smaller pots than soil???

[Guest]

my grow space is only able to hold 4 plants in 3gal grow bags. its a pretty tight fit using the bags too.

what i want to know is with coco are u able to use smaller pots and still get decent yields. i heard on another forum that unlike soil u can use smaller pots (like 2gals) and still have good sized plants. in the future when i find a strain that i like i will do a perpetual grow wit clones, when i get to that point i probably will only b growing 2 plants @ a time doing a scrog

also with coco is it easy for roots to get rootbound, i know that sounds like a dumbass question. but i want to end up using the smallest sized pot possible without having shitty yields. what sized pots do u coco growers finish flowering in?

[NPK]

Aizan, you could grow some good-sized plants in two-gallon pots: going forward, that's what I'm going to use for flowering. I'm flowering my first round of coco ladies (Odyssey, seen below) in one-gallon pots and at just over 30 days can see already that the yields are WAY ahead of where the same strain was last time I chopped in 3.5 gallon pots of soil. When it comes to pot size (and yield!), it's just a whole 'nother medium. You can get away with much smaller pots in coco than you could with soil.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/frescaphile/basement/coco/011107nice.jpg

Still, I do wish I'd transplanted into two-gallon pots before flowering, because the plants are getting so heavy that they kept tipping over until I weighed 'em down with river stones! The one-gallon pots don't provide enough weight/stability.

[Guest]

ok coo just wanted some reassurance that with coco u can go smaller

and theres the proof wow those are in 1 gals thas hot!!!

[NPK]

I know, it's nuts. There's no way plants this size would make it in one-gallon pots of soil, they'd be so totally rootbound. Coco is a miracle medium!

[Guest]

let me ask u this do u know the reason y it works out that way

im curious

[gaiusmarius]

it really depends on how you feed the coco. regular daily feeding allows for less root volume. with a drip feed you can use incredibly small amounts of coco and still get plants like this. even with only a few days of veg phase on the slabs.

http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/4186white151-thumb.jpg (http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/4186white151.jpg)

if on the other hand you only water it once every few days, then you will need a pot just as big as in earth ideally speaking that is. treat it like hydro and it can do with an incredibly small amount of root space.

[NPK]

Yeah, I've been hand-watering the plants every day. At this point they'd probably keel over if I didn't. I'd like to get 'em on a three- or four-times-daily feeding regimen, but that's going to have to wait until I get things automated.

[Guest]

it really depends on how you feed the coco. regular daily feeding allows for less root volume. with a drip feed you can use incredibly small amounts of coco and still get plants like this. even with only a few days of veg phase on the slabs.



so is a drip system a must then, i plan on and hand watering until i figure out if i can even do a drip setup in my cab and thats a big if

but i'll do some searches n c if i can find something about drip systems

[gaiusmarius]

no a drip feed is not a must, you can hand water them daily if you want. you will still be able to use smaller pots, then with earth.

[Guest]

ok cool thanx for yall's help

cant wait to start my second grow lol im still on my first using soil

[Guest]

ok so im going to start some new seeds tomorrow i cant wait ne more lol

how do u determine your watering schedule, i mean one guy waters every two days while another person waters everyday and then u have people that water a couple times a day. since i want to keep them small should i just water twice a day.

[gaiusmarius]

basically you decide what kind of watering rhythm you want to use. the plants will adapt their roots to what you are doing in terms of watering. hand watering 2 times a day is not realistic. in the beginning you will be all motivated, but with time you will find it a big pain in the ass to have to water 2 times a day. even 1 times a day can be a big pain. so really a dripper or automatic watering setup is a big plus. but it certainly can be done by hand. just takes discipline :D

[Guest]

it wouldnt b a pain trust me, im at home alot not all the time but alot lol

[truecannabliss]

Im a hand watering coco grower that waters daily (sometimes twice) and spends up to 3 hours with my girls a night(their morning).....wouldnt have it any other way, I love the time spent in the grow and feel that a daily interaction benefits the plants massivly(as well as myself).
Plants grown in coco will be able to get much bigger than those grown in soil and show no signs of stress.
Peace

[NPK]

Yeah, I spend at least an hour every evening tending to my coco girls, and more when there are other things to attend to, like reservoir maintenance, emptying receptacles, and so on. I enjoy it, too, but I don't want my human girl to feel neglected, like I put my garden in front of her. The garden IS a top priority and my fiance is amazingly patient and understanding, but I can't keep dividing my evenings like this...it's a big reason why I need to automate. I'm going to make it happen before she moves in with me two months hence.

[Dalton]

^^^^^^^
I'm in the same spot NPK. My gf actually asked me if I spend so much time in my garden to get away from her, which isn't the case. I'm automating next month and can't wait to have more time for other things. Aizen I think your going to do just fine
handwatering in a cab because it's alot less work. It will also give you a good understanding of growing in coco. Best of luck!

[Guest]

thanx dalton

and since i can go smaller im gonna finish in 1.5 square gal pots i can get six in my flowering cab and now i made a bootleg veg cab lol that can veg alot of plants if i want

[gaiusmarius]

yes automation means you can spend your time checking the important things.

to really start learning what the plants are saying at any given stage, you need to spend time with them. it helps to stare at the plants and let your mind wander, really look at the leaves, the color, the texture, the saw teeth, the shape, the position and the color of the stem. all these things tell you some thing about the strain you are growing and by really looking at every stage you can learn so much, specially for next time with the same strain.

anyway, when it comes to popping seeds, you do it just like in earth. no watering every day until the seedling has become a plant. soak the coco, sow the seed and only add water when you see it needs it. depending on the pot size, every few days will be enough. with new clones it's the same you put them in cubes and let them root into those cubes well before you put them in the system with the automated watering or hand watering every day as the case might be.

[Guest]

anyway, when it comes to popping seeds, you do it just like in earth. no watering every day until the seedling has become a plant. soak the coco, sow the seed and only add water when you see it needs it. depending on the pot size, every few days will be enough.

thanx i planted in straight coco cause i dont like the perlite that they sell in the local stores shit is always floating to the top. guess i shouldnt have to water every day then huh?

[SilverSurfer_OG]

I have one big plant in a 4 gallon container (100% coco too) and she needs watering every 2 days... in hot weather when my temps sit around the 28 -30C mark she sucks water fast... in 1 gallon i imagine watering every day is a must.

[gaiusmarius]

thanx i planted in straight coco cause i dont like the perlite that they sell in the local stores shit is always floating to the top. guess i shouldnt have to water every day then huh?

no, for the beginning, you don't need to water every day. specially not with a seedling. let it establish it's roots well in the pot its in before you implement daily watering. not that it will not work, but it helps the plant make the roots quicker in the beginning if it has to go searching for water. as soon as you see it's no longer a weak seedling, but a young plant, then you can water more often.

[Guest]

got cha thanx

[Guest]

http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/16583Room-at-new-years-thumb.jpg

You can see in the picture, I use 1-Gallon pots filled with a coco mix with 30% perlite. Last go round I added perlite as a top dressing which ended up not being necessary. The difference in long fiber or short fiber coco makes a big difference. I could get away with watering every other day. I noticed that the more watered plants were bushier and much more stout. Since then I have watered every day after the plants are over 8 inches with 6 nodes. I use an air cooled 400 watt MH for vegging. The drier the mix gets, the more the plants seem to stretch taller.
At first I thought that I was getting faster growth. I hadn't topped or pruned anything at this point so I would measure each branches growth every day. Lots of tedious labor although I liked being with the plants. The quickest 3 were male and the other 4 were ladies. I wasn't more, It was just more verticle. I kept 1 on the, every other day watering schedule as long as I could. At the third week of budding it needed water every day. As soon as I treated It like the others it bushed out.
After the harvest I cleaned out my medium by removing the roots from it. The Plants root systems were suprisingly small. Not even close to being pot bound in a 1-Gallon pot. Coco is the way to go!
Now I am trying to get a soil taste out of tiny pots of coco.If you want to Check out this thread and my grow in my signature to see what info they have that you might find helpful.

[Protostele]

My pots hold about a gallon of coco mix. They are custom built with half inch hardware cloth and lined with landscape fabric. Four pots are fastened together into a rack using plastic cable ties and hardwood dowling for carrying handles. The handles also support the rack when placed in the growing room so the pots are suspended in air. Netpots fastened inside at the bottom finish off the racks.
http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/7784Jack_Herer_day_48-thumb.JPG (http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/7784Jack_Herer_day_48.JPG)

I use clones and these Jack Herer plants were placed in 12/12 when they were 6 inches tall. I pruned for the first week of flower any side branches and though JH isn't recommended for SOG, I am pleased with this particular rack as the plants are 24 inches high with a 12 inch cola at day 48 of flower. They will go for 80 days so there should be a lot more fattening up. This has been a perpetual grow and I have been experimenting with vegging and pruning and just an inch or so makes a big difference. Seven to eight inch clones get too tall and I will continue to prune all side growth at least for a week in future.

Having fabric for pots encourages air exchange for the roots and since I do not get pot bound roots I think I am getting the air-pruning effect as described by Uncle Ben on OG. His method described using a copper based mixture to burn the root tips to encourage lateral growth but he did make mention of air-pruning having the same effect.

I can pull the coco filled fabric cylinder out of the hardware cloth pot after harvest and unroll the fabric to examine what is inside. Very few roots are visible coming out and running down the sides but if you shake the outter layer of coco off the roots you see a solid mass of fine lateral root growth.

another advantage of the hardware cloth pots are the many many conveniently located tie points.

As for watering, it has to be daily and at present I have it automatically drip three times during the day and then I do a manual water in the evening. At the manual watering I can decide whether to feed with nutrients or if the plants look well fed I can just apply water.

Just roughly figuring off the top of my head I would say each plant gets a half liter of liquid each day. Some of that is run to waste but not a lot.

http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/7784JH_day61-thumb.JPG (http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/7784JH_day61.JPG)

Protostele

[gaiusmarius]

those are some real good looking ladies Protostele, it would be cool if you started a thread about your system. seems like you know how to make the coco dance :yes:

thanks for sharing man :wave:

[Guest]

I remember an article showing a grower called "little Big Way" who used something very similar to the hardware cloth pots. He has also won a few awards without ever checking the room temperatures with a thermometer!
He uses big homemade containers that breathe.
I would like to know what takes place when the roots get to the air at the sides & bottom of the pot? I wonder if it thinks it is at ground level and turn to keep growing?
Whatever it is, it seems to work very well.

[Protostele]

Gaius - Will do a thread later and hope I keep it updated better than I have previous threads...LOL. I just got a new computer and until I take the old hard drive and hook it up to the DVD connector to transfer my pictures over, I do not have access to my previous pictures. Can always take new ones I suppose, since it is currently a perpetual grow there is lots of opportunity to take pictures at every stage of the grow.

I am starting to get the hang of coco but habits are hard to break and I was treating the first racks like I did when growing in a bin. I also am very suspicious of the nutrients I was using at first and think they were out of date. No shelf life mentioned on the labels but the three part fertilizers were at least three years old.

I made the switch to Canna ferts when I learned that the same mix can be used for the whole grow. It makes it much easier when automatically dripping from one reservoir and feeding a perpetual grow with plants at varying stages of flowering. The pk 13/14 is applied during the manual evening feeding when appropriate. The plants are loving the canna much better than my previous fertilizer and after I get some more experience with this setup, then I will experiment some with organics again.

Incidently, this was my first attempt at a perpetual SOG and I was interested to see if it was more work or less work than raising the whole cabinet at once. I have decided it is more work but there are advantages as well. I will continue the perpetual SOG until I shut down operations for the summer but next fall I will revert back to doing whole grows together. When I retire in a few years then I will revisit this method again.

MikeyPDC - I saw an article in Cannabis Culture where someone made similar pots with hardware cloth, but I haven't been able to find that particular mag around the house lately. He liked the way it provided good air exchange but with coco it probably doesn't matter much because of coco's excellent properties. I like these pots as I was able to construct them to suit the cabinet I was using.

I think the root tips just dry up and die which encourages lateral root branching. There were very few roots visible at the outter edge of the coco, but just inside it was a mass of very fine roots.

Protostele

[Guest]

yo proto mos def u gotta make that DIY thread man