Lol OK bud. You out of your league here pal
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Hereâs a little info from a fake expert. Feel free to look up what I say also. You can use Google, pubmed, or any of the 4 chemistry textbooks I have.
Salt based fertilizers are inorganic salts. âOrganicâ salts only exist in biochemistry and organic chemistry. Salt has many meanings outside of what you are familiar and each definition is just as valid. If you bought fertilizer that says organic salts you have salt based fertilizers with an amendment. Doesnât change that its salt. Just means you got scammed. Organic fertilizers are fertilizers that are mineralized (they are oxidized) and turned into compounds plants can uptake in the form of inorganic salts. That breakdown by soil biota? Thatâs crucial. When you (because I KNOW you do) use salts you deprive microbes of needed substrates. YOU sacrifice soil organic matter and texture (all of which increase your output) for a quick shot of inorganic salt based nutrients. Thatâs why you grow in a substrate and spend money on microbial inoculants and micronutrients and canât go a week without opening a bottle you spent money on and will have to do so for your next grow. Youâve fallen for all the big ag scams and are hooked now. Doesnât matter how good your weed looks it will never be as good as any grown in living soil with organic amendments. I spent $40 on soil and will likely clear 4 pounds outside because I chose smaller pots this year. You gonna spend $140 on salt nutes and inoculants.
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I like to eat salt. And so do my plants.
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Letâs keep this going.
Powered nutes are a better bang for your buck than liquid nutes.
Ok above is not that unpopular and boring.
This sounds crazy butâŚ
People who lean towards sativas more generally have a better understanding with each other.
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thatâs a whole lotta words to use and not answer the question. now you got me curious and i also want to know why organic salts are not salt. i asked larry, but he isnât a botanist. my daughter is however, with a masters degree in it, but she sleeps late when she can, kids and all. larry gave me a thorough explanation of why salts are salts though. i want to hear from a person with experience also. then i will have an expert opinion to take to my daughter along with larryâs version. inquiring minds and all thatâŚ
They said organic salts are salts + amendments.
I do believe that growing in living soil is likely better, but I use salts (Jackâs) indoors. Outdoor has too many bug and (more importantly) mold issues here that makes it not worth it for me.
The price of salt nutrients is negligible for me. I grow in straight hp promix and donât spend money on additional microbial innoculents and micronutrients, generally nothing beyond silica and fulvic acid. These last so long that the price is also negligible for me. Iâd rather have 1lb of indoor than 10lb of outdoor. Not that I even need a lb. Plus the constant turnover indoors gives me more variety and this is primarily a hobby for me, so gives me something to do. Outdoors is generally one shot grow and done. By the time your next batch is done, the stuff youâre smoking on is a year old.
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Anyone who wants to learn more can enroll in my Crop Nutrition class this spring. Just because the answer doesnât make to you doesnât mean it is not correct. And none of what I said was controversial, it is widely accepted and consensus that salt fertilizers are bad for the soil and the long term ability of soil to be productive. It is literally one of the reasons why our soils are imperiled and degraded and why global agriculture needs to change. Again, none of this is new, this scientific consensus. Yall wanna call people fake experts but donât even know what you are actually talking about just regurgitate shit you find on Google. Itâs not the âgotchaâ moment you think it is. Itâs the difference between reading something and understanding something.
Edit to add: Question was also answered.
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What? Why would you add microbes if youâre feeding salts? Thatâs the whole point of salts to begin with. Theyâre easily absorbed directly by the plant. Donât need microbes/fungi at all. Theyâre just gonna foul up your media. I prefer to run sterile myself and the results beat anything Iâve ever bought.
Microbes and fungi are only good for breaking down organic matter into⌠salts the plants can easily uptake.
If youâre in soil, you should be using organic amendments and microbes/fungi, sure. But anything else, donât need them and itâs a waste of time, money, and effort.
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no it wasnât. i wouldnât have asked if i read the answer. the question was, âhow are organic salts not salt?â i saw no answer to that anywhere in your comment. if i missed it please show me where since i read it three times just now and missed it all three times.
i donât want to learn more, just a question answered. now i donât even care any more but the answer may influence folks to learn more from you. it may not.
i donât know anything (very much) about any of it and am not calling anyone fake. i didnât see anything to understand. i may have missed it but doubt it. anyway, iâm headed out to the farm, maybe my daughter can explain it to me. have a great day, stay hydrated.
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It certainly is a waste of time and money but there are products out that people use. Itâs a lack of understanding of what the microbes are for and how they work. They make microbial inoculants for hydro systems. Why? Because people largely donât understand what they are being sold or how nutrient cycling works. Losing microbes results in losing plant stress tolerance, secondary metabolites, and yield. The products are there cause people buy them, and the research is there that shows organic is better for both soil and plants and itâs not even close.
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Tell that to my salt plants.
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OK. I got no problem doing that. This thread was called unpopular opinion and I guess I fucking nailed that.
Iâm not trying to bash anyone here, but it is a fact organics are better than salts. Well established. Just because folks donât want to believe it, doesnât make it untrue.
New unpopular opinion: the cannabis industry is going to be dominated by large corporations, genetics, fertilizer, everything will be controlled by big companies. Not because Big Ag is better at growing, itâs because people refuse to either evolve their opinions or make changes to their set up because âthatâs how weâve always done it and it works okâ. You fucking the industry, you fucking your soil, and your crop your happy with now could be much better. Itâs irresponsible and itâs why cannabis is Big Ag. Yall can stop that from happening, you just donât want to.
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Ok then. Microbes = superior.
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I completely agree with what youâre saying and there are many studies, white papers and scholarly articles out there to validate the data. Plants have evolved over eons and adapted to their specific environments in ways that we have yet to understand. Hereâs a great article that some here will have read, some will read a little and become quickly bored and some wonât read at all and thatâs OK:
I also agree with your statements regarding big agriculture. Itâs an argument thatâs been around since the modern tractor. When you have meth heads trying to steal ammonia from the giant tank that farmer John keeps for his crops, you should wonder why does farmer John keep a big tank of ammonia around for his crops?
I thinks itâs also important to recognize that hydro has been equally successful in producing healthy, vigorous, fruit/flower bearing plants.
The vast majority of growers here grow for personal use. One could make the argument that collectively, all of the reservoirs that are being dumped by personal growers are contributing to the issues youâve mentioned here, but it would be a pretty weak argument versus big agriculture.
I donât agree with your statement about personal growers f*cking anything. Itâs personal preference. I grow soil because Iâm lazy and I donât want to measure anything. I throw a couple of handfuls of dry amendments on top of my soil, water it in and get back to watching Ozark. Just because someone does it differently does not mean theyâre doing it wrong, regardless of what you believe is right. If theyâre happy with the results they get, who cares?
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I will continue growing with salts. Waste water quality be damned.
I donât grow in soil and donât give a shit about depleting it.
I donât water to runoff.
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I donât understand what industry we are fucking by growing with salts?
Sure big Ag will try to control as much as they can. I buy Jacks from them, but thatâs it. The whole point of this site is to preserve and distribute genetics in a grassroots fashion, so to come here and seemingly argue that us small potato hobby growers are contributing to big ag controlling the genetics is asinine.
Judging by the abstract of the paper you posted @Coda, Iâm not sure how applicable it is. The whole point of indoor growing (in my mind) is to reduce external stresses such as âdrought, salinity, heavy metals, variations in temperature, and ultraviolet (UV) radiationâ by better controlling the environment. It seems one of the main conclusions is that âgrowth-promoting rhizobacteria that colonize the rhizosphere/endorhizosphere protect the roots from the adverse effects of abiotic stressâ. I feel pretty confident in saying my root masses look incredibly healthy and are not compromised through the use of salt nutrients.
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Hydro is a skill set I donât have time nor patience to learn. Eye of newt, toe of frog, wing of bat. ECâs, PHâs, ETâs phone home 
From where Iâm standing, it looks like it produces some killer crop, though.
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I donât even make it that complicated. I havenât used a pH meter in I couldnât tell you.
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Thatâs because you have your gear dialed in.
Thatâs whatâs important.
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Same, I donât pH either. Jacks A, B, silica, fulvic. My plants have never looked healthier. I tried the top dressing âorganicâ stuff, seemed like I was always chasing deficiencies, personally speaking.
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