Alright, folks, let’s start into the deets of nutrient routine for your beloved babies. I’ve come across a variety of advice, ranging from sticking to organic feeds to exploring hydroponics. But I’m curious—what’s your go-to routine for ensuring your ladies are thriving? Sharing your top tips would be greatly appreciated. I’m always open to fine-tuning anyway. Take a look at the picture below to see my current grow!
11 Likes
They look great!
I started using Gaia Green this grow. I have liked the results so far, but I also am terrible at LITFA so I add calmag to my water and this last time also put a dose of the florabloom in at 3ml/gal. I haven’t noticed any amazing explosion of flowers though so probably not super beneficial. As long as the plant doesn’t start burning I’ll probably do it one or two more times before I enter the final couple weeks where I’ll go back to just ph’d water.
3 Likes
I appreciate the love! Finding that perfect nutrient balance can feel like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, am I right?
I like pure blend pro but it’s just me.
1 Like
Tomato-tone tea with some molasses works for me. At the stage you are in just go with something fairly low in nitrogen and you will be fine. If you aren’t into teas just scratch the amendments into the dirt and water in. imho.
2 Likes
I stick to a water only organic soil mix these days. It works out better for me. Just a basic 1/3 peat 1/3 aeration, 1/3 compost mix, search around and you’ll find tons of recipes. Don’t be scared of the mile long amendment list, look into it and you’ll probably find many of those ingredients are already in tomato-tone or something similar.
BUT, if I totally slacked on soil preparation, I stick to liquids. I feed lightly with GO biothrive bloom, even in veg (if starting w/ an inert soil mix, will start later if using bagged soil w/ food already in it). 5ml/gal total every watering feeds well enough & brings my well water PH down to about 6.2. Every couple of weeks I’ll split that 5ml/gal between calmag & bloom for one watering. I’ll keep trays outside to catch rainwater and water with that every so often as a treat for being a good girl.
If you’re not already, try letting those fabric pots soak up water from a tray. Water enough up top to keep the soil from drying out too much & pour the rest in a tray… just enough for the pot to soak it up within about 5 minutes or so. See if you like it, it made a big difference on my end.
I’ve found that my plants grow much better when I find a balance between what’s good for them and good for me. I don’t have fun when I have a super strict feeding regimen or have to adjust PH every time I water. If I’m not having fun, I’ll probably cut corners, and end up w/ some imbalance or another. Some folks love this level of control & dialing in every last little detail. To me, it just starts feeling like work. Try everything, see what you both agree on.
2 Likes
If you prefer tasty weed than productive weed : go organic
But be careful. Og kush doesn’t like a lot nutrients in general. Plants will burn quick.
Small dose of nutrients
I like aptus start booster because it helps roots, grow and don’t burn even the most sensible plants. But don’t put it in the leaves
4 Likes
My best nut regimen is first thing in the morning. I bust the heaviest load 
lol jk
Honestly I still use and like General Hydroponics. I’ve tried a myriad of their products, but I prefer the oldschool Flora Trio with a few additives
5 Likes
Living organic soil would be my #1 recommendation. IMO nothing beats the buds produced with a good living organic soil.
But If you are looking for something simple, cheap and organic that will work well with store bought bagged soil, here’s what I recommend to my friends. I still use it sometimes myself when I am just using bagged soils.
roots organic Uprising and/or terp tea lines.
https://www.aurorainnovations.com/uprising-foundation
https://www.aurorainnovations.com/uprising-grow
https://www.aurorainnovations.com/uprising-bloom
Those are the main 3 you’d need. You could also add in this one if you want (to rotate with the uprising bloom during flower), but it’s not necessary. The uprising line is a bit more forgiving than the terp tea line.
https://www.aurorainnovations.com/terp-tea-bloom
You can get away with just plain water with those 3 bags. Or plain water + cal/mag if you are using RO water (or distilled water).
1 teaspoon of the foundation + 1 teaspoon of the grow or bloom (depending on veg or flower). Don’t do 1 teaspoon per gallon of soil as they recommend. It’s too much.
Here’s some bud pics from a plant grown with only roots organic and plain water:
I also just finished a few plants with the “organics alive” sample kit:
Really like the results I got with it. It seems to be another good organic nutrient line to use with store bough bagged soil.
Here’s some late flower and harvest pics:
It produced some really good weed. I’m impressed. Very oily, frosty and stinky. Nothing is cured yet, but the stuff I’ve sampled with only a 5 day dry tastes excellent. It’s actually pretty comparable to my living organic soils. Not quite as good, but for using store bought bagged soil, it’s pretty damn close.
It’s a dry, water soluble organic nutrient. Their website has more details. It’s carbon based and includes a natural source of sulfur. It fully dissolves in water. I’ve been able to use my pump sprayer without clogging it at all.
7 Likes
Thanks for the compliment, @Gadarien Gaia Green sounds interesting, and it’s great to hear about your experience with it. 
Adding calmag and florabloom seems like a good strategy for an extra boost. I’ll keep that in mind as I fine-tune my nutrient routine.
1 Like
Man, living organic soil looks like the holy grail of nutrient solutions. And thanks for the detailed recommendation on Roots Organic Uprising—I’ll definitely check and try it out (hopefully I could get same results as you have 
) Your results speak volumes!
2 Likes
Haha, thanks you give me a good lough man! General Hydroponics is a classic choice, and btw I am also using Flora Trio for this grow so far so good true to it’s reputaion indeed!
1 Like
Going with a water-only organic soil mix sounds like a great approach @Ivy . I appreciate the detailed breakdown of your feeding regimen—it’s always helpful to learn from others’ experiences. You guy’s are the best!
1 Like
I’ll be sure to proceed with caution and stick to small doses. Thanks man!
I can’t say growing in soil is any tastier or better than growing in hydro/bottle nutrients. IME, they will come out the same if you grow them just as well in each. The best nutrient regimen is the one that gives you the best results for your setup/environment. If you can put out the best flower you can in organics but not in hydro, than grow organics, or vice versa, but one isn’t automatically better or superior than the other.
Just in the last 5 years alone I’ve ran a ton of different nutrient mixes and water-only super soil, but I like the solution grade gypsum+maxibloom the best. like 1.25g gypsum and ~7g maxibloom for flower and that’s it.
6 Likes
Never use the dosage said by the nutrient bottle
Start 1/4 when you don’t know your plant
2 Likes
Have done a bit of soil in the past (for cactus and succulents and chillies…however i prefer hydroponics for canna. i learnt this way and tried many variations of hydroponics such as bubblers, aeroponics and a few others but the best two i like are coco coir (without peat) and straight perlite for faster drying of medium therefore faster growing roots trying to spread looking for water.
piss easy to use perlite. under 18 litre pots only though…except if in a screen thats solid and keeps plant still, maybe bigger pots but otherwise i would stick with coco coir or coco perlite mix for trees.
im not sure of the correct term it might be called soil-less growing --not in nutrient mixed water such as turbo tanks and bubblers and aero- which imo is true hydro, but it is a good easy way to grow and you can live in areas where power goes out often.
If power goes out in an aero setup the plant will die pretty quick. maybe 2 days tops or at least get infections in the roots.
the longest ive left plants without light is 4 days from memory which is also a killer for plants so a back up light is a good idea if a driver etc fails.
hps and halide lights are cheap so a back up hps might be wise on low budget or a bigger sized compact flouro (125 watt to 250 watt to keep lighting the plants waiting for a new driver.
Back on soil on topic about org vs dro, its just easy this perlite / coco way to do scrogs (screen of green), sea of greens SOG’s, (up to 4 clones per square foot vegging for 1-2 or 3 weeks max then flowered and kept short).You dont mess around with tanks and buckets trying to renew the tanks water nute supply all the time, just keep a cup for watering and it should fit under the screen and above pot to hand water each plant.I like about a hands width size gap between pot and screen personally.
Perlite is light so plants may tip over if they trees, especially 4 - 5 pound monsters in perlite, so coco or soil might be best if trees are your thing.
soil i find my buds dont develop as dense, i was a gardener and nursery hand for a while as a job…also had gardens at home using only soil for any variety of plants but i really found hydro far simpler to understand and manage for canna. especially with a medium like perlite.
easy to fix nutrient definciencies if there ever was one (which only really happened when i switched to undimmed led lights i made at home.
leds are different to hps and the halides i grew up with so there are some new tricks to learn for old dogs with led tech.dont get me wrong i love the recent leds since cobs and far reds and UVa end really am glad i dont need to cut a hole in the ceiling to get rid of heat from the grow room any more.
However cobs i used had problems here and there…Like bleaching if an inch too close to plant and then stretching if light moved an inch too high.also more deficiency problems
.hps seemed less finicky but the leds ive used were cobs i bought around 2015 or 16 and built together at home and did not use a dimmer…
anyway my point here is it is easier in my opinion to fix a deficiency in hydro if you have access to different nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous …also micro nutes are needed to be watched…micro nutes can block out other needed essentials as far as ive seen so a good ratio of micro and main nutes needs to be watched in soil or hydro.
i always liked canna range of nutes for hydro (can be used in soil too). however a little pricey, but others are great too…canna i would say i had best of luck with. they supposedly have cannabis specific ratios of all nutes needed by cannabis…some say too much nitrogen in bloom bottles, but i had good luck with their line.
others-
general hydroponics were ok, cyco were ok, dutch masta and dutch fest too…they all seem to work in my tests and friends tests.
i didnt like GH or Cyco that much in that they have such a huge range of (what i think is snake oil) additives.
you dont really need that much and so many bottles to grow good buds in hydro. Canna a and b vega and canna a and b bloom/flora…some pk 13.14 to fatten up buds or pk 13/15…and if you need flavour these i found enhanced turpine profile and smell- canna boost produced my stinkiest sticky icky…so did floralicious by gen hydro. but i really liked canna boost the most…
Some say hydro lacks smell and flavour.
Not with canna boost (non organic version).
Problem lies with smell of the plants, you need to update and maximize carbon filter system with this stuff and also a bottle goes off out of date/expiry with in a few months of purchase. 250 ml is also $120 aud.
people moved onto other turpine enhancers but this is my fave but floralicious also worked almost as well and flora is cheap.
im currently looking for a replacement to canna boost myself and seen a lot adverted on e-bay but dont believe they will be as good myself…
after that long post i will show how little i know about soil canna as i will like to ask a few questions.
is it true chicken manure is best for cannabis?
bat guano too?
what ratios do you mix all these, sands, fertilisers etc…it was a mess working in a nursery with a tractor/bulldozer mixing garbage bin loads of different soils sands, clays, ferts and all sorts to put all the new seedlings or larger older plants into…pain in the ass…that scale in perlite factory farmed cannabis production would be a pain in the ass too and i would not hand water myself in a scale like that.
if you try perlite i like to water when pots get a little light weight…not when they are obviosly still damp and weighty…usually summer 1 time a hot day, in winter 1 watering every 2nd day (skip 1day) and only water until a little run off happens, like 4 glasses of mixed water each 10 litre pot…on a schedule i find you dont get manicured perfection of perfect feed times…just in my opinion.feed times can mess up a crop…overwatering causes more problems than underwatering imo.
2 Likes
Gypsum is great stuff!
I’ve mainly grown either in soil, soilless (like pro-mix) or hydro (aero, DWC, aero/NFT, etc).
I decided to give coco a try a few years ago. My first run i did came out good. Big yield, hydro like growth. Decent taste/smell but not where I wanted it. Added some gypsum to the coco when I mixed it for the second run. Big difference in taste+smell that second run! lol
I mostly agree with you on the rest. You can definitely grow good, tasty weed with any method if you do it right!
Personally though, I just find I get a more complex flavor/smell profile with organic soil. For many years I ran mostly hydro, but always kept a small 1-2 light setup with soil (BTW, it’s amazing how different the same strain can look in soil vs hydro in the same room, same environment!).
A lot of times I think my hydro stuff actually looked prettier than the soil stuff. Better “bag appeal”. Better yield too usually. But the soil stuff always seemed to win on taste for me (other people said it wasn’t noticeable but to me it always was). I’ve tried all sorts of different things in hydro to get the taste to match my soil but could never get it 100%. I never had the weed tested but the terpene profile always seemed more complex with soil.
1 Like
My only single beef with organic indoors is bugs. Good and/or bad, bugs are an almost certainty, and one could argue a critical part of growing organically.
I just simply don’t want bugs in my spare room. So, if I can keep things “clean” with mineral salts and coco & get results I’m happy with, then I’m good. I toss my runoff in the backyard lawn so that it’s not getting flushed. 
1 Like
interesting thread.
I grow both organic water only outdoor and indoor with bottle nutes. General Hydro Flora Micro/Bloom run on modified Lucas Formula. After a long time doing this I find both methods grow excellent, clean and flavorful finished product.
That said… if this thread is about OG Kush specifically , none of the advice in this thread follows the feeding program the guys who maximized OG production/flavor ect in order to fetch the huge dollars they used to get per pound. This recipe was shared around icmag as the definitive OG kush feeding regimen. Now I am not declaring it that , I am merely sharing the recipe as it was shared with me.
3 Likes