Mixing Coco with Organic Soils Poll

[Sam Slambam]

Hello Good Folks....

I would like to get an opinion poll going on the advantages and or disadvantages of mixing Coco Coir into an Organic Soil/Soil-less mix.
There seems to be a lot of mixed opinions on the topic and it would be nice to see if we could come to a consensus of sorts.

 

[Pig-Pen]

I've used coco for years, and as a total peat replacement for most of them.

Coco is fantastic medium, however there's a wide range of quality out there. The biggest thing is getting all the salts flushed out, also which available texture will work best for a given situation.

These days I use Black Gold Coco Blend, which has peat and coco, best of both worlds. I love it.

Advantages of coco: renewable (!), neutral pH, maintains near perfect balance of moisture and oxygen.

Disadvantages: can cause cal/mag deficiencies, harder to find quality coco, salt levels can require heavy flushing before use (I've seen reports of 1000+ PPM runoff right out of the bag).

There are caveats with everything.

 

[Mr Celsius]

Down to earth coco in blocks... 2000+ppm (my TDS pen shut off because it was too high). Pig-Pen put the nail on the head.

I use a local brand that is rinsed, puffed, great texture and innoculated with mycorrhizae. $11 a bag for 2 cubic feet, its $1 more then Black gold coco blend and loamier. I've since changed my mind about Black gold sucking, I just feel it needs more perlite for my needs.

 

[BurnOne]

Peat and/or coir is fine. As stated above, make damn sure your coir is free of salt.
Burn1

 

[Pig-Pen]

Down to earth coco in blocks... 2000+ppm (my TDS pen shut off because it was too high). Pig-Pen put the nail on the head.

I use a local brand that is rinsed, puffed, great texture and innoculated with mycorrhizae. $11 a bag for 2 cubic feet, its $1 more then Black gold coco blend and loamier. I've since changed my mind about Black gold sucking, I just feel it needs more perlite for my needs.

I knew you'd come around.

That coco you have a line on sounds awesome. If we were all so lucky. All there is around here Sun Leaves C-R-A-P. Actually, crap is way better and I shouldn't degrade the good name of crap by associating it with those coco/salt bricks of theirs.

 

[resinryder]

I said yes. HOWEVER if you do it do it the right way. Soil will become compacted. I use FFOF and add the chunky perlite for this very reason. Down side is with the extra aeration provided with the chunky perlite the pots dry out a bit quicker. I can see the same happening with the coir. I would personally rather use the chunky crouton coco over the coarse coir mainly to help with the compaction factors=soil is heavier than the coarse coir causing compaction whereas the chunky croutons would help with aeration and avoid compaction issues helping to maintain maxium root/plant growth and overall health.
Yeah, I'm a bit stoned, so hope the above explained what I'm trying to say.

 

[master shake]

didn't work too well for me...but there may have been other factors that affected my situation...so i won't vote on the poll. Anyway, I got my coco from petsmart and rinsed the hell out of it. Followed the recipe in the sticky and saved the life of a dying youngin. Then flowering time came and all went to shit. I bought a bag of EWC from walmart in the spring while it was fresh and used that initially, i later bought another bag later in the summer (this bag was different that previous, same brand, it smelled like shit literally) to start some new seeds and all of them died, ALL. I don't know if it was bad EWC, or bad coco but for now I'm having great results with ocean forest so I'lL stick with that for a while.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

I'd say go for it! Here's a little experiment i did recently:

@ 2 weeks growth...
Right:Coco/potting mix
Middle:Coco/compost
Leftotting mix/compost

I used Hydrofarm coco (course), Jungle Growth potting mix(20% perlite and compost added), and home-made compost. They were fed Fish Emulsion and Maxicrop and half strength H3ad formula GH.

 

[Mr Celsius]

I said yes. HOWEVER if you do it do it the right way. Soil will become compacted. I use FFOF and add the chunky perlite for this very reason. Down side is with the extra aeration provided with the chunky perlite the pots dry out a bit quicker. I can see the same happening with the coir. I would personally rather use the chunky crouton coco over the coarse coir mainly to help with the compaction factors=soil is heavier than the coarse coir causing compaction whereas the chunky croutons would help with aeration and avoid compaction issues helping to maintain maxium root/plant growth and overall health.
Yeah, I'm a bit stoned, so hope the above explained what I'm trying to say.

Gotta disagree. I've never had any coco I've ever used compact... it has a colloidal structure provides perfect balance between porosity and retention.

 

[MrFista]

It has been pointed out to me by a wise old pothead that glomalin stops soil compaction. Glomalin is a by product of m.fungi. Innoculation of soils will assist in keeping the soil friable, and directly stops compaction by binding up fine silt particles into larger particles so you don't wind up with soil that is caked at the bottom of your pots.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

I've had to continue a once a week drowning of the pots just like i do in potting soil. I take a five gallon bucket and submerge the pots for five minutes until all air bubbles stop. The mixes have become a bit hydrophobic....haven't perfected them yet. They still look to be readily accepting water but they're not fully dispersing the water.

 

[resinryder]

Gotta disagree. I've never had any coco I've ever used compact... it has a colloidal structure provides perfect balance between porosity and retention.

Guess I missed the point I was trying to make, hehe.

 

[Suby]

4 parts Promix HP
2 parts Botanicare coco
2 parts perlite
2 parts worm castings

I ammended with dolomite at 1.5TBS per gallon, and I went very heavy on a new organic blend that's like 4-10-5, a mix of fish meal, rock phosphate, kelp, I'll post more about this later but it's nothing special, I am trying it because it has fish meals in it which didn't smell in the final soil.

My Grapefruit Skunk seedlings are doing very well with this mix, I also use teas and Liquid Karma or Humic acid as a booster every other watering as well as fulvic acid foliars every 3rd time I spray which is almost daily.

Sub's

 

[sophisto]

4 parts coco
1 part compost ( EB stone planting compost)
1/2 part big chunky perlite

added nutes are 1/4 cup 4-10-7 per 5 gal ( flower) and 1/4 cup 5-7-4 per 5 gal ( veg)
Been feeding every other watering with FME and EM solutions and a couple booster teas in flower....

Has been working really well for me.

I was using coco with FFOF for a while with good results...

I personally feel if your gonna go with coco into the mix A. buy good stuff IMO canna coco and botanicaire are the two best found easily...OR B Buy whatever else is available but plan on flushing it first.. CoCo can be salty and can reak havock on an otherwisee good mix... Just my two cents take it for what it's worth.