Here is the results chart.[attachmentid=122048]

There are some interesting comments on varibility of compost, their words:-

Also info about a new type of compost that is comeing:-
[attachmentid=122050]

Thankls OT1, a valuable resource indeed.

cheers for this OT1

Always like it when this pops up - cheers

Thanks for that OT1.



But look at that pic with the 4 plants!

That much variability is scary!

not really.. you can tell how well a compost is going to do by how it smells and it's consistancy really... that is unless this stuff has chemical ferts added ?

thanks ot1 very handy indeed

scarface

Thanks ot1,

how did you get on with the Westlands hanging basket compost in the end ?

I'm planning to try it for the later pottings-on this time ....

I like it the best of all the Westlands compost mixes, all have done well for me except the peat free, that was total cack, the bud produced was good so were yields and it smoked very well.

Because it has water retaining crystals, it suits me very well, if I absolute saturate the pots so the capillary matting is soaked as well I can go away for 8 days at a time with no problem, thats with full sized plants in full flower. I think 6 or 7 days will still be manageable in full summer. For normal watering/feeding I water less at a time, ie round every four or five days. The only amendments I make to the compost are adding a little rock dust and an inoculant.

Invaluable info

Nice one OT

Excellent

thanks..

Cheers ot1. Like everyone has invaluable information.

Thanks for posting this years results mate. quite some difference between those bags off peat free , i m amazed there could be such variation in performance from the same brands.

for my grow , ive decided to for westland multi puprose with added j/i , ive seen many a post on here saying its the dogs. so i poped along to my local gc and fpund they stocked quite in intence range of westlands. anyway i got the one i wanted and potted up my babies today. i yer i forgot to say i added a 3/1 ratio of perlite to it too,. just watered with plain tap water . lets see how the next few days go

Westland seem to have changed their formula. You can read all about it here.

Also you say you've added a ratio of 3/1 perlite. This will cause you no end of problems imo - there really is no need to add that much perlite, if at all.

Is there a tiny amount of perlite in the compost you've got? If so it's the older batch. If not it will be the new formula which peeps have been having a few probs with.

^^ ok, thats basically what ive done added 1/3 perlite as I thought this was the right thing to do... From reading that, Im using the same stuff and The growth rate of my girls has been shit to say the least... The seeds germinated in around 20hours, and over 10 days theyve slowed right down, barely any roots and not a very happy jimmy
Might go to homebase tommorow and grab a different compost.. Cant be having westlands cocking up my plants!!! i'll bite there noses off ¬¬

hi all
great thread old timer

i have been using b@q multi purpose compost for years(with bio bizz range) but it has totaly gone to shit

im finding it impossible to flush the plant as clean as i want
i go crazy with the flushing,i want it clean
but after 2 weeks plain water and 3 weeks flush i had to chop it down,but it wasnt as clean as i wanted
it was a haze

im thinking of changing to coco

Thankyou OT1, keep referring back to this and its bloody useful, cheers. Hh.

in stark contrast, and showing how accurate the findings above are, i'm using the new westlands mix and i've done very little to my girls, just kept potting up. growth is looking ok to me...

Click to view attachment

they got a bit of guano when i potted up but have had no other nutes up to this point.
just goes to show.

i guess the next thing is to find the best and most stable of the available composts. should be interesting...

cheers for the useful info OT1

Interesting thread... I am planning to have a go with some compost, seen few different ones on onffer (mostly what's listed here) seems as is this hydro lad need to do some more homework as I was going for the b&q stuff. Is nice & cheap

Well... back to the research for me then.

I just got my hands on a bag of genie no1 & genie no2, was on BOGOF for £4.48 at my local garden centre. Thought I would try it out as it's organic, however before I go using it should I be adding any perlite or just use it straight, It's quite water retentive in it's natural form.

Read here!

Cheers for that useful read OT1, I might give it a try on one plant though (just because I'm one of those people who likes to see things for themselves), I'll use the rest for my kitchen herb containers, it would be a shame to waste it otherwise. It is rather odd that it didn't yield so well considering it was such a good rooter, started off reading that thinking I had bought a 'bag of gold', to get to the last pages to find it was that 'fools gold' stuff, oh well not to worry.

What compost to use, eh? I used all-mix on my first grow, but switched to westland multi-purpose for my next grow cos it was at least half the price and i was strapped for cash after blowing my wedge on life's little luxurys.. and to be honest I'm getting better results with the westland. I got 5 plants out of 15 with yields of over 80g each, with an overall average of around 60g. Ok, no records getting broken there but its good for me, as I'm still learning. I delay my first nute feed by an extra week cos i think the westland is quite rich at first. I guess I'm also improving as a grower in those 101 little tasks and tricks that only exerience provides. Is all-mix really worth the extra money?

anybody got any idea on the results of this years trials?
i read something online about all composts containing peat will be banned by 2012 or something but the peat free composts are seriously lagging behind performance wise, so was wondering if the bit about peat compost is true too?

thanks in advance

just found this on their site


News: Gardening
11 January 2008


Peat-free compost still lagging behind, Producers need to do more to improve quality



Compost producers need to produce better peat-free products, according to new research by Gardening Which?.

The government has set targets requiring compost manufacturers to go virtually peat free by 2010.

But Gardening Which? tests show there is still a long way to go before peat-free composts are of reliable quality.

There's still a gulf between the performance of peat-free and peat-based composts for growing young plants from seed.

Sowing seeds
New Horizon Organic and Peat Free Grow Bag was the only peat-free compost deemed to be a Best Buy for growing on young plants.

Variable results in quality between bags of the same compost bought from different parts of the UK meant it wasn't possible make any peat-free compost a Best Buy for sowing seeds.

Focus Multi Purpose Peat Free compost was rated a ‘Don't Buy’, scoring only 8% overall, and performing badly in both the young plant trial and seed-sowing trials.

Traditional peat-based compost continued to top all the trials, with B&Q performing best.

Peat-free
B&Q’s Seeds, Seedlings and Cuttings compost scored 88% and was a Best Buy in the seed-sowing tests, while B&Q’s John Innes No.2 was the top scoring compost in the young plant trial. This was also a Best Buy and scored 83% overall.

Gardening Which? Editor Ceri Thomas said: ‘We've been testing composts for a quarter of a century at Gardening Which? and we are still astounded by the variable quality of peat-free products.

‘Compost manufacturers really need to up their game if they are going to produce compost that can balance the needs of the environment with the needs of our plants.’


http://www.which.co.uk/reports_and_campaig..._557_129093.jsp




B&Q won it then, thats a suprise

I only have access to the net once every 6 or 7 days, as im away most of the time at the moment, the trials were split between two issues this year, the trial scarface mentions, is the first only dealing with seed, cuttings and small plants, the second deals with container and larger plants. I'll scan both charts next time I'm in town, I don't have time today.

cool, thanks ot

How yous keeping there, jeez now the dirt is getting fiddly too...complicated this weed growing... But what about that westland mp stuff, Scarface? I've started using that, cheaper than biobizz allmix when you've got 20 odd girls on the go... I dont even know if its peat free or not... Right, I'm running upstairs to see if I can find an empty bag of it, see what the hell I'm doing here...

From my personal grows.. using Allmix, Westlands and AJB... I have found the AJB, to be the best so far..


I look forward to seeing how the later two compare, in this years trial..

Hiya peeps,

I have been used Westlands with added John Innes only for nearly 3 years constant and have been happy with the end product. But this year for whatever reason my nearest garden centre changed companies for there compost supplies, when arriving at the garden centre I was very happy to find they were still selling the Westlands with added JI, so I purchased 300 litres and off I went, happy as a pig in mud. When I arrived back and decided to sieve some compost, I was totally shocked to find such a total difference in the in compost I had purchased for nearly 3 years and the compost I had just purchased.

The fist Westlands with added JI that I used was black, gritty, small pieces of well rotted wood, no lumps after sieving, free draining and it was quite heavy compost, weight wise. I cannot describe the smell, but it had a very nice compost aroma, there was not bad smells of any thing still decaying with in the compost and it gave me predictable results.

The Westlands with added JI that I purchased recently was light brown, no grit was in the compost, there was no wood at all, instead it hay, every 8 litres of compost I sieved, I filled a 2 litre jug with very hard useless lumps, which I threw on to the compost heap and because there was no horticultural sand or grit added to the compost it just became waterlogged. So I had to add my own H/sand at a ratio of 3ltrs of compost to 1ltr of H/sand. This compost purchase quite recently was half the weight of the compost I had been using for nearly 3 years with no change in the compost. There is hardly any aroma at all from this light brown compost.

I have only just started using this compost, so I do not know what the difference will be yet, but I get the feeling it will not be as good. Also having to add 100 litres of H/sand to the 300 litres of compost put the price up considerably and it might need more added for my youngest plants.

If the 2 composts were in 2 separate piles, any one would swear that they were 2 totally different composts. How can this be when they are meant to be using a 50 year old recipe from the John Innes Institute and it is meant to be rigorously tested to make sure it is the JI recipe? But how can one be black and gritty, with well rotted small pieces of wood and the other be light brown with no grit and instead of rotted wood, it has hay mix in. 2 totally different composts as far as I can see.

I was thinking of complaining to the JI Institute my self, but as ot1 said, they will not take any notice, even though they make a lot of money from the users of 420.

Take it easy,
GG