canna coco, with pbp?

[aasin527]

i have a really stupid question, but i'm at my wits end. i'm thinking about placing an order for a couple 50 l bags of canna coco. moving from earth juice pro coir which has givin me nothing but headaches and problems. i run the botanicare pbp line and was wondering if the canna coco would do well with the pbp, or if problems would arise from their buffering and pre-treat process. the pro coir has givin me multiple deficiancies and burn. it seems like no rinse in the world can get the sodium content down. i'm so disgusted my plants have never been so unhealthy, but i can't help but love the cleanliness and ease of handling coco. i know alot of you guys and gals know your shit, help me out please.

 

[Dirtfinger]

I'm using PBP soil nutes and Sunleaves Piece Coir. I soak it hot water pH'd down to 5.5 2-3 times to rinse it. I'm not sure what the EJ coco is like but the Piece Coir is pretty coarse and chunky. I saw they just recently came out with croutons which look like they might be promising.

I like the chunkier stuff, it's more what I'm looking for in a medium than that coffee grounds consistency. I mash it into the pot as tight as I can pack it and it still has great porosity, impossible to over water if you're using the correct pot size. I transplanted from a 2gal to a 5gal pot and roots were coming out the holes in the bottom of the new pot the next day.

Some people here use pretty crappy coco (the stuff made for pet bedding) with excellent results. If that rinses clean I don't see why the EJ stuff wouldn't. Are you using hot water and soaking it?

Are you sure it wasn't a pH or other nute problem?

 

[aasin527]

positive it's not a ph problem, although nute problem is way more likely. i'm stuck in a schedule rut and don't water for a week or better. although the coco is not dry, it isn't rooting properly. what roots they do have are nice and plump/white. but maybe an everyday watering scedule would help. my computer is fried so getting pics up will be difficult. all plants same symptoms. starting down low, yellowing new growth light green but with burnt tips ph 5.6 to5.8. fans dropping first, branches slowly following. the burnt tips though confuse me. thought at first my mix was weak, so went up to 1/2 then to 2/3 not full strength. but deficiencies across the board and burnt tips. i took clones last night in case i have to go back to promix, but i wish i could get this problem nailed.

 

[Cutty]

I do the botanicare combo. COCOGRO and PBP. I DO rinse the coco before planting and results have been great.

 

[Dirtfinger]

positive it's not a ph problem, although nute problem is way more likely. i'm stuck in a schedule rut and don't water for a week or better. although the coco is not dry, it isn't rooting properly. what roots they do have are nice and plump/white. but maybe an everyday watering scedule would help. my computer is fried so getting pics up will be difficult. all plants same symptoms. starting down low, yellowing new growth light green but with burnt tips ph 5.6 to5.8. fans dropping first, branches slowly following. the burnt tips though confuse me. thought at first my mix was weak, so went up to 1/2 then to 2/3 not full strength. but deficiencies across the board and burnt tips. i took clones last night in case i have to go back to promix, but i wish i could get this problem nailed.

I think you may have answered your own question there. I'm guessing based on what you said but it's a pretty confident guess. You said you don't water for a week or better - all the symptoms you're talking about are likely caused by that, everything else sounds good.

PBP at 1/2 - 2/3 recommended strength is pretty much full strength in practical application. If your plants are stewing in a solution that's getting more and more concentrated for an entire week, that's likely your problem.

Coco doesn't have to get completely dry for it to happen, if it's half dry for the better part of a week then the nutrient concentration is going to be much higher in the medium. I don't know how any growing plant in the correct pot size can go a week or better between waterings in coco.

The answer you don't want to hear is that you just need to be able to water more often... probably daily if you want healthy plants. A lot can go wrong in a week, you gotta see your girls more often than that or they're not going to be very happy with you.

 

[gaiusmarius]

i'm stuck in a schedule rut and don't water for a week or better.

how ever good or bad your coco and nutes, this is the biggest problem, your plants are starving. start off in smaller pots, but water every other day at least. use a light dose of nutrients on small plants. do you have ec and ph meters? measuring your run off ec and ph will give you some idea what to do next with nutrient strength. without some pics it's hard to be really sure though.

 

[ShroomDr]

I'm using PBP soil nutes and Sunleaves Piece Coir. I soak it hot water pH'd down to 5.5 2-3 times to rinse it. the Piece Coir is pretty coarse and chunky. .

I like the chunkier stuff, it's more what I'm looking for in a medium than that coffee grounds consistency. I mash it into the pot as tight as I can pack it and it still has great porosity, impossible to over water if you're using the correct pot size.
Some people here use pretty crappy coco (the stuff made for pet bedding) with excellent results. If that rinses clean I don't see why the EJ stuff wouldn't.

Not to get too far on a tangent, but i did (and agreed) with everything I have quoted here.

Until i switched brands.

I wasted over a year with that shitty 'piece coir'. You can wash & wash & wash & (hot water) wash it, to the point that the ec running in equals the ec running out. This is where most coco is undoubtedly ready to go, but IMHO, the 'piece coir' continues to break down (in a manner unlike other coco products), and causes problems (probably lockouts) later down the line.
IMHO, it is hard to clone in, and causes problems late in flower (Once cuttings are firmly established, the veg and early flowering phases seem fine).

I tried 'phase 1' and then Bio Bizz, and i threw out all the sunleaves. I threw in outside as a 'mulch' for the garden, ans it took two years (with frozen winters) for the mulch to lose its color (This year I tilled it into the soil, and im gonna try green beans in the plot [sat dormant last year]).

I reuse the BioBizz (and the small % of phase 1), these have the 'coffee grind' consistencies, and i use coco mat to line the bottom of the container

 

[aasin527]

ok, after checking the clone and early veg in another room, and completlely healthy plants, could be lousy watering schedule actually surely. but the only thing different is an ozone machine. thinking back i had to chill for a year or so, but my last few were in promix. as soon as they hit the flowering room they would display exactly the same symtoms as my problem plants now, but the current ones are still in veg. (i won't flower till i see healthy growth) and the only difference back then was- yup, the ozone machine. this thing is really dank. could that be burning up the plants like that? btw thanks for all the responses and pointers. and constuctive criticism. but i'm used to healthy plants and this bugs the shit outta me. oh i unplugged the ozone to test this out, plus watering everyday. thanks again, keep you posted.

 

[aasin527]

ok, so i increased the feeding frequency to every other day and now on to everyday. unbelievably enough, i now can see strong root growth in the sides of the pots, and the unhealthy growth has stalled/ new growth looks scores healthier. the ozone thing was a shot in the dark, one male in the room still in peat/perlite is healthy. so the lesson learned is never treat coco like soil. never! it is a hydro medium, and needs fresh nutrient and oxygen very often. that was my mistake, and for anyone considering coco as a soil medium, don't. thanks for the shove foward guys. best of luck to you all, see ya come harvest

 

[Dirtfinger]

Glad to hear you're getting it all sorted m8

 

[Dirtfinger]

Not to get too far on a tangent, but i did (and agreed) with everything I have quoted here.

Until i switched brands.

I wasted over a year with that shitty 'piece coir'. You can wash & wash & wash & (hot water) wash it, to the point that the ec running in equals the ec running out. This is where most coco is undoubtedly ready to go, but IMHO, the 'piece coir' continues to break down (in a manner unlike other coco products), and causes problems (probably lockouts) later down the line.
IMHO, it is hard to clone in, and causes problems late in flower (Once cuttings are firmly established, the veg and early flowering phases seem fine).

I tried 'phase 1' and then Bio Bizz, and i threw out all the sunleaves. I threw in outside as a 'mulch' for the garden, ans it took two years (with frozen winters) for the mulch to lose its color (This year I tilled it into the soil, and im gonna try green beans in the plot [sat dormant last year]).

I reuse the BioBizz (and the small % of phase 1), these have the 'coffee grind' consistencies, and i use coco mat to line the bottom of the container

All I can say is "knock on wood" but so far so good. I've made up several batches now and it's been pretty solid and stable once rinsed.

What problems did you encounter in late flower and what do you think they were attributed to?

 

[Carl Carlson]

how ever good or bad your coco and nutes, this is the biggest problem, your plants are starving. start off in smaller pots, but water every other day at least. use a light dose of nutrients on small plants. do you have ec and ph meters? measuring your run off ec and ph will give you some idea what to do next with nutrient strength. without some pics it's hard to be really sure though.

not only starving, but this is how salts buildup rapidly too.

and I think if the plant suffers any wilting, permanent damage is done to the potential yield

not watering enough is the like the worst thing you can do.

 

[ShroomDr]

All I can say is "knock on wood" but so far so good. I've made up several batches now and it's been pretty solid and stable once rinsed.

What problems did you encounter in late flower and what do you think they were attributed to?

The tips and leaf edges would curl, yellow, burn, and die late in flower (after about 4-5 months of total growth). Clones would show these symptoms, and 6/7 would 'grow out of it' after about 10 days. I attributed it to too much K (maybe the chunky stuff isnt broken down enough). I loved the consistency of it though, so much so that I now cut my BioBizz 'coffee grind consistency' coco with #4 'chunky' foxfarm perlite.

 

[Dirtfinger]

The tips and leaf edges would curl, yellow, burn, and die late in flower (after about 4-5 months of total growth). Clones would show these symptoms, and 6/7 would 'grow out of it' after about 10 days. I attributed it to too much K (maybe the chunky stuff isnt broken down enough). I loved the consistency of it though, so much so that I now cut my BioBizz 'coffee grind consistency' coco with #4 'chunky' foxfarm perlite.

I was having a similar sounding issue with my little ones but then I discovered it was because I'd rinsed the coco with plain hot water, not pH'd and my normal tap is 8.5 or higher and it was taking a few waterings to straighten it out. I figured it out after adding a little micro drip system and it straightened it out pretty much immediately. Up until then I hadn't checked runoff pH, just EC.

Another thing I figured out is you have to keep this stuff wet, if it gets beyond 50% dry bad stuff happens pretty much immediately. I hand water a 5gal pot 2x a day, the little ones need to be on drippers imo, or it's too hard to keep them at the optimum moisture level.

I saw my store just got the Biobizz stuff in, I'd think more about checking it out if it wasn't over twice the price of a bag of Piece Coir. I am using the bagged stuff, not the brick but it still takes 3 good soaks before it's ready to go.

I only grow 1 plant at a time, so a lot of stuff that's a huge pain in the ass for someone with more plants (like rinsing coco) isn't really that bad for me.

I've noticed that if I'm even a couple of hours late with a watering she'll cannibalize a couple of fan leaves to let me know, so now I just keep it wet watering twice a day.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.