ATTN: Grodan Growers 

Same here PowerGrow. It's good to know we have Grodan's permission now. Thanks Everest!

+Jamie Barber Thank you so much Jamie and welcome! Very happy that you subscribed and are strapped in for the journey ahead together! :) peace and happy growing, Everest.

So borrowing that!

🤣😂🤣😂

+HashFace 253 in the sugar bowl?

Wh? Who? What? Me?

Ryan Craig check out my channel

Here for growing peppers tips, indoor, under loads of lights, in tents, with carbon filters and c02 👍best peppers ever

skorz

Comments like this are pure happiness to me. Thank you.

I can't seem to find any info from Grodan about NO longer needing to soak. Believe me, I would be overjoyed if this really were the case. Thanks Everest for the road to joy!

wp yet you still watch his videos and believe what he tells you.

Thanks amigo. Actually I've got a bunch of interesting LED vids in the pipeline. I'm currently running a whole host of different fixtures, from 1.3 umol/J right up to 2.7 umol/J! I've been enjoying the full spectrum LEDs more than the monos.

Awesome, I know the tech is constantly improving, so I wanted to give you some time to truly see the benefits/drawbacks of using them. Crazy how efficient some of the lights are now-a-days. Take care

@@Just4Growers Id LOVE to see you investigate the HLG quantum boards. A HLG 550 R-Spec vid would be awesome.

Good to know! I chatted with their very helpful and friendly technical people during the course of making this video.

And the snake's name is "Jeff"! (American spelling)

+Sean J. No, not necessarily. Just feel the block - lift it up - and re-moisten if it feels half the weight of when you first soaked it. Usually this takes 3 - 4 days depending on your growing environment.

Watch his Air Pruning video.

Pretty hard to over water rockwool cubes unless you're watering like 5 times a day, even then I'm not sure it would be over watered. It holds on to a perfect ratio of air to water. You cant really over-water because if its fully saturated it will just run-off from the bottom. Just wait for it to get slightly lighter and you can feed again. Hydroponic likes aggressive feeding to grow vigorously. Treat it like a soil grow and it will give soil results.

Thanks amigo.

THC Titan I actually grew tomatoes in grodan. Worked excellent!

Perfect for tomatoes!

It's just like growing weed, only use tomatoes...

Hahaha XD produce Tomaterps in rockwool!

@@Des420 lol. they say growiing weed is a gateway to growing your own vegetables

You can grow a small plant to full term in a 4” grow block if you irritate it regularly enough. It’s also quite feasible to transplant into a loose fill potting mix - just remove the outer wrapping and make sure the potting mix is moist and the block not saturated.

This one always amuses me - rock is not biodegradable. Who knew? Don't put rocks in the landfill because they'll stay there practically forever. Who knew? As it turns out, landfills NEED a fairly high percentage of non-biodegradable fill (dirt, rocks, concrete, bricks, etc) to layer in with the trash (look it up). Just because something isn't biodegradable doesn't make it bad. We don't exactly vilify dirt now do we? Using rockwool is just like using potting soil or top soil or dirt in that it's dug up, processed, then you use it and when you're done put it back in the ground somewhere.

+D Lo You too amigo :) thanks for the +vity.

LOL - you’re creasing me up!

This advice came directly from Grodan.

Thanks amigo!

+Mohsen Aghdam Thanks Mohsen, hope I saved you some time! Thanks also for your support and encouragement which means a lot. Peace and happy growing, Everest.

Everest Fernandez 🙇🙇🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽🙋🏽‍♂️

Never mind, I'll do the soak test. See people, I just provided a quick tutorial on why you finish the whole video, no matter how bad you want to ask a question, prior to posting

Hey amigo, your croutons don't need to be pre-soaked-but, by all means, do a little test if it sates your curiosity! :)

Cultilene is a poorer quality product. But in all honesty, neither of them give you their best stuff for 'home growing' as it is not the market that makes them the money, unless you're at the top of your home growing game, the differences will be negligible.

Maybe those are ebb and flow trays....maybe. Wish I knew more but hopefully that helps.

Incredible!

Frosty as ever my friend! :) Thanks for stopping by!

+Ryan Harrison ParGro - good budget option but not used myself. For your application I would clone in A-OK starter plugs, transplant to a 3” and sit on top of a Hugo, or for a longer veg and flowering time go to a Unislab - amazing things!

Farmer Tyler Thanks buddy and nice tip to share. I take it you pre-soak em before you put them into your mouth you crazy (but very lovable) dude. Loving your Insta-feed! Keep up the awesome work. Peace.

+Rex Rex Got your back Rex dude. :)

Yep-you were right amigo. I've been doing it the "long way" for years, so this was quite a revelation to me at least!

Kanada da Yaşamak Some have to try, for others it comes naturally.

+Sean J. #I AM TELLING YOU!!!

*stonewool

+Jorge Correa I got your back Jorge!

+Sundance Kid I don’t think it’s anything nefarious amigo - my understanding is that an announcement has been on the cards for a long time but day-to-day ops have taken precedent. You will see packaging change soon and an official announcement.

Everest Fernandez Do rockwool companies ever talk about their product being food or pharmaceutical grade? Regardless of motive, this is good news. I already intended to use rockwool in the future; this just makes things easier.

Awesome - the manufacturing process doubles as a purification process (insane heat!) - as for grading the rockwool and the metrics of quality, I'd have to speak to Grodan or another manufacturer about that!

Everest Fernandez Groovy! If you find out anything about the grading and metrics please let us know. Cheers mate!

Sundance Kid I will. Grodan techies are some of the finest horticultural minds on the planet and they were super helpful when I reached out to them - so I’m confident I can get to the bottom of any rockwool-related query now. :)

I think you're special buddy. ;)

+Eric Jensen Ho Eric, thanks for your question and subsequent kind words amigo. The strength of your nutrient solution is related to your plant species, stage of development and VPD rather than the frequency of your irrigations. So, more feeds does not mean you should use a more dilute nutrient solution.

Glad I just saved you some precious hours of your life!

+sMileHighCity Heheheh - very happy to get this info out there! :) as are many growers to receive it.

Yep, but this advice is better and more up to date.

+Nick Machado PARGro use the same binder as Grodan (same manufacturer) so no need to pre-soak those either! Good news! :)

Everest Fernandez, awesome thanks for the info

+XionTRAX Yes, that would take some coordination - I’ve enjoyed using both but these days I’m a Grodan devotee for sure.

Everest Fernandez but what are the factors you decided to go grodan ? Atlest when i look at the largscale horticulture sectore there would not be big diffrences because they both produce custom pf curve stonewool only the support mostly would be diffrent but maybe i over look anything

+XionTRAX Availability mainly - I have used Cutilene many times - no complaints with that either.

+mathew freistadt I don’t have that info but I can pretty much guarantee that you have the “new” stuff, unless you’ve been sitting on ancient stock.

Everest Fernandez I figured. Right after I comment Ed I heard you say few years

Just a pump in a reservoir, 19mm mainline and some feed line and dripper stakes.

It won’t compost per se but it will certainly aid your soil in terms of moisture retention.

+GOD420CRUSH 805 You won’t look back!

Just keepin’ it real.

Hehehe yep.

Don't you have to get soil wet after planting? So here you just get wet before planting.

With soil you should pre-moisten and then water in after transplanting.

Thanks Michael.

+Q8ee Try limiting yourself to one of my videos per day. Usually they are just 4 or 5 minutes long each. While my enthusiasm for the topics may not be to everyone’s tastes, I can assure you my passions are 100% natural in origin; I would never “force” my passion on to, or into, you. Stay safe amigo and stick to the recommended DEQ (daily Everest quota) and you’ll be just fine. ;)

Keep on trucking man, I'm happy that you're just a genuinely happy dude. The phrasing on the passion sentence though haha :')

+Q8ee Lol, thanks amigo. People have said that I sound like a lot worse so I gladly accept your words as constructive feedback! Lol. So I take it that I have your “consent” to carry on pushing my passion agenda into the any willing knowledge-hole?

At least buy me a drink first, or give me a few cubes of Grodan cubes!

+Q8ee Lol! :)

Thanks for your insights amigo - *always* appreciated! Definitely need to get this straight. I spoke with one of Grodan’s technical guys in North America - and I also spoke with their corporate marketing department before putting out this video. The “soak test” is the way forward. For my part, I will repeat the test with some different Grodan products I have, just to be doubly sure. I’ve always been a pre-soaker - but if I can avoid this onerous task, I will - but only if it doesn’t lead to pH issues further down the line as you say! If you get any updates please do share them. Peace!

Everest Fernandez I’m with ya! Would love to not soak. Hopefully I’ve got old stock and that would explain the issue, but if that’s the case I’ll bet lots of others do as well. Thanks so much for your openness to dialogue, too many folks seem to take offense at disagreement or a different viewpoint when all we’re doing is searching for truth. I’ll certainly post the response from Grodan...I am truly puzzled!

Jeff W If what I say doesn’t match your empirical evidence then clearly more investigation is required. You must have very old stock - more than several years old - as I understand they made the change a long time ago. But let’s keep investigating and *together* we will get to the truth! :)

Everest Fernandez hey bud! Here’s what I got back from Grodan. While the products don’t need to be “conditioned” for ph control, they do need to be completely submerged and soaked for a few minutes with your normal feeding ph/ppm solution to eliminate dry spots. When you do that, the solution may indeed rise in ph due to two reasons. First, if you soaked for a significant time there is a natural tendency of the ph in standing water to rise (not sure why, but that’s what they said). Second, there are binding agents and other byproducts of manufacturing that can cause ph in the soaking solution to rise, but it’s nothing to worry about. Why it would raise the ph of the solution but would not affect the ph in the block during the grow? Does not make a lot of sense to me. Buuuut...they should be the experts in this. And I assume that the quick soak that they do recommend would purge most of the products out. They suggested my PH issues are from fast growing plants absorbing nutes and that it is normal. They also suggested not chasing it too much. While I haven’t seen big drops in ppm that I believe would have changed ph as much as I’m seeing, it certainly could be driver so I’ll monitor and track that much more closely. I’ll try to manage ph better by maintaining nute ppm stability much closer and see if that helps. In the meantime, I’ll presoak all and condition half to see if there is any perceptible variation and I’ll report back!

Thanks so much Jeff. So it would seem that the best advice from Grodan is now to completely submerge your rockwool in the nutrient solution (rather than just pour it through) - Hopefully Grodan will release some official guidance soon.

I love Hugos-in fact, I'm preparing a video all about them. It's a bit of a jump to go from an A-OK straight into a Hugo. I prefer to go to a 3" Delta first, fill the little hole in the Hugo with loose-fill rockwool, and plant it on top. What do you do Brandon?

That's a really good idea, I'll try it. I go from rapid rooters to hugos.

Cool-a few commercial cultivators I know have issues with the Hugos staying too wet at the beginning. They tackle this issue in a variety of ways. 1) As I've just described. 2) Cut the Hugos in half (a lateral / horizontal slice) then root this into another Hugo or UniSlab.

+haribo stinky These vids have never been about me / my chillies. Nobody cares! Lol. :)

Everest Fernandez cool video I love humerus moments their getting better and better lol not like some soap/ drama size videos on RU-vid 😂 lol

+haribo stinky Thanks buddy. I genuinely have quite a lot of fun making them sometimes - as long as you don’t mind the sporadic uploads - you’ll never hear me say “New videos every Wednesday!” Lol

Everest Fernandez you should you could do an outtake video lol all the funny cut stuff lol ..but always having a genuine great topic than an update Wednesday s always a better to se a video with structured filming and thinking

+haribo stinky Lol, I’ve been keeping a “bloopers” folder for about five or six years now. :) one day they will surface. So much more to say on so many topics plus learning ALL the time. Hopefully this channel will begin to build into a decent online resource for new and aspiring indoor growers over the next few years.

You’re all good. Don’t worry Shane.

Everest Fernandez ok they are flying . Nice 1 pal