Coco and pH, what do you like yours set at?

[2Lazy]

phosphorus not needed in large amount, ~1:3 nitrogenotassium

It is quite obvious that when using COCO medium, lots of calcium and phosphate and very little potassium need to be added to the coco, and this is exactly what the CANNA COCO nutrient line contains.

Like I said, you were really, really close. Just the phosphorus part was wrong. Everything else you said was pretty much dead on, despite being shorthand and a little difficult to get through at times, I agree with most of your post.

Don't think of what I was saying as antagonistic. I was totally going for the complementary role, and I agree a lot of what that article contained agreed with your sentiments. Just the phosphorus amount part, that's all.

 

[Kiwi Star]

pH at 6.0. Sometimes at 5.8 or lower during veg if they really need the N.

Full canna range. Would love to try GH one day, but not really available here yet.

 

[Bill Sussman]

Canna Coco with Canna Nutes, I try to keep my PH no lower than 5.7 and no higher than 6.1. I always shoot for an even 5.9.

 

[Guywithoutajeep]

Whos to know in regards to the ratio between P and K? The plant seems to uptake the increased P if you supply it, but does that translate into a better quality product? I would assume that that would be the growers call.

I think my finish on my current crop is a little over 1:2 on PK. They seem to really enjoy the K. I have a friend who helped me out (organic dude, with godly results) on my current grow and he was all about the big potassium kick.


Anyways, 5.5-6.0. I try to stay on the higher side of 5 during veg, but I do drift. Also, I've been keeping it a mid 5's during flowering and doing an occasional higher pH. So veg, 5.8 w/ occasional 5.5 application then in flowering 5.5 w/ occasional 5.8-6.0 application. My results have been very good doing this, but it probably makes little difference between doing this and keeping a steady 5.8...I dont know.

 

[simple green]

5.6-6.0

 

[*mistress*]

Like I said, you were really, really close. Just the phosphorus part was wrong. Everything else you said was pretty much dead on, despite being shorthand and a little difficult to get through at times, I agree with most of your post.

Don't think of what I was saying as antagonistic. I was totally going for the complementary role, and I agree a lot of what that article contained agreed with your sentiments. Just the phosphorus amount part, that's all.

no, the phosphorus part as not wrong...
maybe we post about different things...

you maybe post about amount of phosphorus in coco, naturally.

*mistress* post about actual phosphrus needs of plant...

All applied nutritional components are under competitive pressure in the root zone from not only the plant, but the environment as well, including temperature, pH, interaction with other elements, and other life forms. Most elements are more concentrated in certain areas of the plant based on the plant itself: for example, leaf tissue (mesophyll) will have as much iron and manganese as it does sulfur and magnesium, while phosphorus is present in larger amounts in root and flower tissues (especially seeds). It’s important to note that the only way to have a complete picture of the composition of the plant is to analyze the entire plant: roots, stems, leaves, shoots, flowers and seeds.

The pH of the environment will affect the form of the phosphate’s availability and will limit the ultimate availability of the desired monovalent form H2PO4- at normal pH ranges between 5.2 and 7.2 by converting the phosphates into the unusable form H3PO4 or the less desired divalent form HPO42-.

The phosphates will bind other available elements as well as to substrate particles and become unavailable to the plant even though they’re still showing in the system. So fertilizers must be designed not only to provide the right ratios of elements in the right amounts, but also for a dynamic environment of temperature and pH fluctuations and across different substrates.


The pH of the soil solution will affect available phosphorus as will temperature and overall concentrations of other elements such as potassium, a synergistic effect which is a ratio issue as well. The grower has to be aware of all these variables in designing a fertility program for their crop. Most nutrient lines are designed with the line in mind: in other words, the ratio, composition, source, and application rate of each component product adds to the final ratio of every nutrient that would be required by the plant.

CONCENTRATION DRY MATTER (% or ppm)
Macronutrients


Nitrogen N 1.5
Potassium K 1.0
Calcium Ca 0.5
Magnesium Mg 0.2
Phosphorus P 0.2

...or, n-p-k of 1.5-.2-1.0...

&...

Phosphorous (H2PO4 to HPO4) in solution buffers pH, but if phosphorous is maintained at levels that are adequate to stabilize pH (1 to 10 mM), it becomes toxic to plants. Plants actively absorb phosphorous from solution so a circulating solution, with about 0.05 mM P has much less buffering capacity than the fresh refill solution that is added to replace transpiration losses. Figure 2a is a titration curve of fresh refill solution compared to the recirculating solution. Six mmoles of base were required to raise the pH of fresh solution from 5.8 to 8, but only 1 mmole of base raised the pH of the circulating solution to 8. Figure 2b shows the slopes (derivatives) of the lines in Figure 2a. Figure 2b clearly shows poor buffering of the circulating solution between pH 5 to 9; small amounts of acid or base rapidly change the solution pH. The fresh refill solution is buffered by phosphorous, which has its maximum buffering capacity at pH 7.2. This point is called the pKa of the buffer and it is the point at which half of the phosphorous is in the H2PO4 form and half is in the HPO4 form. In other words, the phosphate ion absorbs and desorbs hydrogen ions to stabilize the pH. Unfortunately, phosphorous is quickly removed from the solution.

We were surprised to find that the circulating solution was better buffered below pH 5 than the fresh solution. The reasons for this are unclear, we cannot identify compounds in the refill solution that provide buffering capacity at pH 4. We are preparing to repeat these measurements and are investigating this finding.

How important is maintaining pH 5.8? We control the pH at 4 to study root respiration (to eliminate bicarbonate in solution). We compared growth at pH 4 and pH 5.8 with wheat and were not able to find a significant difference in root growth rate or root metabolism. We now routinely grow wheat crops at pH 4 during the entire life cycle. However, although there is usually a broad optimum pH, it is still best to maintain pH at about 5.8 to optimize nutrient availability. pH levels below 4 may start to reduce root growth, in one study our pH control solenoid failed just after seed germination and the pH went to 2.5 for 48 hours. The roots turned brown and died, but new roots quickly grew back and the plants appeared to make a complete recovery.

 

[Hazyfontazy]

Coco is ideal for me at a PH of 5.8 - 6.0, that is where the best overall uptake occurs regardless of nutrient line.

i agree canna coco grown upto 2.0ec ph 5.8-6.0

 

[whodi]

5.8 here

 

[2Lazy]

LOL at Mistress... I'm not going to get drawn into a debate. Allow the people to make a decision.

Coco buffers itself well, so error on the slightly acidic side if anything. 5.6 is better than 6.1.

 

[Centrum]

You know i get sick of adding ph down and then going to low and adding a few drops of ph up and going to high, then re-adding ph down and going to low and then getting frustrated!

The easiest numbers for me is between 5.6 and 5.9 if i get 5.5 thats fine but im just trying to hit a range rather then a number, but it seems that in my personal experience the higher 5's, 5.8 - 6.0 seems to be what my plants like best.

 

[*mistress*]

.......................

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

Total is 131.6, average is 5.72

 

[*mistress*]

please show work (#'s).

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

I copy and pasted the numbers into excel, because why on earth would you get an average of 4.19 when the lowest number was 5.0.

I'm not going to show my work for simple addition and division, you just didn't add all the numbers. There are 23, but it looks like you added up less than 20 of them.

 

[*mistress*]

...............

 

[Massproducer]

With the numbers you have listed the total = 117 for an average of 5.6... Your math is so off it is not even funny, well it actually is... Reading through this thread was kind of painful because you are giving out so much bad info that it can almost be confusing. Like I do not even know where to start, so I just wont, but i will just leave you with "WOW", lmao

 

[PoopyTeaBags]

5.4-6.0 sometimes 6.2 but not usually....

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

*mistress*, it's got nothing to do with my formatting in excel, it's got everything to do with you making a mistake somewhere in your math.

What I want to know is how you can look at those sets of numbers, and think it's reasonable for the average to come out lower than any of the numbers in the set, with the exception of one in the last post.

Your posts have a lot of information if people can take the time to figure it out, but this has me questioning the validity of your past posts.

Total of numbers from post #31: 131.6
Average of numbers from post #31: 5.7

Total of numbers from post #35: 117.6
Average of numbers from post #35: 5.6

Total of numbers from post #35 (excluding *mistress* and Mudguts): 108.6
Average of numbers from post #35 (excluding *mistress* and Mudguts): 5.7

(Mudgut said he has had several issues and isn't happy with his plants, so why even count it? It's pretty obvious when compared to the rest of the PH numbers that it's way out of whack.)

I'm not sure where the confusion lies, but I assure you the numbers I presented are correct, and I invite anyone to check for themselves.

 

[simple green]

In my post I posted a range of 5.6-6.0 as being my preference
*mistress* used 5.6 to average for me...

check the math

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

In my post I posted a range of 5.6-6.0 as being my preference
*mistress* used 5.6 to average for me...

check the math

*mistress* made it clear she was using the low end of the PH scale for those numbers, which is perfectly reasonable... for finding the average low PH. I am curious what the average high PH is...