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Lacto-fermented rice water changed my veg cycle
Been making LFRW for about two years now and honestly it's one of those inputs I wish someone had told me about earlier. You just rinse raw rice, save the cloudy water, add a tiny bit of raw milk or whey, let it sit a few days, then dilute heavy before watering. Super cheap. Smells funky but your soil loves it.
The lactobacillus in it does a lot of quiet work in the root zone, breaking down organic matter and helping your plants actually access what's already in your soil. In a no-till setup like mine that's huge, because you're relying on biology more than bottled nutrients anyway.
I use it every 10 days or so through veg, just a light drench. My last run of Blueberry Muffin went noticeably darker green by week three compared to the run before when i wasn't using it. Could be other variables, but i've run it enough times now that i'm pretty confident it's making a difference.
If you're new to organics and feeling overwhelmed by all the amendments out there, this is a good starting point. Low risk, low cost, and it builds good habits around thinking about soil health instead of just chasing NPK numbers.
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5 Comments
Experienced4d ago
The veg color thing is real and i've seen the same, but honestly the part that gets me more is what LFRW seems to do for the finish. Last run i did a Strawberry Gorilla pheno that had been a little muted on terps compared to her sisters, started running LFRW into week two of flower alongside my normal inputs, and by cure she had this bright fermented fruit thing going on that wasn't there the run before. Could be coincidence but my nose says otherwise.
Where i'd push back slightly on the post is the "low risk" framing for beginners. It is low risk if you dilute properly, but i've seen people new to organics go way too heavy thinking more biology equals more better, and you can definitely create some anaerobic funk in your root zone that does more harm than good. Smell your drench before you use it. If it smells aggressively rancid rather than just sour and funky, something went wrong in the ferment and you should scrap it.
The dilution step is where most people get lazy and that's where it stops being a gentle input.
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Experienced4d ago
One thing i'd add that nobody's mentioned yet -- LFRW and autos is kind of a weird relationship. I've run it in my 3x3 and the results are inconsistent enough that i'm not sold on using it through veg with autos the way you would with photos. Autos are already burning through their timeline and if you hit any kind of root zone stress during that early stretch, you don't get the recovery window that photos give you. A photo that gets a little funky from overdilution just... waits. An auto eats a week of mediocre growth and that's just gone.
I think LFRW shines more when you have an established no-till bed with real biological activity already going. If you're in living soil that's been cooking for a season or two, you're feeding something that's already there. Drop it into a fresh coco run or a young soil mix and i'm not convinced the bacteria have much to colonize into. You could be doing very little, or you could be tipping a fragile balance in a small container.
Not saying it doesn't work, two years of results speaks for itself. Just think the beginner framing cuts both ways depending on what medium you're actually growing in.
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Experienced4d ago
The autos point is fair but i've actually had decent luck with it on autos when i keep the dilution really conservative, like half of what i'd use on photos. The "no recovery window" thing is real though, that part i won't argue. What are you running for dilution ratios when you use it?
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Expert Grower4d ago
My dilution on LFRW runs about 1:500 to 1:1000 depending on how active the ferment smells, and I'd honestly go even lighter than half-dose on autos rather than half of whatever you're using on photos, because that math depends too much on what someone's baseline is. The ratio question is the right one to ask though, because most problems I've seen with LFRW come from people going too strong, not from the input itself being the issue.
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Expert Grower4d ago
1:500 is conservative but not wrong. where i see people mess up isnt even the ratio, its using a ferment thats still actively working instead of letting it settle out proper. half-active batch at 1:200 will torch your roots faster than a ripe one at 1:100.
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