coco soil analysis.. mucho K

[Rolando Mota]

Was just at a local bulk substrate dealer talking coco with them. Looking at getting a larger amount through them for a significant savings. I've had problems with off brand coco before being too salty which I asked about. They gave me a copy of the lab report and the salt levels look ok (0.8 dS/m) But what surprised me was the potassium level.. 6254 ppm! I knew that coco was high in K but, wow.

ph 6.6

N 37 ppm
P 45 ppm
K 6254 ppm
Ca 4125 ppm
Mg 1176 ppm
Cu 2.3 ppm
Zn 8 ppm
Mn 13 ppm
Fe 17 ppm
B 0.13 ppm

Ca and Mg are good..

Got some to test out next round, I'll do a side by side vs. B'cuzz.

Happy 4/20!

 

[Mr. Bongjangles]

Wow, that's wild.

Wouldn't the coco be toxic with such high levels of K, Mg and Ca??

Is this bulk unflushed coco, or something that should be representative of normal commercial coco?

Good luck with your side-by-side, always enjoy tuning in for those.

 

[magiccannabus]

I am growing all organic and am hardly even feeding any potassium to my plants and they're growing great. I'm using 1/3 coco in my mix, and hardly any added nutrients.

I think the reason it's not toxic is that a certain amount of it is bound up in the coco. If you let the coco sit there and rot for a couple years, all of that would probably become more available and nothing would be consuming it. This is probably a big part of why coco coir must be packaged and sold within a certain time range to be suitable for growing. Before this or after this the conditions in the medium are much worse. I bet potassium availability is a huge part of that.

 

[Rolando Mota]

This is flushed and treated coco so I'm hoping it should work well.

There is a sufficiency factor listed too; 1=optimum

N 0
P 0.1
K 3.7 !!
Ca 0.5
Mg 0.9
Cu 0.4
Zn 0.3
Mn 0.3
Fe 0.1
B 0.4

 

[Rolando Mota]

Potted three plants in the test coco to run it vs. b'cuzz and they look pretty sad so far. Half the size and yellow - not looking good. I was about to flip them but I'm tempted to re-pot the three into b'cuzz and just bag the test.

 

[Wheezy]

looks like heavy salt on the coco man. the b'cuzz pots are so green so the juxtaposition is apparent

 

[PondeLftHndSide]

Yeah, you didn't even need the arrows, it's pretty obvious which plants are in the new coco. Damn.

I got a single bad brick of compressed coco out of a batch that I purchased locally and it fucked up several of my plants. Badly stunted their growth early on. I had to flush them over and over to get them healthy, and yields were significantly reduced on all plants that went into this one batch of coco. It killed off some really rare seeds, too. I lost 5 Chimera Highland Mexican x Blueberry seeds to some serious damping off. Of all the seedlings that could have keeled over, why those? I flushed the heck out of it before I planted, as per my usual routine. Don't know why this one brick had it in for me.

Switched to Canna coco for this run, and everyone is extremely healthy and happy. No more bricks for me, as long as I can get the Canna.