Hey everyone... getting way to involved with the 'love' of the cannabis here and I'm looknig for some advice from regular Hydro growers.

I hear 'hydro' and I think 'problems', which I suppose is the primary reason I'm a soil guy. Soil I figure is pretty foolproof. Seed into soil, water, provide lights and air.. -enjoy rewards. Hydro is crazy to me though!! its like..
Sprout seed using unknown paper towel method or -?-, place into nutrient less 'growing medium', create some kind of system that waters itself but also allows for air to get to the roots, daily check the ph of your water, the amount of your water, the nutrients in your water, make sure there's no critters in your water.... the daily thought that at any point in time your system could fail due to faulty timers, leaky hoses/fixtures, pump not working correctly... etc -

so it seems to me like Soil is like... just a couple of things to worry about.. and hydro is like..well like a laundry list of chores to get the same thing accomplished. (not to mention the much larger initial investment from funny looking spaghetti strainer pots to silly grow pellet things for your plants to sit in) When I hear about the advantages of hydro over soil.. its mostly just like... 15-20% yield.. and faster growth rate. -Is that it though? I 'hear' that soil provides better taste than hydro.. but they are both equally as potent...
So what gives?

What makes a person want to do the hydro thing? Is there a science to it? Is it to create the 'ultimate' crop by having complete and total control over its environment? Whats up with the whole Hydro thing here guys?

Just looking for the best reasons why we choose to grow Hydro vs. Soil.

I'd love to hear Stories promoting both methods!
thanks guys,

-The Rev

I think the key reason hydro really took off for cannabis is the problem of shifting large amounts of compost in an urban situation ... though today's commercial growers seem to have settled on compost - presumably they recycle it a time or two before actually having to dispose of the waste material.

For myself, though it has the potential for superb results, and I have the technical skills to make a go of it, I'm a bit lazy and disorganised so stick with what I know - and I was growing veggies and ornamentals using compost long before I ever grew one of these plants in a cupboard.

As for the results, apart from a few teeny bits of imported hash in the late 70s and early 80s, , I've only ever smoked my own so I don't know if hydro tastes different.

Well I'm sorry but I could put my organic and hydro bud side by side and no you won't be able to tell me which is which.

Well grown hydro is just as good as your average organics but I do agree with hydro fruit and veg tasting crap.

So your cat piss taste is down to you I'm afraid and its not fair to compare landrace outdoors to hybrids under lights.

im a hydro man...

like johndoe.. i love switches, gadgets and the thought of the ultimate crop.. to say the least, im competitive. ha.

but the main reason 4 me is the fact that ive never grown 1 single thing b4 and the whole soil thing scares me..

dipping water to get readings on digital tools aint hard.. im a mechanic, the methodical side of hydro is piss easy..

must say tho, ive had a few disasters.. i got some superboost or somet shit like that, 30% bigger buds it claimed,

free with a weed mag, a sachet it woz, so i waited till when i thought woz the right time to add it and sprinkled it in..

the next day when i checked them, every plant had died n gone a funny colour.. 3 weeks to go there woz.. the buds had

shrunk to half the size n turned to dust if you touched them.. the heat off the light musta dried em.. thats wot i thought..

when i read the instructions 1 more time after the fact.. the mix woz 4 a 100 ltr system and mine woz a 5 ltr....

i felt wooden headed that day i`l say...

ive got a pal who grows in soil n ive watched him... god its slow, and the buds dont look as juicy..

ive gotta admit it tho... the soil crop does taste better.

miff.......

Got to be soil all the way for me. IMO hydro weed can sometimes leave a chemical after-taste if it's not been flushed properly . It also seems to burn differently when smoked in a pipe.. I can usually tell straight away if the weed is soil or hydro from the very first toke.

I suppose it boils down to personal choice . I'm just an old romantic and always try to keep it 100%(or a close as u can get) Organic.

Quality over quantity always wins in my book...I'm sure some of our female members would agree.

But if you grow outdoors in soil you can grow as many plants as you want, and they can get big and bushy. Im a very active outdoor person anyway so Geurrilla growing is the only way for me. I woundnt mind a wardrobe grow though as theres some indoor strains I fancy doing. Only in soil though Hydro scares me! And plus if cops find a hydro grow its a "Skunk Factory" if they find a outdoor plot its "the biggest plants weve ever seen but we dont know whoose they are"

Of coure the benefit of hydro is that you can harvest every few weeks outdoors you get one harvest year.

The cops think it's the lights that are hydroponic.

... though they might choose to call a small hydro grow "sophisticated" ...

Cheers guys... this is great.. keep em coming!

I like soil cuz its natural... and I've got some big juicy buds..

Dr. Rockster.. I'd love to take you up on the offer. I'll try some of your hydro and soil grown and see if I can taste the difference. Might take a few experiments though...

Same here u would not tell any diffrents in my soil or hydro bud side by side its all in the growing

It all comes down the the person behind the bud. If the guy growing it is looking for fast profit he'll be less likely to give a proper flush/dry/cure than the guy who is doing it out of love and for personal use. So if its done correct as Dr said above, I'd highly doubt you'd be able to tell them apart.

For me, I am contemplating hydro for a shot as I am coming to despise watering time, . The more plants, the bigger the pain in my arse. Hydro needs to be more exact than soil from what I see but if you're dilligent you can benefit from a faster growth rate and higher yeilds from the research I have done so far.

science kills everything thats fun

Instead of it being just a soil/hydro difference, try splitting it into re-circulating/drain to waste. Easier to understand that way imo.

Drain to waste includes soil, hempy buckets, bato buckets, soilless mix forget the brand name but the Vietnamese like it, coco coir, straight perlite and fast becoming a favourite with me, Fytocell. Probably some others I forgot.

If you plumb in drainage and automate the feeding, a hempy bucket becomes a bato bucket and is known as 'active'.

What is the same with dtw, and soil growers already know this, is that once you pour the gloop into the pot, it is finished with. You might measure the run off but that is only to ensure that the original mix is correct for ec and pH. If the mix you are using gives you worry free plants, there is no reason to change a thing. Meaning you only have to get it right once if 1) using ro water or 2) your tap water never changes.

With re-circulating systems, you don't exactly 'need' but certainly could do with getting it right every single time. If it is say a week before the res change and your pH measures 5.6 and you want it 5.2 then that meter of yours had better be accurate.

Rev, just to show you how easy 'hydro' can be, here's my system. On a table there is a 40L bucket with a float valve about half way up connected to my ro unit. So always the same volume of ro water available each night. Into that I squirt 30ml of micro then 60ml of bloom using different syringes. To finish, it gets 12ml of Liquid Silicon as ph up.

The ro bucket then gets poured into a 40L bucket on the floor, I don't even have to pick up the ro bucket, just tilt it. From the floor bucket the veg plants get 1 litre a day poured in manually and the flowering plants get 2 litres a day. Zip up the tents and back up here, less time used than writing this post. No need to check pH or ec, the plants tell me that it's always correct.

Some are hempy buckets, most are 11L square pots, the medium is either 100% perlite or 100% Fytocell. If there is any growth difference in media or pots, it is within the natural variation between seed plants as far as I can tell.

I reckon I could get the Fytocell plants to weekly feedings, sure does hold liquid but can't be arsed getting it sorted. Daily feedings flush them so no worries about salt build up and if ever I go missing for a weekend, they're happy enough when I get back. The run off was a pita until I fitted drainage to the garden trays, now it's a bit of mopping every 5 weeks. Next job is to automate the feeding.

hydro is 2o times better you can push your plants more plus i get more resin using hydro

i grow both soil and nft and i can tell you NOW know one can tell witch is witch.. well one person so he says (if hes reading this )

its down to the grower and how/what he uses ...if its in a nice bit of soil with biobizz yes will taste good if grown good but what about cheap soils with chem feeds
over feed ect will that taste good

tbh very honest i find nft so much easyer than soil less work faster veg easy to get shot of the water and matting in the end
taste well i love the smoke of mine with many many diff strains yes some tasted shit but thats down to the plant..

but some strains i grow dont like nft so soil for them and all the mothers but its alot more work for me
the worst has to to being watering 10 ish big plants moving them about to get to them watering slowly removing the over fill after 20 mins ect ect

each to there own but please dont tell me that just because its noit in soil it will taste crap