Lately I’m thinking something’s missing. And thinking back on my grows in the past before I started using the Octopots I often made compost tea using blackstrap molasses !
One of my concerns is adding molasses to my reservoir as it may turn to Alcohol
I started adding it to my fabric bagged plants in flower
Thoughts please
Blackstrap molasses is high in calcium, magnesium, iron, and potassium. It also contains sulfur and a host of micronutrients. Using molasses as fertilizer provides plants with a quick source of energy and encourages the growth of beneficial microorganisms.
Canna boost is molasses without the sugar kind off , like molasses zero lol this might eliminate the worry of it turning to alcohol : ) pricey stuff but if useing as just a push is quite economical as little is used
I’ve always been told that molasses is for feeding the bacteria, not feeding the plants. I put it in my compost tea regularly, but I’m in soil; do you want bacteria, beneficial or not, growing in your medium? I thought hydro was about keeping it sterile… the closest I’ve seen anyone on here come to incorporating molasses is @als_weed, who uses a small amount of compost tea in aeroponics. No idea if that would be helpful in an Octopot setup, but maybe?
we have a great deal of benefits from blackstrap molasses
I find is best used in compost teas
Both veg tea and in bloom tea
When I was a soil guy
I used it in this watering schedule
1st watering fertilizer
2 nd watering plain water (ph’ed Of course )
3rd compost tea ( to help soil life also )
I remember more greasy sticky af buds
Maybe it’s me now don’t get me wrong my buds are still sticky but not like I remember so now my quest for Excellence
" builds soil life which is Essential to the root system "
Thinking that’s pretty much why I add worm castings. It’s part of my “rejuvenation” exercise for last years planting medium. Compost boost and some worm castings, good for another year.
My only advice is more is NOT better. I’ve dropped the amount I use in tea’s, and in my hydro trays.
Sugar and salt both affect osmosis values, so it can be a plus or a minus effect.
I shoot to feed microbes, myself.
Less is better I totally agree! I read somewhere that if you see A brown Ring around your bucket while making compost tea with molasses then your using way too much , And it will end up having an adverse effect.
This is why I’ve been toying with the idea once the reservoir empties in my octopods just using a gallons worth of feed supplemented with compost tea using molasses
It would only take a few days to empty and refill
I think it would be fine
But the real question should be how beneficial is molasses to cannabis?
It would be easier to test the suspicion that your buds want that dirty water by applying manually or to a separate plant… then there’s no cleaning & resetting the hydro.
I’ve been using promix & salts this year after several years of living soil… so I sympathize. Really lacking jeneceqoipalene
My latest wild hare is feeding sulfur to my worm bin & trying to jack up the sulfur in the root zone as high as possible.
Interesting timing for this thread, I used to use molasses all the time with great results…I’ve been feeling like I need something else as well lately. I just ordered some last night!
Hey papa, that does make sense to my wee noodle, as I can see, after a few uses, of insert anyone’s myco herd product, if the product is worth while, as a potent myco herd, always cleans my rubbermaid tea tote very clean!! I hang organics in tea balls, so yeah, it’s stained.
I snipped this from a bigger read:
The primary molecule raising the osmotic pressure inside plant roots is sugar - manufactured in the leaves and transported down in the phloem tissue to the roots. Plants to some degree can control the osmotic pressure inside their roots. This is done by converting sugar to starch or vice versa. Starch is only sparingly soluble, so it does not contribute much to osmotic pressure. If a plant wants to reduce its osmotic pressure it converts some sugar to starch. To raise the osmotic pressure it can convert some starch back into sugar.
Root hairs do not just collect water for the plant; they also collect nutrients by a separate process called “active transport.” For this process to work, however, the nutrients have to be dissolved in water. Nutrients in an insoluble form cannot be absorbed by the plant. For example, you can’t address an iron deficiency for an azalea by putting some iron filings around the plant. The iron may be there, but it is not in soluble form, so the plant can’t take it up. And herein lies a paradox, exactly the same as for the bacteria in honey. Because the nutrients are soluble in water they also raise the osmotic pressure outside the root hairs. A higher nutrient level means more food but it also makes it harder for the plant to collect water. If the nutrient concentration becomes too high the osmotic pressure outside the roots becomes greater than inside the roots. When that happens the flow of liquid reverses. Instead of the plant taking up water and nutrients it can’t take up anything. Instead it starts to lose water into the surrounding soil. The plant dehydrates, the leaves are starved of water, they dry out, die and go brown around the edges. We say the plant is being burnt. If the situation lasts too long the plant dies.
IDK, Brix comes from the sugar cane industry, migrated to fruits, maybe they are on to something, but not enough for me to chase.
Growing cannabis is similar to NASCAR.
If you use standard nutes, I think you’re within 5% of optimum, in other words, your 95% there.
Nascar drivers are operating in the top 1% of the performance envelope for the cars they drive. Think you can do better? Not a chance. Looks easy, but it ain’t. I think F1 is even higher on the spectrum, maybe .1% or the envelope.
Any good nute system is going to get you 95% there, which is REALLY FUCKING GREAT. Everything else is trying to dial in that extra 5% of performance on a grow.
I use blackstrap molasses as a pretreatment to my soil in case the reaction creates alcohol…I add the molasses (diluted of course) and keep my container ventilated, and let it sit for about a week or two occasionally watering to keep the environment optimal for the microbiology to chow down on the extra carbs & allow the alcohol to dissipate with half a teaspoon of Cocos A to top off…I say the results are substantial… FEED THE SOIL
Nascar has rules that make competition impossible. I used to build the fastest circle track cars in the nation. Not a single organization would allow my cars on the track. Nascar neuters progress to eliminate technology and science from the equation. Literally, they all drive the same shitty setups.
I know GeneralHydroponics has that Sweet stuff that I think is supposed to be like using molasses…
