Although a lot of growers claim, that they grow in soil, what they actually use is a soilless mix. And the difference is far from trivial as real soil has a certain bundle of attributes, that an average potting mix simply doesn't have. This in turn influences everything: from terpene profile through resilience to pests and pathogens to production of cannabinoids.

If we start digging into what soil is, we're gonna quickly find out, that the definition has changed many times over the years, but today we're leaning towards some version of that one:

The layer(s) of generally loose mineral and/or organic material that are affected by physical, chemical, and/or biological processes at or near the planetary surface and usually hold liquids, gases, and biota and support plants.

It retains the fundamental concept of layers of rock as a structural block for soil, but also includes soil microlife as an important ingredient, which is exactly what Dr. Elaine Ingham said in one of her lectures: „There's no life, there's no soil”.

Physical properties of soil

Traditionally, soil science has been focusing on two different types of it: mineral soil (minerals, water, air, organic matter) and organic soil (humus, compost, decomposing microorganisms, peat moss, air, water). But today we know it's much more complicated than that!

Native soil is basically derived from rocks that have been exposed to weathering for billions of years, which broke them down eventually, creating different particle size, commonly described as: sand, silt and clay, which make up soil basic texture, and define its physical properties.

However, healthy soils also contain topsoil, which is the upper layer of up to 20 cm or 8''. It's here, where microbial and fungal activity is at its highest, and it's here where word LIFE really starts making sense. It's also here, where most of the soil carbon is stored, and where nitrification/denitrification processes are performed by soil bacteria on a daily basis.

So in the end, if we want to call something soil, it has to consist of three above-mentioned elements: rock that's been broken down into three different grains (proportions may vary), decomposing/decomposed organic matter and microlife/macrolife, that constitutes so called soil food web, a chain of interaction between various organisms, which if intact creates a balanced and healthy environment for the plants to develop their roots.

AND IF THESE THREE ELEMENTS DON'T COEXIST, YOU'RE NOT DEALING WITH SOIL, BUT WITH A SORT OF SOILLESS MIX!

In fact, most of potting mixes are classified as soilless, cause they're created by mixing peat moss or sphagnum peat – not really sustainable materials – with other organic amendments such as barks, husks, coco coir and sometimes compost or EWC with addition of non-organic (as in mineral or lacking carbon) aeration agents like perlite, vermiculite or zeolite.

On the upside they're cheap, convenient, puffy and airy, and have good CEC and drainage as well. On the downside they're often completely void of microlife, and are missing not only the whole table of micro and macronutrients, but also have wrong C:N ratio, so they're not really fit for the plants to nurture themselves, and are not apt for organic growing either.

Nitrogen cycle

In truth, a lot of these soilless, peat-based products get sterilised in-house or wetted with synthetic agents, that help to retain the right RH. They are also enriched with organic and non-organic amendments to the point of oversaturation, which is far from what we find in native soils, thus causes a lot of nutrient problems such as deficiencies or lockouts.

On the top of that, if growers keep ridding of their medium after every cycle just to opt for a new batch, they contribute to a SERIOUS carbon footprint as peat is an important carbon sink, and mining, processing and transporting it afar has created a huge environmental impact, that'll be very hard to fix!

Photo credits: Nug is Black Dog by HSO grown organically indoor by Lazyfish, and the plant is Carnival by Ministry of Cannabis grown by Neikodog in #highbrix soil. Both courtesy of 420Magazine

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