Homemade fertilizers, fermented plant extracts

I have not used SST yet. I started with water soluble calcium and phos. I built 2 worm farms to compost my scraps at home and to have free castings/frass.

I live in the woods in Louisiana so its never too cold and theres tons of Indigenous microbes to add to the soil.

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Thatā€™s awesome. I need to start a worm farm. And frass is GREAT.

I want to eventually move to a more temperate climate. Iā€™m in Washington state 30 minutes from the Canadian boarder.

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I have a friend that was trying to convince me to move up there last night :joy:

the worm farm is awesome. you can have a small one in your house. add some bokashi in there if the smell gets too bad. iā€™d order at least 2000 wormsā€¦

I bought a cup of meal worms from petsmart 4 months ago and now i have thousands :sunglasses:

aside from the learning and $30 for the worms, I get free castings and frassā€¦ organic amendments to make my plants happily produce fat nuggets!

will feed mealies to my chickens tooā€¦ trying to create a closed loop (nature) out here or as closed as possible.

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hahahahaha thatā€™s funny

And I have a room I use for cooking soil, storing soil, storing amendments and it also has all my reservoirs in it. A worm bin would be right at home.

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red wrigglers and meal worms

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African Nightcrawlers are badass too, just gotta have a more contained bin, they like to escape but they eat 4x-10x more than a red wiggler. And their ā€œcastingsā€ are a bit bigger

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The point of my confusion was that, at least IMO, the healthiest most resistant plants are going to be grown organically. Cannabis has learned over its long time on earth how to be symbiotic with most fungi and how to be bug resistant.

Not to say they dont have their weak points, but thatā€™s just nature. With KNF techniques you use local biomatter to basica innoculate your plant against local pests and harmful fungi.

Think of a human, which one will have a stronger immune system? The one that eats more like our ancestors, or the one that eats big macs?

Being that I grow cannabis for another human to consume, I shy away from chemical salt fertilizers, it just makes sense to me.

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@tegridyfarms

Preach

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I like down to earth amendments . Most of everything they package in is even compost able. They have great quality control as well as they were a small local business that started in store out of Eugene oregon and i prefer to support local businesses . This year i incorporated epsom salt at 5ml per gallon once per week in flower and insect frass was used in every compost tea . Insect frass has the enzyme chitin which is made of a large percentage of natural silica . It also helps deter bugs . Its most effective as a foliar and can be used multiple times per week . It was almost like a base nute for me this year . I swear by using both now . When you feed epsom salt you can scope your plant and by the next day you will notice an increase in terpenes by smelling your plant and watch the trichome perk up and swell . I have done this is multiple different indoor outdoor and light dep this year to test it out .

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@Saucyslabz I use down to earth amendments as well.

This is some gelato x purple punch from last round

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Looks just like what i grow . My profile pic is of my light dep on the day we harvested . All of my indoor turns out so frosty just like your pic

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Hell even your outdoor can be frosty like indoor

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That is some damn good looking od.

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One of the lesser known supplements for plants are amino acids
Have a look into those for a little go s a long way and they make a big diffrance
L-tryptophan and L-arginine are the ones i recomend most

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Thank you ! Great info

Iā€™m a salty cash cropper now, but I have years of experience with organic and specialty growing methods like Korean Natural Farming. The Japanese Knotweed removal thread got me thinking about biostimulants and a potential novel ā€œsuper foodā€ fertilizer for the cannabis garden.

Everyone knows compost and manure as a soil conditioner and base NPK. The most common biostimulants are humates and kelp. Iā€™ve been doing a lot of reading about moringa and knotweed. The latter is the active ingredient in Regalia, the systemic organic IPM for powdery mildew.

I would love to make a molasses based lacto-fermentation that contains moringa, knotweed and a less refined version of AGT-50 Fulvic Mineral Complex that contains carbon for beneficials in the rhizosphere. The dosage would be similar to KNF at 5ml/gallon drench and foliar. It would be a balanced start to finish NPK with fantastic biostimulants for cannabis growth.

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Tried some charred rice hulls on a few transplants and definitely seemed to like it. They prayed like when i used power si granular, $20 60lbs so hopefully i keep liking it i got enough to last a minute

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Did you happen to charge your carbon source before you used it?

A common method is to mix biochar or rice hull char with grass clippings or other N source and let it compost. Alternately, a calcium source can be used to neutralize with an ionic charge. The last option is to feed with a highly nutrient available tea or fertilizer solution to runoff, otherwise it may be a nitrogen sink initially.

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No first time using it, just flame charred it a did a light mix in on a few since it was something new. Will definitely try your suggestions next time i got-a big ole bag to use

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I love portmanteaus when it comes to words and ideas.

What if I used the knotweed/moringa/molasses fermentation to charge charred rice hulls for use as an IPM, biostimulant and aeration admixture in potting mix? I could make tens of dollars.

I was going to ask if anyone had any knotweed to send me to experiment with, but I think my wife would murder me if I started yet another gardening or money making project.

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