treating coco like soil? dry out between watering

[Yes4Prop215]

My experience with fungus gnats in organic soil is that the gnats are there because you have dead/dying roots, not the other way around.

They are more of an indicator that you have a root health problem, not the cause of it. The most common causes I think are under and over watering, either will cause roots to die faster than anything else - short of pouring gasoline or bleach on them.

Just my 2 cents

how do you avoid overwatering with double water and your ph balanced flush? just curious, when i ran coco and watered twice a day i had overwatering issues. i like to do once a day with little run off.

i switched to organic soil now way easier...but have been seeing some good results in coco maybe il switch back.

 

[Lazyman]

hey lazy man if you water every other day do you just water until you see a bit of runoff no matter when you water? i'd imagine it wouldn't take much to generate runoff for a while after transplant for you?

Well I wasn't top watering (as stated above) but flooding with an automated flood and drain setup. See the 8KW link in sig for details. So the plants sat in 5-6 inches of water for ten minutes at a time, then the trays drained back out. Great for making sure the plants get thoroughly saturated, and it really helps keep the medium well-aerated and flushed. But the point was that the # of waterings really depends on HOW you water. If I was doing top-feed drip or handwatering lightly 3X a day they would never have runoff.

 

[Greyskull]

while the plants are vegging i like to let the pots dry out a little bit between feedings. i found that it helps the plants 'grow' faster/better. i think i found that from reading the side of a bag of canna coco - they reccommend allowing the coco to dry out while vegging to increase root growth... ill have to look at the bag again though (it wasnt on the website)... but to me i get better veg growth letting the pots dry out some.

in flower i like to keep them moist. as they first begin flowering they dont drink as much so i'll maybe need to feed them every other day for the first week or two, but then once the flowers are forming and building the more they'll need to drink to maintain the level of moisture i like, so ill be feeding them every day.

whether in veg or flower i always aim to achieve 10-20% runoff. and i also like to 'apply' my solution over 2 applications... so if i need 1L per plant to achieve the desired runoff i'll first apply 1/2L and allow that to soak into the coco then a little later 20-45min i;ll apply the other 1/2L (and achieve the runoff).

also, i like to serve my plants 'food' with every watering the only time i dont is when i enter the flush week...

 

[oahno]

thats great info greyskull thanks for the reply! could you track down that canna label by chance? i'd love t0o hear what the bag has to say on the matter. what did it say about bloom plants did it say keep the medium saturated at that point? at waht point of bloom?

maybe switching from the water when dry method to the keep it wet method when the stretch ends around day 15 would be the sweet spot? or do you switch as soon as you throw it to 12/12?

 

[therootsofwisdo]

Best way to learn to water is to top water your plants starting by totally saturating them. Let all free water run off i.e. wait half an hour. Weigh your pots. Now wait till the pot reaches 50% of the weight of the fully saturated pot and that is time to re-water. The pot will still be surprisingly wet. Basically the top is just starting to dry out. I just use a bathroom scale to do this. Get on and weigh yourself. Then grab the pot and weigh yourself again this time holding the pot. With this method you get phenomenal growth as long as everything else is dialed in. This is a good ballpark for keeping the maximum moisture in the pot while letting it dry out enough to encourage health vigors root growth. The trick with watering is not to let your root hairs die by either being to wet or to dry. If you can keep that nice white fuzzy root hair growth that allows maximum absorption for the plant. This method takes into account size of pot, size of plant etc. Another important thing is to match the pot to the plant. As mentioned if you put a little plant in a huge pot it is easy to over water it. However for the people watering everyday have most likely a big plant in a small pot allowing for the plant to use up a lot of water before they rewater it. This allows the plant to quickly cycle between getting lots of water and then the needed air for respiration to allow rapid root growth. Pot size I like it starting from cutting in a 4 inch, then go to 8inch then 12inch then flower. Hope this helps.

Peace

 

[Greyskull]

thats great info greyskull thanks for the reply! could you track down that canna label by chance? i'd love t0o hear what the bag has to say on the matter.

well i was wrong. it wasnt on the side of the coco bag...

it was on the back of the coco A & B nutrient bottles (and on the website! http://www.cannagardening.com/node/1416 )

● Plants best catch roots in the Coco medium when it is not too wet

what did it say about bloom plants did it say keep the medium saturated at that point? at waht point of bloom?

maybe switching from the water when dry method to the keep it wet method when the stretch ends around day 15 would be the sweet spot? or do you switch as soon as you throw it to 12/12?

theres really not much more info about medium moisture levels on the website. other than "if you are not able to give water to the plants daily, then use a bigger pot".

for me (since ive begun hand/topfeeding) once i start to see full floral development - about 10-14 days into 12/12 - they'll be getting fed pretty much every other day, depending on their pot size and how they feel. the 1g/6" pots i grow 30" plants in will eventually need to eat 1L daily after week 4... the 1.5g/8" pots i grow 30-36" plants in will need to eat 1.5L daily after week 4.

 

[oahno]

ah see i go from 1 gal to 3 gal to 7 gal smart pot so thats probably why watering every day seems so weird to me. i will start going every other day instead of every 3 days as i have been doing though.

 

[superbolan]

Its easier to me to treat coco like coco and soil like soil, for me its basically a hydro medium
whatever works for you is cool too

 

[Greyskull]

ah see i go from 1 gal to 3 gal to 7 gal smart pot so thats probably why watering every day seems so weird to me. i will start going every other day instead of every 3 days as i have been doing though.

thats a lot of coco and big pots man.... how big are your plants when they're done???

 

[Weezard]

2 nuts post, one, was a salted.

2 nuts post, one, was a salted.

When it dries out completely it is concentrating salt in the coco. if you leave a cup of salt water out and let it evaporate there will be salt in the cup after the waters gone, same thing happens in the coco.

This is true.

And, not unlike your salty cup, when you next water, the salts re-dissolve and become available again.
The main difference is, the salty cup is not full of dead roots at that point.
When the roots are dead, salt is not an issue, yah.

Seriously folks, never let coco go "bone-dry"!
It is NOT soil!
When dry, dead, roots get watered, they rot, and make excellent food for fungus gnats.

Also, I seldom "water to run-off".
Why?
Because COCO is NOT soil.
It has way more voids and does not need to "suck air in from the soil surface" with the vacuum created by run-off.
And, I feed with every watering.
Why?
See above, and there almost no "buffering" of PH, or mobile nutes with coco.

This is not theory, this is years of practical application by many growers, much mo' betta dan me.
I don't make da rules, but I do look dem up.

Treat it like hydro from day one and you will be very pleased with the results.

Jus' my 2 shiny pennies in an evil world.
Aloha.
Da tiny 'zard

 

[Dirtfinger]

how do you avoid overwatering with double water and your ph balanced flush? just curious, when i ran coco and watered twice a day i had overwatering issues. i like to do once a day with little run off.

i switched to organic soil now way easier...but have been seeing some good results in coco maybe il switch back.

I'm using Piece Coir because it's all I could get. The stuff is so chunky, even totally saturated there's tons of air pockets. The flush is a one time thing, I'm presently watering once a day with a little runoff like you are.

I think organic dirt is easier in certain ways and coir in others. I'm hoping to come up with a nice simple fusion of the two. I'm pretty sure it'll work, I just wanted to learn both separately before I started mixing them together.

 

[wickedpete66]

is it ok to treat your coco like soil? does letting coco dry out cause it to release salts? or K?

since ProMix is a soilless, cant i treat coco the same?

I want to use coco and treat it like soil/soilless. is that ok?

No, coco is a passive hydroponic medium. so you have to treat it as such. coco should always be moist. now whether you drain to waste or not is up to you. i have tried both ways. the difference is in drain to waste I can use a higher ec than without. ec of 1.2 versus ec 0.80