It is common for people to use aloe vera to aid with rooting. Contrary to popular belief, this is not primarily due to rooting hormones as the concentration of auxins is not anywhere near that of commercial preparations. The reason aloe gel helps with cloning is because it has anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties. Anti-viral too which is why many hand sanitizers contain it.
I have recently heard of people mixing aloe gel with water and watering their plants with it. They even call it fertilizer, but there really isn’t much in it. It does have a decent supply of micronutrients but has zero NPK, so it is sort of lacking as a general purpose fertilizer.
I tried it once and a couple plants didn’t respond well to it. I wonder why? I am curious whether aloe vera gel kills off good bacteria just as much as bad bacteria. We all know that we don’t want bad bacteria, but we also know that we NEED good bacteria and funghi. So my question is - can aloe vera tell the difference between good and bad bacteria, and does it even care to treat them differently?
I suspect the aloe plant does not distinguish between good bacteria and bad bacteria, but I could be wrong. I have been told by a couple long time growers that they water with aloe and that it works great, but i am skeptical of things that I hear. If aloe kills off good bacteria, i do not believe it is good for soil health. I do not regularly use hydrogen peroxide in my water for the same reason (some people do). I use hydrogen peroxide in response to specific problems, but not as a general rule. I think aloe may fall into the same category.
Keep in mind that hydrogen peroxide is usually already very diluted (like 3%) and then most growers further dilute it - using like 1 part peroxide to 10 parts water. I do 1 to 5 parts in severe cases.
Pure hydrogen peroxide is definitely much more powerful than pure aloe gel. But i wouldn’t underestimate aloe. Again, that’s part of why it’s often in hand sanitizer. If you compare a strong mix of aloe water to a very diluted hydrogen peroxide solution, you may find that the aloe is as powerful as peroxide. It definitely works, which is why people get much higher success rate when cloning with aloe, as it kills off the enemies.
Yes I have also researched it for use as a wetting agent. I considered it, as it does contain saponins, but I don’t want to harm my mychorizzae and rhizosphere. Not worth the trade off. I would rather use yucca which is more friendly to the bacteria.
They use aloe as a leader to ease peoples minds that its safe without telling them all the nasty chemicals that the hand killer contains….thats why they put a smidge in their toxic product to green wash it…oh look it has aloe it must be OK to use.
Think hempvana oooh it has hemp oh wait what’s the real active ingredients….well I ain’t using that shit…lol
This type of deceptive marketing is done all the time.
I don’t believe aloe used in growing has ill effects to my living soil but I’m always learning.
Guess I’ll have to look some things up.
I know I’ve used it almost exclusively for cloning and haven’t used the man made rooting agents for a long time.
Many articles out there about using it to grow the devils lettuce
Well like I said - aloe works great for rooting clones. I never said anything against that. And again - the whole reason it works well for cloning is because it has strong anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Is it bleach or peroxide? No. That’s kind of the point - putting bleach on your clone’s roots will kill them. You want something strong enough to prevent fungal issues but gentle enough that it won’t kill your plant in the process. And that’s where aloe comes in. But the whole “aloe vera gel will give your plant lots of rooting hormones” is a debunked myth; the anti-fungal aspect is why you actually use it. When clones fail to root, it has little to do with lack of hormones. Plants can produce plenty of hormones on their own, just like people. Thinking a plant needs extra hormones to root is like thinking you need to inject testosterone to build muscle. Just like ingesting testosteron, rooting hormones can add a bonus, but the reason clones fail to root usually isn’t due to lack of hormones. It is due to fungal pathogens and such. This is why environmental conditions are also key.
The thread here, however, is about using it as part of a watering regimen. Totally different can of beans. Using aloe temporarily early on in life to prevent death is not the same as using aloe regularly throughout the entire lifetime to kill off much of the microbiology in your soil. I have major doubts it will only kill bad bacteria and never kill good bacteria, but I’m willing to believe just about anything with enough evidence.
With that being said, just because a plant turns out well and was fed some aloe does not mean aloe is overall a net positive for the plant, or your soil health in general. It is common for people to assume various old timer tricks (like top dressing with coffee groubds) are a great idea just because they have seen a plant grow well with a particular technique or regimen. The fact is - cannabis is a very hardy plant that WANTS to grow, and you have to fuck up pretty bad for it to not do that. It can be very forgiving. Cannabis grew for many thousands of years without any human intervention, after all. Adding a little aloe to your water will not completely destroy your entire ecosystem because it is not toxic waste or bleach. But I do not see how it can possibly be a net positive to use as part of a steady watering regimen. Seeding, cloning, and MAYBE transplanting are probably the only time it is wise to use it. Of course, it may also be good for a plant suffering from fungal issues such as root rot, particularly if the soil also has salt buildup as the saponins will decrease the surface tension. But these are specific circumstances with specific reasoning, not a “use this snake oil all the time and your plant will do great” approach.
The whole reason I looked into this is because I know alot of people who have been growing for a long time and some of them think they know everything. Many of them use alot of non-scientific old timer tips n tricks and try to persuade me to do the same, such as watering plants with aloe. Personally, I prefer to water with beneficial bacteria and mychorizzae products such as Fish Sh!t or Unleash, rather than watering with anti-bacterial products. If you have a great society of good bacteria then the bad bacteria usually don’t present much of a problem anyway… and the extra good bacteria will help your plant receive much better nutrition as they interact with the roots of your plant, trading soil nutrients for plant sugars and stuff like that. There is usually at least SOME truth to old timer knowledge, and some of it is genuinely good. Others are good but have mosern improvements - such as the old timer trick of putting whole fish in the planting hole versus the modern equivalent of fish compost, fish emulsion, fish hydrolysate, or fish bone meal. I don’t simply dismiss the old timer tricks as they can be valuable sometimes but I do like to separate the facts from the bullshit. Too many people just regurgitate what their grandfather taught them without ever questioning it.
Try mixing it in the bottom next time. Top dressing is the only BAD way to use grounds in my humble opinion. It becomes a hydrophobic shellac of coffee concrete that water cannot pass. Mixed into the soil it is a gem of an amendment. Just a gem.
Mixing freshly spent coffee grounds into the soil OR top dressing the soil with them is not the best way to use them and can even damage your plants in medium to large quantities. But why is it bad for my plant, you ask? Isn’t there plenty of nitrogen in coffee grounds, and doesn’t nitrogen help plants grow?
Not all sources of nitrogen are equal and some can have detrimental effects on your plant depending on how you utilize them. For example - fresh manure contains plenty of nitrogen, but it is usually suggested not to use fresh manure in your garden for a few different reasons. Instead, it is best to compost the manure, then use the compost.
With coffee grounds it is a similar type of situation. The reason you should not use coffee grounds directly in your garden is the same reason you like to drink coffee - because of the caffeine.
Most gardeners who toss their spent coffee grounds on top of their garden every morning are blissfully ignorant of the fact that caffeine is an herbicide. In fact, the whole entire reason that caffeine exists is to kill plants! Caffeine does not exist simply to make you feel more awake, although I suppose that does aid in the plants continued reproduction. The reason coffee plants make caffeine is to help it compete with the other plants around it. Caffeine is an herbicide and the coffee plant produces it to keep competitors at bay, which aids in the survival of the coffee plant. Regularly adding herbicides of any kind to your garden is not a best practice, even if some of your plants still manage to do okay. Even spent coffee grounds still contain considerable amounts of caffeine.
This issue, however, can be resolved by adding coffee grounds to your compost instead of directiy in your garden. Caffeine will break down over time, particularly in a steaming hot compost pile. This way you can extract the nitrogen and get rid of the herbicide. Even in compost, you shouldn’t add too many coffee grounds, as it will decrease worm activity after a certain point.
Another reason why coffee grounds are overrated is because they also increase soil compaction. Coffee grounds WILL increase nitrogen, but that comes with a cost. There are TONS of sources of nitrogen within the natural world, so there is no need to primarily rely on inferior sources such as coffee. Even in compost the ratio of coffee grounds should be fairly low.
I know this is probably news to you, as half of the pot growers out there swear by coffee grounds, especially old timers. But old timer myths do not equal science. And just because your plant grows well doesn’t mean your cultivation practices are perfect. Halfway decent cultivation practices often yield beautiful plants. To reach the pinnacle of cultivation you need a harmony of both ancient wisdom and modern science, complemented with personal experience and insight.
There is much research on this if you care to look. Google “caffeine herbicide” and “coffee grounds soil compaction” and you will see what I mean. This does not mean coffee grounds are inherently bad - like many sources of nitrogen, it has its place. But it should be used wisely.
Yes, I did look into those articles on aloe. Some of them I have read before. It’s use in rooting clones makes sense. Also the use as a foliar makes sense. It does contain some valuable micronutrients. It also acts as a mild surfactant as it contains saponins. Based on my research it does not work quite aa well as yucca extract as a surfactant. However, moisture on plant foliage can easily lead to fungal issues or disease. So the anti-fungal/anti-bacterial properties can be a big benefit with foliar to prevent problems from spraying moisture on foliage. And as a foliar you don’t need to worry about much aloe entering your soil, it won’t damage your soil microbiology when utilized as a foliar spray.
I have read human waste is not a good choice in its raw form. It does contain nitrogen in the form of urea. Urea is a valuable fertilizer source - many commercial fertilizer products utilize human waste from sewage, extracting the nutrients then selling your piss n shit back to you for $20 a bottle. But do they sell you human waste in raw form? No, of course not, that would be a crude product. Your best bet if you wish to use hunan waste is to use a composting toilet, transferring your waste to a compost pile regularly. Urine is highly acidic - this is also why chicken manure should not be used raw because their droppings contain both poop and pee; the pee makes the raw chicken manure very acidic.
One common theme you will notice across the board with most things that can be used for fertilization is that you are better off composting first rather than applying directiy to your garden. This is true for coffee grounds, egg shells, animal waste, or fish. Or as a fertilizer you are better off processing it in some way first - such as whole fish versus fish emulsion/hydrolosate or whole bones versus bone meal.
I do not have any articles specifically relating to aloe killing “beneficial bacteria” in particular. That’s literally why I created this thread, to see if anyone has a scientific understanding of whether it does or doesn’t. However, there are tons and tons of articles on the anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties of aloe gel. In other words - it is universally accepted among the scientific community that aloe gel kills bacteria.
But the question here is - does aloe discriminate between beneficial bacteria and parasitic bacteria? I suppose it is possible that it does, but seems unlikely. I am not sure how the aloe gel could make such a distinction between different types of bacteria. Even if it could distinguish them, why would it care and treat each type of bacteria differently? Seems farfetched based on my understanding of science. In some cases, such as root rot, it might be valid to water with aloe. But a few days later I would follow up with a beneficial bacteria product. Although once a plant has root rot, it will never reach its full potential regardless of what you do.
Another thing too is there are few articles on aloe used as a liquid fertilizer. Most articles on aloe are related to using it for rooting or foliar. Those two things make sense.
Another thing I should mention on urine. Overall it is a good source of nitrogen, definitely superior to freshly spent coffee grounds if diluted 10 to 1. The main drawback of urine is the potentially high salt content which can cause problems in your soil. The salt content varies from person to person.
To remove much of the undesired salt:
Urea is very soluble in hot water (4000 g/l at 80 C), salt, not so much (less than 400 g/l at 80 C). You can heat a pan of urine at 80 C to remove much of the water, allowing it to become supersaturated with salt, which will precipitate out as a solid, while the urea stays in solution. Filter off the salt while the solution is hot. Cool the solution to 15 C, and much of the urea will precipitate out, while the majority of the salt remains in solution. Filter off the precipitate, wash the precipitate with near freezing water, and you will end up with nearly pure urea crystals. Reserve the solution to add to the next batch or urine being processed.
Thank you! Coffee grounds are good for earthworms up to a certain point. After a certain point they will decrease worm activity, I think if it becomes more than about 10% of the pile or something. I forget all of the reasons why but it’s probably due to the way coffee grounds increase compaction. Increases in compaction of your pile will also mean you will need to turn it more often to keep it fluffy, resulting in more work. You had mentioned top dressing with coffee as a bad idea because it creates a solid surface that water will not pass through (and pooling water is one of the worst things for cannabis). This effect you see when top dressing is the compaction properties. It still has these properties even if mixed into your soil evenly, it just isnt as noticeable.
I agree earthworm castings are the way to go. Earthworm castings are the primary amendment I add to my soil for nitrogen. I also add composted animal manures but that is really for a blend of NPK. Earthworm castings are also the best choice for compost tea based on my research.
I also raise chickens and have been composting the poop + bedding. The poop/pee is very nitrogen rich and the bedding (straw and pine shavings) is very carbon rich. Nitrogen and carbon are the two main ingredients for a compost pile so their soiled bedding is a great base. Unfortunately, I tend to move to a new place every year due to an unstable life, so by the time the compost is finished I am moving to a new location with my chickens. I always plan to move the compost to my new place but it never ends up being worth the cost to transport chicken poop hundreds of miles despite the sentimental value that it has. Hopefully I stay at this place for a while so I can finally make use of my specially formulated homemade compost. Chicken feed is high in calcium, which also goes in because the chickens spill so much feed. If I remember correctly, feathers are high in calcium too. I also crush up the eggshells from the eggs that they lay to add to compost as well.
One of my friends is a fisherman and I asked him if he will give me a bunch of fish guts and scraps sometime to add to my compost. I’ll have to put the pile far from the house, otherwise my roommates will hate me and I will have to move again before the compost is done. The stench is actually the main reason things didn’t work out at my last place, but the new place is on 90 acres of land so I can find a suitable location for a stinky pile.
Phosphorus is a bit harder to come by naturally though. I am saving up beef bones and plan to dry them then grind them up to make bone meal. Bones are roughly twenty percent phosphorous, and are low in nitrogen and potassium, making it a great phosphorous booster without raising levels of other nutrients if you don’t need to, like during flowering.
One way I’ve found to not have to use anything to deal with hydrophobic soil is to just spray the topsoil daily to keep it moist so when I do water there are no issues and it helps keep the microherd hydrated too as everything needs water and dry topsoil doesn’t help them.
If for some reason it gets dry I just lightly spray it down and wait a few before watering so I don’t have the issues.
As far as aloe, I do not have any practical experience to add to the conversation. I do not chime in on things I have not got data sets on, so I won’t go there.
Coffee grounds, I have years of data using sister clones with control and experiment. And using it on fruit crops besides cannabis. The only plant that seems to dislike it is citrus. That has been my observations and data compiled from hundreds of side by side grows. Cannabis, apples, plums, pluots, nectarines, peaches, cherries, blueberries, jujubees, pawpaw, raspberries, honey berries, and blackberries all do better when coffee grounds are added to the soil mix. Side by side propagation pots that I sell every spring. The whip trees all grow taller and fruit bigger with coffee grounds when no other amendment is added to sister clones grafted or otherwise on their own stooled rootstock.
This would be true of many things we add to our soil…
Well since you didn’t ask, no blissful tossing everyday. Being an organic chemist by education, precision measurements and measurable results are foremost important to me. I precisely add it ONCE, to the soil mix of 2 tablespoons per gallon, or 1 cup per 10 gallon. And of course to the new mix at up potting. Never ever as a top dress; as I all ready mentioned in a previous post.
According to scientific American and Stanford, the lethal level of caffeine for insects is almost the same lethal dose as mammals. Much higher than in spent grounds. Pollinators even enjoy caffeine as they pollinate coffee trees. They visit the flowers more with higher caffeine in the nectar. The bees with a 100mg caffeine (equiv to a strong cup) even made more honey than ones with less. The only insects killed were unpupated grubs that would skip pupation and just eat themselves to death. Stanford says that to be lethal it has to be “exceedingly concentrated” for beetles, borers, and pollinators.
I am glad you brought up solubility.
Did you know that caffeine is also very soluble in hot water? Did you know that the average level of caffeine in spent grounds would allow it to legally be sold in the us and eu as decaffeinated coffee? Decaf coffee must be 15mg or below per cup. Spent grounds average 8- 15 mg according to Oregon state university. Run twice (not necassary) the mg of caffeine test <3. The science does not support your claim for the lethal level of caffeine in spent coffee grounds.
I agree that coffee grounds are not the best source for nitrogen, because the nitrogen is not free and needs microbes to time release. Especially in a bottle feed grow. But used in living soil this time release bonded nitrogen is flipped to an asset from a liability.
But once again you are assuming you know why I am using it; it is not the nitrogen. I don’t give a s#%t about the nitrogen. It is for the trace minerals I use it. Such as (per OSU analysis) of potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, iron, copper, manganese and zinc. I would say more accurrately, I use it despite its nitrogen.
I agree with you on this. I do blissfully toss my extra spent grounds every morning into my tumblers with my biochar and tables scraps and leaves. I have 3 of them to keep up with my 3 picky kids.
Compaction is not a problem if dosed by the table spoon mixed, and NOT top dressed as I all ready mentioned. Have you tried it, or just reading it? Notice this loose soil with coffee grounds mixed in…
Maybe top dressing, or maybe in your environment. Here around Seattle there is no faster way to bring in worms than a blend of coffee grounds and leaf litter mulch. Previously compacted clay soils will loosen and bring in worms within 2 weeks. I actually work with a local master gardener program helping disabled seniors fix their flower beds. Nothing brings in the worms faster than leaves and coffee grounds. And yes, I have done control beds with just coffee, just leaves, and the mix is the way to go. For example, here a scoop of my 18 year coffee ground amended soil. Notice the worms in one scoop?
The other reason l like coffee grounds is it fires up the microbes. The OSU study sums it up well: “As the coffee grounds feed the soil microbes, microbial glues are released that promote good soil structure and improve drainage.”
My experiences have confirmed this to be true. For example, check out this second year elberta peach I just up potted. I chicken scratched in 2 tablespoons of grounds into the surface soil afterwards. I was all out at the time. 14 days later look at the microbial activity of the soil.
I agree with your overall thesis using coffee grounds in a place with low natural rain fall like Vegas or Phoenix and water is rare. If one over did the grounds it would be hard to correct.
But in a rainier/snowier climate, the rain would remove any caffeine build up. Here in seattle for example, loss of nutrients due to drizzle from thanksgiving to cinco de mayo, is more of a problem than overloading. If carefully measured into soil mix, the concerns you bring up @Mastrosso are completely eliminated. Also, if one is a bottle grower, coffee grounds are definitely not helpful. But in living soil, I cannot see a down side if measured accurately and mixed in.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but blanket statements like this break my heart. All joking aside, @Spiney_norman i love our correspondence historically. Disagreements and agreements my friend. We have always had dialog and disscussions. Which brings me to my point.
Me too, knowledge is power. But that said, statements like these:
This kind of tone makes you sound like Santa clause on a bully pulpit deciding at random who’s grow is naughty and nice. May I humbly suggest starting your starting rebuttal with:
“ I have read coffee grounds are bad. This is what a read. What do you do that makes you think they are helpful.”
Rather than making so many assumptions about my knowledge, grow style, or smoke. To clear it up. I am not old school or new school. I am medium school at 46. Been growing canna since 12. Grown outdoor, indoor, dwc, eb n flow, soil, and coco. Bottle feed and good old miracle grow in the 90s. Now days I am mostly organic composted outdoor grown. I prefer making seeds to buds these days. Many local growers use my seeds. And the pounds I donate to the local VA PTSD group are always taken up with glee. I never claimed to be a Canagod. But I am no newb growing larf. Nice to meet you @Mastrosso. Looking forward to our correspondence in the future. @Spiney_norman, always a pleasure to chat. I am so jealous of your acreage mastrosso. I would have that a fruit orchard of my dreams. Happy growing.
I only read half of your post because you seemed to be feeling hyper defensive, as if you assumed I brought up coffee grounds as a way of personally criticizing you, and now you seem to have taken offense. I am sorry if you feel that I was personally criticizing your own gardening practices. I was not.
You also seem to think I believe coffee grounds are inherently bad. I never said that. You also said yourself that “I agree that coffee grounds are not the best source for nitrogen”. And you also agree that the best way to use coffee grounds is to compost them. Again, I never said coffee grounds were inherently bad and even said they can be good when composted. Even when top dressed they will eventually break down and will release nitrogen, despite also releasing herbicides.
You also seemed to assume I use urea as fertilizer. I do not. Another poster in this thread does, and so I just wanted to share with him how to convert the urine into a superior form with less salt.
This kind of tone makes you sound hostile towards me despire agreeing with much of what I said. Furthermore, I had absolutely no idea that you like to use coffee grounds nor do I have any idea who you are. You are not even a blip on my radar. My statements regarding coffee grounds were not a personal attack on you and shouldn’t be interpreted as such. Please accept my apologies if you felt offended by my sharing of facts and science. You would think someone with a chemistry degree would appreciate such gestures.
If your coffee grounds help your plants grow, keep using them. My plants do much better than anyone else’s that I know, including people that use coffee grounds. So I will stick to what I know to work best as well.
All joking aside, 
grown. I prefer making seeds to buds these days. Many local growers use my seeds. And the pounds I donate to the local VA PTSD group are always taken up with glee. I never claimed to be a Canagod. But I am no newb growing larf. Nice to meet you 
