Here's the truth about growing elite quality Cannabis.
IT'S ALL ABOUT SOIL AND WEATHER!
If you're super fortunate, you live in an area with rich, volcanic soil and a perfect climate for cannabis. The days are in the high seventies/low eighties. Nights are 65-70. Daytime is 11-14 hours long during the growing season, and the relative humidity stays right around 50 to 60%.
So, what if you don't live on the slope of a volcano in Tuscany, or in Hawaii? What if your native soil isn't one of the most fertile soils in the world? Is it still possible to grow the best cannabis in the word?
Yes!! We can create perfect weather indoors and in light-dep, climate controlled greenhouses.
But what about the soil?
The Four Foundations of High Brix Growing
If you want to grow the best produce in the world, and get your plants to express their full genetic potential and enjoy the most terpene-laden, potent and delicious harvest, there are four key things that simply must be present.
A LandRace Pakistani Strain doing quite well in High Brix soil.
These are not suggestions, or a "style" of growing. These Four Foundations are how we re-create the most fertile living soil on the planet. This is the way to elite quality produce.
Everything below is based on the assumption that your plants will have a proper growing environment from seed to harvest.
If you are attempting to grow in a hostile environment, you simply will not get good results. On the other hand, given a proper environment, plants in High Brix soil will do some cool tricks. So, let's get started.
**1. PROPERLY Mineralize the soil **
By now, we all know about how corporate farming and sterile soils have ruined our food supply. We all know that organic, living soil is the way to go for healthy, delicious produce. With High Brix growing, we not only want living soil with organic ingredients as opposed to chemicals, but we want the maximum amount of life from the soil we can possibly get.
Extensive research has shown that a large amount of calcium in the soil, with the right ratio of calcium-to-magnesium and a relatively low amount of organic matter (less than 8%) will allow the microbial life in the soil to thrive.
Think of a volcanic soil, full of minerals. Minerals are where it's at--this is what we're after in High Brix. Our amendments are designed to bring every mineral into the right ratio in the soil, making the microbes hyperactive and happy. Calcium is king here. No other mineral is as important in the soil as calcium and we've yet to find a commercial potting soil with even close to the optimal amount of calcium in it.
High Brix soil is unlike any other SuperSoil, or potting soil out there. We have WAY MORE calcium than they do. The first surprise most growers get on their first High Brix crop is how strong the stems are and how much less support they need. Thank calcium for that!
Is the answer therefore to merely toss in a bunch of oyster shells or gypsum? NO! While these substances indeed have calcium, the ratio of minerals is just as important as the amount. The source of calcium (and everything else) in the soil must be determined by soil testing.
2. Microbiology
Rock-based calciforous and phosphate minerals are great, but they are not readily available to the plant's roots without mycorrhiza--the symbiotic, beneficial fungi and bacteria that live in the soil. Good products contain cannabis-specific microbes that make our herbaceous plants thrive. As in a state of nature, these microbes should be born and raised eating rocks....not molasses and organic matter, like most other products lazily include! Sugar won't keep your soil healthy any better than a steady diet of sugar will keep you healthy. Minerals, on the other hand are what the plants need, and they get them via microbial action, or at least they should.
Our soil won't work without the correct microbial population, but it will completely outperform anything else when it comes to nutrient density if the soil is alive.
Proper microbes will be happy to break down rocks and feed the byproducts to the plant, which is why any good fertilizer package should include finely ground rock powder. Under the right conditions, microbes act as an army of micro-cultivators that help make nutrients and minerals available to the plant that would otherwise go undigested. Unlocking these soil components is part of what sets High Brix produce apart, and why High Brix gardening is massively fixated on the microbial health of the soil.
3. Major and minor elements
We're concerned about balance. We need N, P, and K as well as Mg, S, Cu, Fe, and several other micro-nutrients, but to ensure the best produce we need them all in the right balance. For example, we always aim for 18 times more calcium than potassium and the same for phosphorus, and we also always want between 6 and 10 times more calcium than magnesium. Once we get all those down, we then want those trace elements present in the right (trace) amounts.
Again, tossing in a bunch of random ingredients won't re-create the world's most fertile soils. This can only be done via soil testing.
This meticulous fine-tuning, which takes many months of lab testing is the secret behind the effectiveness of Doc Bud's products, and you simply won't find the same thing anywhere else! This isn't something that can be "guessed" into reality. Everything needs to be in the optimal ratio for the microbial population to thrive. Soil testing is absolutely necessary.
While common, It would be wrong to think that providing an abundance of everything to the plant will result in the plant grazing "smorgasbord" style and never lacking a thing. This type of approach does work in salt based or sterile farming methods, but in living soil we want to maximize microbial action--and having too much salt in the soil decreases microbial action. Having too much potassium or not enough phosphorus will do the same thing. So instead of over-abundance of everything, we've found balance is best. We're not worried about feeding the plant--We feed the soil, and let the microbes take care of the plants! They're far better at it than we are.
When everything is balanced and in the right ratios , then AND ONLY THEN do plants get everything they could ever wish for, and in the most efficient manner possible; via microbial action in the soil. This is how plants were created to grow, and we believe is unequivocally the best way to grow them.
4. Soil Energy
Sure, most of us are familiar with the idea that our bodies are electric. Would you believe it if I told you soil also carries an electric charge?
Not only can we measure voltage in soil, it turns out that this electric charge plays a crucial role in making plants grow. If the soil goes 'flat', with no measurable voltage, plants will not grow. If on the other hand, the soil is massively over-fertilized and carrying a super high voltage, plants will "burn" -- and not grow. However, with proper voltage the plants spring to life and grow like crazy.
Soil energy is increased through root drenching and foliar feeding.
Root drenches directly increase the conductivity in the soil. Depending on the type of ionic charge in a drench, we can stimulate the vegetative or reproductive processes in the plant. An example of this can be seen with two of the drenches we use: Growth Ionic and Cat Drench.
Growth Ionic drench is primarily supplying the Nitrate form of nitrogen, which has a negative ionic charge. Using this in the soil stimulates growth of leaves and stems and will bulk up fruits and flowers. At the other end of the spectrum is Cat Drench, short for Cationic Root drench. Cat Drench features "cations" or positively charged ions, due to the ammonia form of nitrogen along with sulfates and phosphates. This positive charge also makes the plants grow, but instead of growing leaves and stems, they grow reproductive structures: calyxes, pistils, etc.
When we understand the natural cycle of plant growth we can time the application of these drenches to enhance nature, improve yield, and most of all, improve quality.
Using root drenches is just one way of increasing soil energy. The other way is via Foliar Feeding which is feeding the soil via feeding the leaves. We can look at soil as the engine that grows the plant. However, we must also realize that photosynthesis is the engine that feeds the soil! In this way, it's good to look at foliar feeding like a turbo charger on that soil/sun engine.
When the soil is dialed in and the microbes are happily chomping away at rocks and delivering them to the plant as food, the plant produces sugars and other compounds in the leaves and sends them down to the roots in the form of Root Exudates. The microbes crave these sweet exudates and will work day and night eating rocks for a sweet hit of that sugar! Even more, the plant customizes root exudates to actually communicate and signal the soil microbes to deliver certain types of nutrition.
By using a properly designed foliar spray (which is itself a dilute nutrient solution), we can increase the plant's ability to photosynthesize more energy from the sun or indoor lighting as the case may be. This increased photosynthesis results in increased root exudates, which increases microbial activity, which increases plant growth/vigor/vegetation/reproduction....which increases photosynthesis, and around and around.
Foliar Feeding speeds up plant metabolism, increasing nutrient density, brix readings, plant health, terpene and essential oil production. The trick here is to design a foliar spray that works properly.
Just spraying some crap on the plant because your cousin knows a guy in Mendo won't cut it! Popular sprays in hydro stores are not the idea at all. A carefully designed spray that complements both the soil and the crop is the only way to get real benefit from foliar feeding.
Depending on the makeup of the spray, we can use the microbes to signal the plant to grow or to reproduce. It's very important to know what you're doing with foliar feeding, as using the wrong spray can result in stunted growth and decreased yield.
Luckily, we've done all the testing for you. Doc Bud's foliar sprays are designed in the lab to do specific things in the right soil. Use only as directed for amazing results.
These are the basics of High Brix Gardening. High Brix Soil is nothing more (and nothing less) than a re-creation of the most fertile soils in the world. High Brix Soil is a natural, living soil that is meticulously designed for maximum microbial action and optimal soil energy. Doc Bud's products go a step further, and make those microbes into super-athletes, further increasing root exudates with carefully designed foliar sprays.
This is nature's way of producing healthy plants, and there is more we have yet to learn. We are humbled and inspired by the wisdom of Nature, and seek to help and assist the natural processes of soil, root, and stem by careful application of minerals and microbes....thus allowing them to do their magic.
If you read this and understand these simple concepts, you now have enough science to practically apply High Brix concepts to amaze your friends and family.
Questions? Just ask! We're happy to help. www.docbudsbrix.com https://www.instagram.com/docbudshighbrix/