Reaching out to Black Strap users

[oldtimes]

When I was making and using EM-1, I was able to get away with both by continually resupplying microlife and by mainly limiting my use of salts to fairly weak solutions of micronutrients.(I fed the mother culture of em-1 molasses, it lived in a Mason jar in the refrigerator. I would only use a small amount at a time, diluted. It reproduced and thrived fast.)
Eventually I realized that I could use the em-1 to 'deconstruct' things like bat poop, coffee grounds, banana peels, etc and this would then render organic micronutrients to a readily available state that seemed to be absorbed instantly by the plants.
Eventually the fungus aspect of em1 came to dominate the rhizosphere but I had really good results with those experiments, which seemed to actually turn the either/or argument upside down.
I will hopefully get a good supplier again one day and can get back into that fascinating aspect of things.
I would suppose that it is applicable to something like coco, or a coco based commercial soil....

 

[Cradle of Mirth]

I swear by it personally, but use it sparingly. Actually have different types - sulfured molasses, unsulfured and dried stuff from build a soil. I only ever use the sulfured molasses and dried stuff, and I use not even a 1/4 tsp dry mollases per gallon and not all the time because of my environment, it can lead to problems for me. I use the dry stuff for FPJ too, the liquid stuff has more osmotic pressure which effects the resultant FPJ extract. Nothing wrong with the liquid unsulfured stuff though, I just think you might need more of it? or i should say... the normal dose. the dry stuff I have to use less of.

The dry stuff i use in tea's (depending on the tea, usually 1/2tsp-1tsp/gal, it gets eaten up by time the brew hits sweet spot). and later in flower at 1/8tsp - 1/4 tsp with waterings to directly water in without a living tea. Sugardaddy from Technaflora is awesome stuff, used it allot outside of living soil, but the Magnesium can cause imbalances in living soil if used often - that's why i have the sulfured molasses - to replace feeding sugardaddy. But it can affect the microbe life - so every third time I apply dry mollases with bacteria, I replace it with the sulfured stuff instead, and skip microbes. but will follow up next feed with a bacterial heavy tea I innoculated with something like King Crab, worm castings, olly mountain fish comp...anything to replenish. Much like with some terpene enhancers that use botanicals that can hurt the population (terpify, maybe terpinator?, etc), sulfur gives me a noticeable terpene boost and the plants like it.

I believe persephones palate has similar effects to feeding microbes with mollases, so i use that interchangeably with the sulfured mollases too. It contains sulfates from the calcium lignosulfate, and gives a good terp boost, it's a great replacement to mollases if you need extra calcium boost. But in terms of cost, a bag of dry mollases...seems this one will last a lifetime, i'm certain. much cheaper, can infuse it with calcium chelate or big 6 if I need to tweak it. but mollases already has some selenium, mag, copper, iron, and calcium as it is.
I just know when I use mollases heavy or more than 1/4 tsp every feeding I run into issues, and it can lead to pathogens where I am even. I've had friends tell me they cut down on dosage in the winter months/indoors or only ever use it in tea's. 1 tsp/gal seems to be the standard though, outdoors 1tsp-1tbsp/gal easy no problem!

Even with salts outdoors, if you did a mollases feed and innoculated with some bacteria or fish emulsion, it is beneficial in my experience even in 20 gallon miracle grow pots. Water that in really good to run off almost like a flush- if you think it will be able to dry out enough and not stagnate at this point in season. The bacteria that die will still be cycled in there by something, just don't feed/topdress anymore salts through flowering. Worms though like Willie said wont stand for the salts, they will roll themselves out and into the grass to better pastures, they are too big in size to stand a chance, something salty will be in contact with some part of their body. the bacteria are so abundant and tiny though, you can have little apartments of them extablished, especially where more plant exudates exist near the roots. Plants will still make exudates even to deal with salt stress.
Just take it easy on the sugars, or you risk pathogens is all, especially with lots of salts/nutrients in there if it stays too damp. worms are nice pathogen digesters but they wont eat anything salty. If you aren't chasing bacteria for terpenes, the brix from mollases will still be useful and you need not worry about any inoculations..but if you're trying to shift your soil over to housing some pockets of bacteria maybe innoculate/flush.

The ideal dose of liquid unsulfured molasses, from my personal experience/climate/living soil type -to feed microbes and keep them happy - 1/4 tsp per gal, a little goes a long way. and even less of the dry stuff. But later in flower I jump up. I just wouldn't constantly be giving 1tsp/gal - that's just me though, not the gold standard for everyone. but you are doing salts, and if you leave your pots out for the winter to recycle next season, and aren't too concerned with feeding bacteria - i'd just give the typical 1tsp-1tbsp per gallon for bud development and terps. Long winded sorry, I love my mollases. It's in the toolbelt!

 

[VAHomegrown]

@Captain Sternn
My method is probably wrong in so many ways, but heres what works for me.
•Top dressing with a granular mollasses seems to be the best way to keep the microbial life happy in my amended soil setup. I top dress with the SantaClara @ 1 tsp per gallon right on top my my compost/dry feed, then cover it with alfalfa hay. It slowly breaks down and continuously feeds the microbial life, allowing the plant to uptake more nutrients.
•For the weekly compost tea I use 2 tsp per gallon of McCutcheons Black Strap Mollassss. The mollassss will drop your PH, so you gotta monitor how much you are adding. The 2 tsp per gallon brings my normally 8.2 ph well water down to 6.8-7.2. The McCutcheons seems to be a little better mollasses than the bigger brands, it makes a lot more foam in the tea bucket compared to something like Grandma's brand.
•I will also add it to my plain water, starting around week 6. Usually 1 tsp per gallon, increasing to 2 tsp per gallon by the end of week 7. After week 7 its water and Grease extracts until they finish. The higher amounts seem to help the plant finish bulking, and start the fade.

 

[Frosty78]

G'day capt, is the issue you are having revolve around lack of calcium, mag and sulphur in flower?
It sounds like you are running salts and adequate calcium during all cycles of plant.

if it is an attempt to boost beneficial microbe (protozoa/fungi/bacteria) populations I would think that a worm/compost tea would be better off before the tail end of the cycle. Really enhance populations and getting them to settle in etc before getting them to do some heavy lifting.

might I suggest instead of blm you can utilise many other forms of readily available simple carbs/sugars/starches that benefit the microbe population.
Left over pasta water
Boiled potato water are great sources too.
I'm just thinking outside the square here. I like blm aswell but am gravitating more to those other methods. If you've prepped well and have an abundant adequate supply of calcium/boron (go hand in hand) you might be wasting money on blm if it's already there in bountiful supply. Pumping the microbes pops the other way I've mentioned shouldn't alter ph etc.
There's plenty of smart minds with great info provided already. I'm thinking of another way. I'll be trying it outside once everything goes well this month.
I'll be following along to see how your experiment pans out. Good stuff

 

[DopeDaniel]

On a day-to-day basis, the most common deficiencies I see are oxygen and light.

Same, belly breath, diaphragm and pelvic floor conditioning.

* aeration, in the root zone

Okay, fine that too.

 

[FRED619]

I use unsulfured blackstrap from Golden Barrel, used to use Earth Juice Molasses but it became unavailable for me so I switched. You should never use sulfured molasses, and always think of it as food for the mycros in the soil and the soil. Your plant will respond well if it juices your mycros, and you will see a big diff. I use it once a month at 1tbls(20 grams =15 ml) per Gal. in veg. I jump too 40 grams twice a month in bloom. This is all in living soil, I mix it with regular nutes at their schedule.