[stanm]

I use Coast of Maine soil and fertilizer and they have a kelp meal product. That should be available near you. My thinking is that I would rather give my plants a few scoops from bagged nutrients than mess with mixing my own concoction up. One has to weight money saved vs how big a pain in the neck to mix our own.

[Culver-Creek]

I am actually trying to figure out if I can get any benefit from the work I am already doing. Every other day I’m picking up a wheel borrow or two from my shoreline, taking it out back and dumping in a pile anyway. I wheel it within feet of my garden and it got me wondering if there would be any benefit to using it somehow.

[jmystro]

Kelp is full of beneficial hormones like auxins during veg but stay away from kelp during flower. It’s fine to put in a compost pile.

[Culver-Creek]

Any experience with freshwater seaweed?

[melonfarmer]

What’s wrong with using kelp in flower?

[jmystro]

Kelp is heavy in auxins that are most beneficial during the vegetative stage. Cytokinins (in coconut water) are more benefical during flower. The ratio of these two hormones is what tells the plant to stay in veg or flower. Auxin dominance keeps the plant in veg. Cytokinin dominance tells the plant to flower. Supplementing the wrong hormone at the wrong time can seriously affect growth and development. Auxins are produced in leaves during the light cycle mainly and are sent down to roots while cytokinins are produced in the roots mainly and are sent up to leaves during dark cycle. Long days will keep the plant auxin dominant. As the nights grow longer, cytokinins built up tipping the balance betwween the two and put the plant into flower.

[Unknown Member]

I use kelp, in my soil, same ratios veg and flower, check out my posts

[Unknown Member]

When you use kelp, you dont decide what ratios of hormones the kelp has and what ratios are taken in by the plant, auxins combined with cytokinins, create lateral root and lateral shoot/flower growth, ultimately creating bushy strong plants and fully developed, chunky nugs, along with top quality because of the 78 or whatever elements in kelp, 62 trace elements

[jmystro]

I mentioned being cautious with kelp concentrations because of hormones. Of course you don’t know the amount. Kelp is full of minerals sure, but there are only 21 elements cannabis can use. Wouldn’t matter if kelp had 100 minerals. People misuse kelp all the time and create hormonal issues.

[melonfarmer]

Interesting, I could have sworn I recently heard someone say to steer clear of cytokinins in flower. Just googled it and found it can delay senescence.

I only chose my kelp as a flower additive because it has decent K levels. Can cannabis really not absorb anymore than 21 elements!? I thought it was a hardcore accumulator.

Cheers for the info anyway Mystro, I’ll keep it in mind.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  melonfarmer.

[jmystro]

You read wrong. There isn’t anything about this plant I don’t understand and is why I’m the DGC bullshit filter. Cytokinins inducing senescence is not correct. Ethylene levels induce senescence. Cytokinins divide cells and delay leaf senescence, not induce it.

[melonfarmer]

Wasn’t that what I said? Thanks again J.

[jmystro]

My bad. I should of said heard wrong and google set you straight.

[BuddyBranch]

@melonfarmer , there you go, imagine if senescence begins in early flowering, you would get half a harvest, but even then you probably need a shit load for that to happen.

[jmystro]

Ethylene levels induce senescence. Cytokinins are known for their role in delaying leaf senescence rather than inducing it.

[stanm]

Normally I top dress with COM general purpose during veg and fish bone meal in flower plus castings. I’m throwing about 1/4 cup of kelp meal in when recharging used soil along with a couple other items.

I use bagged dry fertilizer according to the manufacturers feeding charts. I’m not going to second guess them as my plants do fine without dissecting the contents of their products.

Growers today make this more complicated than it needs to be for home growers with a few plants. I’ve been gardening since the mid sixties and it was easy to adapt to cannabis with a farm background.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  stanm.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  stanm.

[BuddyBranch]

This fresh water seaweed is a good topic, i am interested, first thing i can say as an experienced composter, is that if you make a good mix of various materials in a large pile, ther is not much of a chance that you would get negative effects from the water weeds, CERTAINLY if you are already harvesting it for free to help the lake in a volunteer fashion. Seems like people are showing knowledge without listening. I often say as a general rule: to make a better compost, make bigger piles with more diversity. I`m also guessing that there is not much scientific data about this particular weed as a compost ingredient, but we would be surprised; cause we are not the only smart humans dealing with an invasiv species. Kill the invaders and feed em to the worms if you cant just eat them directly, thats what i say. hope it was helpfull. would be nice to get some test done with emmulsions or tea and so on and so on…

[Culver-Creek]

Thank you for that reply. I have never been a real composter for my regular garden. The part I was struggling with you hit on perfectly. I was worried that there may be some chemical/hormone/compound that could hurt the grow. I am building the bed for this grow over the next few weeks. I have a LARGE pile that has been there and added to for about 5 years. (Certainly not compost in how it’s intended). As I fill the bed areas, I am going to mix a small amount in. I also think I’ll mulch with it. Since I am usually only at the property on the weekends, I am hooking up the Blumat carrots and rings for the watering on a gravity system. It needs to be mulched SO I’ll use this for the mulch.

Project for over the summer will be building a compost area. I just like to idea of getting some beneficial use of the stuff I have to pick up on my shoreline anyway.

I have been looking on the internet and I see a lot about use of saltwater seaweed but not too much on freshwater.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  Culver-Creek.

[BuddyBranch]

Wich species do you have? Here people are getting woried about Myriophyllum spicatum that seems to have just started in one of our lakes, so i was already wondering about making that shit usefull…

[Culver-Creek]

This is a pretty complete listing of what I see wash up. Not many of the “pad” type plants (like the spatterdock or water lily). The rest are fairly common. W2O_Guide_05.indd

The other thing that shows up in every scoop from the shore are zebra mussels. Might be my simplistic way of looking at it but having them in the mix would at least provide some beneficial minerals. I had read this. Composting Zebra Mussels – Cornell Composting

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  Culver-Creek.

[stanm]

Speaking of lakes I live in the land of 10,000 lakes and have one at the end of my block. I could volunteer to rake shorelines and keep the lake weeds but it’s easier to keep a bag of kelp meal. I don’t add it to new soil, just 1/4 cup along with a few other secrets when refurbishing used soil.

I’ll be thinking of you standing up to your ankles in mud while I reach for my bag of kelp meal. It’s twenty bucks for a bag that will last me several years. No raking or wheelbarrows involved.

[Culver-Creek]

I’ve got to rake it up off my beach anyway so I was looking for a use rather than dumping in a pile in the woods.

[BuddyBranch]

Water is precious, Soil is sacred, Shit is a resource. -David Lee Hoffman`s life moto, image courtesy of Kirsten Dirksen

[horriible]

Fresh water seaweed isn’t the same as from the ocean. Ocean contains much more trace minerals and more growth hormone. Kelp is like steroids.

[BuddyBranch]

Seems safe as a mulch, im guessing that hormones or other elements will be partialy degraded and-or not enough for negative effects to leach in from the top, if these weeds are a minor part of a composted mix, im guessing that would be safe. The thing is we dont know if this weed has Any available auxins, that will be degraded if the weeds are left to weather out in a pile anyways, an interesting point is that the ocean is over ph 7 and most lakes are probably under 7(exept glacial lakes and so on and so on, we were in New York state... so as mercury, zinc and lead can be found in aquatic fauna that live in a reservoir made by daming, this points to bumping in the cat ion exange, in plants it could be aluminium bumping phosforus, wich is worstened in acid environments, but i dont think lakes are bumping with aluminium. Can you eat fish from it? Id be curious to see what the stuff looks like in that pile, best thing would be to get a similar volume of fresh farm manure with bedding(not coniferous) and make a pile with alternating layers of the two, making one big pile in the spring is optimal, volume helps thermophilic activity over one cubic yard, just avoid adding coniferous tree matters...also layers of tree leaves sprinkled with dry chicken manure pellets then watered to get the leaf wetted...can be lighter work than manure, or alternate three types orf layers. It ALL hapens when carbon to nitrogen ratios get the right temperature and humidity to host a big microbe party...do not mix or turn the pile two often, so many variables here but let em work for you, id say make pile in spring, turn it all over grossely once in the middle of summer and then in fall or folowing spring; when you dig in to use it, mix it all up well for consistency if decompisition is advanced, if not turn it grossely and leave it another season.

[Culver-Creek]

I haven’t seen any advisories on this lake to max intake of fish. A few over the hill have it but not here according the DEC

[BuddyBranch]

To circle back to the subject, im thinking that: the best way to take advantage of sea weed, is to get a good bottle of Kelp emulsion and use it moderately. having tryed a couple of brands, i can judge it by smell and its tinting capacity, kelp is the king of seaweeds, bigger and faster growing, it is known to be good in early stages, its like breakfast for plants(early life=breakfast, mid-life=lunch, then all-out buffet for budding)...aside from hore-moans, its like a multi-vitamin pill, to much will f-up something, for some reason i associate it with iron, iodine and brain food.

[Culver-Creek]

Thanks for all the input, Buddy, I’ll post up some pics as thing progress. Let’s see what happens.

[stanm]

When I follow the manufacturer’s grow charts and add 1/4 cup kelp meal when refurbishing used soil I don’t consult online opinions. This may sound strange to some but I trust the advice of Coast of Maine more than Psuedo scientists on some forum.

People tend to overthink growing. I’m a retired gardener with benefits allowed four plants in flower. I check on them a few times a day, water and top dress as needed and enjoy the results. Kelp meal has not had any negative effects that I am aware of.