Yeah, the actual outputs are important. It’s basically weighing individual outputs of individual spectrums based on pigment absorption requirements. There’s a huge reason some are worth a fortune and worth upgrading the cooling and drivers on and other are Mars Hydro.
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I run soil and organic nutes.
Why? It’s easy and I can read most of the labels; and thanks to OG and some good friends - I grow amazing weed.
That said, I just had a bowl of some hydro - really nice cake strain, well done! I think an oz for Oz trade will be fair!
I won’t even hate on dispo weed - It’s good stuff when your last crop ran out and your current crop is running long.
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I tried soilless coco and perlite and it just didn’t click for me honestly. I have some experience in mycology and I’m a biology nerd so the whole microclimate aspect is just cool to me. Hydro is a totally viable and reliable way to grow for sure tho! Everyone has their preferences and ways of doing things
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I’d almost consider it like playing two different instruments.
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All of my weeds tasted great, flowering under hps grown in hydro. I hope the stuff I’ve got in soil winds up just as good. It’s just not in me to drop over a grand on a light. Nothing against those that do just to rich for my blood.
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I find it an interesting and very comical argument to say organic is better tasting or better quality. I was in the food/bev/wine industry and spent a decade on the supply side for an organic ingredients company, it’s rare for the best organic quality to match the best conventional. Quality organic is always tougher to grow than quality conventional, quality organic dairy is very tough to produce. To the point that world class baristas refuse to use it. The list goes on and on… I think growing organic is great and very interesting, and something I’ll try some day. I like fast cars with big engines, and fat roots and stems, I’ll take the supercharged version of both, thanks 
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I liked coco, but I love hydro! I have been doing reef tanks and farming corals for decades, so this feels like old hat.
I will, the dispensary stuff is awful! I’m sure there’s good stuff at them, but never the ones I buy
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My brother in law was starting a little personal grow and was asking me all these questions I told him “you have a functioning stable reef tank, don’t worry hydroponics is 100x easier” lol.
That, and growing weed SAVES money. Aquariums BURN money lol.
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One doesn’t have to hate hydro to know that well done soil grown, tends to taste and smell better than hydro.
This is quoted from @lefthandseeds thread Lefthand's Synthetics from Scratch
“For the biggest yields, keeping high N and P is best. For the highest cannabinoid concentration, low N is best, and I think lower P is likely to have a similar effect. Highest cannabinoid concentrations and highest yields do not occur together, because yield is primarily a function of bud size (as plant tissues). This has the effect of diluting cannabinoid concentrations by spreading resin out on a larger surface.”
My takeaway from above passage:
Hydro = Bigger in size and yield but more bland and diluted
Soil = More optimal conditions for maximizing terpene and cannabinoid expression but will not yield as heavily nor get as big as quickly.
Oh, do you?
That is my belief, however comical you may find it
I strongly believe that soil biology and micro-nutrients are some of the key elements to growing top quality cannabis flowers.
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@catapult Sorry, didn’t mean to ruffle feathers with my use of the word comical. I think growing organic is great, I fully support organic agriculture, but if organically grown cannabis tastes better it would go against what is generally true in agriculture. The hydroponic fruits I’ve had in Japan were the best I’ve ever had… That’s when I took interest in it.
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Lol, no need to apologize, I’m just sharing a differing opinion also. It’s ok
Doesn’t the fact that people have been having this argument for literally years, and nothing has come of it other than more arguments, tell us something? 
They’re clearly different enough that people have preferences; if you’re growing in hydro, that doesn’t hurt me growing in soil. I do plan to try hydro to see if I can actually notice a difference myself… but just because we can’t notice something doesn’t mean it’s not there.
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100%
Keeping a few conditions stable for 3 months is easy, keeping a lot of them stable and dialing everything in right with the right balance of herbivores and life is crazy hard and stressful, and a lot of work…
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Well, not where I’m from it doesn’t. But to each his own in the end.
I’m surrounded by organic farms that can charge more for their produce because it’s widely understood that their product is “better” in one way or another.
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I hope I get to taste the difference soon. I’m open to changing my mind for sure. Peace, and happy growing.
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Cheers bud, good luck!
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Is this is your argument for hydroponics being better?
I dunno about hate, but some of the things I would really like to see changed are the amount of water that gets shipped in plastic bottles that all end up in the landfill. This is a huge waste of resources. I don’t like the leaching and over use of nutrients that end up in our water supply and are causing problems in the rivers and oceans. I don’t like when people use coco coir that has to be leached with fresh water to get the salt content out, ship it half way around the world, use it once and throw it in the landfill. Etc, etc.
With that said, I have smoked a lot of hydro and organics, and my opinion is there is no comparison. I can tell hydro grown weed the second I inhale it.
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Small farms will always do better than the mega farms, they have to. I spent many years tastings hundreds of ingredients, and doing selecting and tasting for importing. Over a decade of that was evaluation dried ingredients for food, as much as I wish it wasn’t true, organic that can outcompete conventional from a taste standpoint is very rare. This is true on coffee, dairy, tea, and many fruits, herbs and spices.
Also, there’s nothing unnatural about what we use for fertilizers, it’s more so how they’re obtained that is the issue for organic standards. I also don’t run a clean system, don’t use anything other than fertilizer, and don’t do reservoir changes. I have plenty of my own microbes and bacteria built up 
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No, it’s my argument against how most of the people on this planet think organic tastes better, but I’ve seen little to support it. Maybe weed is different, I don’t know yet.
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