low key the best choice there I think was the soil from the forest. Talk about a microbial inoculant full of decomposers!! This is a conversation I’ve had many times with one of my committee members, does it make more sense to source from an ag field or a forest? I agree with your friend that if you are after fertility alone the extra decomposers in forest soil would be ideal for cycling nutrients.
I’ve got a lot of interest in running some outdoors this summer in a prairie. Highest productivity of any ecosystem, prairie species are natural cover crops and companion species as well.
Edit to add: the no till is so important! I also think we are getting off topic because of me. I might open a thread later focused on soil growing with tillage and no till and some of the cool stuff we’ve mentioned here already
Bruce bugbee mentions somewhere, I think his talk on drying and curing, the broscience of 48hours of darkness before harvest and pretty much debunks it. If I remember correctly he said the goal of that theory is to degrade the chlorophyll, but that happens at a much faster rate when you just cut the plant and start the drying process. He also explains I think in the same talk what added nutrients near the end effect your end product, how harsh it is etc.
Most everything (in a free available form) except potassium becoming a constituent of organic matter in the last couple weeks
Thank You. Will do.
I agree wholeheartedly.
This is one of the many reasons why OG is an awesome place to be ! ! ! imho.
Great information! I am sure some people here are already aware of this, but if you use Google scholar to search for cannabis related articles there will often times be a pdf link off to the side that gets around paywalls.
There are some good articles about nutrient requirements for veg and flower and the effect on yield and cannabinoid content. Learning how to effectively Google a question to get the answer the quickest has been one of the most important skills I’ve learned in grad school.
Indeed. I used to have a full pass to all the academic publications when I worked in R&D at a small biotech outfit, scaling up probiotics for dairy cultures on the human side, bovine and swine feed supplements on ag. It was fantastic, even got published in a joint study with a South Korean counterpart a couple times. I got credit, but couldn’t read my own publication! Lol I spent alot time researching compost much to the dismay of my boss. But, I did get him to grant me a side project testing the benefits of low milled soy flour (retains a ton of active oxygenase) combined with calcium peroxide and chicory root powder (inulin source) as an organic input in a tomato plot. It increased biomass substantially. The other study he let me get away with was using the supernatant from production after they spun down the 100+ liter fermenters. Now that stuff really boosted the soil nutrient load and the plants loved it. We used anhydrous ammonia to regulate pH while the acidophilus strains digested and completed the full log growth so the supernatant was loaded with readily available chelated nutes and nitrogen. I didn’t get a chance to take that one a step further and spray dry that juice for a powdered input on an industrial scale, but it was successful at the laboratory level.
Shit that is cool!! I love seeing stuff repurchased like that supernatant was.
Paywalls for science articles is some of the dumbest shit ever. With the exception of industry grants, all of that is paid for by us. And then they keep it away from those who need it.
Looking forward to you commenting on new posts I make and looking forward to seeing more threads from you! I love that I can talk to people who passionate about cannabis here but also pay attention to science. Great community here at OG
