real coco can be over watered.

[buddin_904]

yea the poster just had a bad experience surrounding killing his own plants......the whole point of the original post is quite scrambled and plain stupid really......coco being water logged is possible with a clone inside a 30 gal pot coupled with 27 watts.....someone said it before any method can have overwatering......wake up and realize that obviously it was your set up that was flawed not the coco were all using with success......

anywys i love the discussion thus far everyones input on their personal methods.....keep it comin!

 

[superbolan]

those watering instructions will always assume correctly proportioned pots, but since you can grow 8 foot trees in 2 gallon pots who in their right mind would use a humongous pot. I mean you could if you wanted to. but why?

 

[buddin_904]

lol did u look at my pics?

 

[vaped]

yea the poster just had a bad experience surrounding killing his own plants......the whole point of the original post is quite scrambled and plain stupid really......coco being water logged is possible with a clone inside a 30 gal pot coupled with 27 watts.....someone said it before any method can have overwatering......wake up and realize that obviously it was your set up that was flawed not the coco were all using with success......

anywys i love the discussion thus far everyones input on their personal methods.....keep it comin!

I realy could take that the wrong way but I wont. Let me water your plant for a few days and I will show you how coco can be overwaterd. I use 2 gallon pots max. All I can state is what I see. If I let my pots dry out I get lush white hairy roots. If I soak the pot till I see run off about half of the roots will be brownish by the next day in a couple of days when the pot dries out I have lush new roots. I have had many good grows with coco but as I started watchin the roots I realized how much better they could be. Plain and simple if you treat coco like soil in veg the root zone will uptake more nutrients and water once flipped to flower. At that point I could see watering till run off being a good thing.

 

[buddin_904]

well your original you dont really specify....well...much....just assertions....yea i probably jumped to a couple conclusions....

yes i treat coco as soil in veg and after transplant, as well, for reasons of developing a larger root system which will then set them up to be watered multiple times daily. so i guess i agree with you??? regardless duh no shit everyone knows to not "overwater" your coco on developing root systems. but your claims of all the roots turning brown wtf r u talking about??? thats on you bro

 

[Carl Carlson]

.

 

[maryanne3087]

superbloan,

I would argue that coco coir is a soilless medium.

And that simply watering your drain to waste, soilless grow more than once a day, doesn't make it a hydro grow.

What exactly qualifies coco as a soilless medium and not a hydro medium?

Could hydroponics not be defined by it's water and air properties compared to soil?

Ie. saturated coco being 90% water yet having 100x more airspace than unamended soil, coco is often compared to rockwool as it has similar medium attributes.

 

[Hazy Lady]

Soilless medium or Hydro?

Soilless medium or Hydro?

Canna on it's own coco

This substrate combines the tolerant, organic nature of soil with the precision of rockwool.

Seems they can't make their minds up either

 

[buddin_904]

I realy could take that the wrong way but I wont. Let me water your plant for a few days and I will show you how coco can be overwaterd. I use 2 gallon pots max. All I can state is what I see.

if you use 2 gal pots max.....and you have a decent watt lamp.....and your plants r decent size...there really isnt any reason why your pots would would be overwatered. if your supplying enough light to draw the water and nutrients into the plant...and your humidity is low....even if your 2 gal pot is under a 150!? watt lamp...it WILL DRY OUT daily. your claiming the bottom inch is dead roots??? this is YOUR fault, not the cocos....obviously youve didnt give them the chance to dry out initially in life to establish bottom of the pot roots.....which would then, in turn, suck up the water at the bottom of the pot!

im just trying to convince you that something in your processies/set up, is WRONG! listen to the people that have success with coco on here, as i have done!, and youll learn that it, obviously, is a good medium. yes, i AM defending coco here! because frankly your post was degrading to a medium that you clearly dont know how to correctly utilize. but this can be fixed!

if your pots dont dry out good, even after your plants r established....well! then USE SMALLER POTS NEXT TIME! OR USE MORE LIGHT...OR DECREASE HUMIDITIY!

really....it sounds like the WHOLE issue of your differences with coco is PROBABLY, your choice in pot size. dont be afraid to use a small ass pot....one that would be...i dont no...half the size youd use if the medium was soil.....this will allow for "excessive" watering!

although im a 4-5x day feeder....i dont argue with the 1x feeders.....they show their success with pictures that prove they know what there doing regarding which pot size they chose....

and p.s.- sure come on over and water my plants alllllllll fucking day.....theyll absolutely LOVE it!

 

[maryanne3087]

Canna on it's own coco

Seems they can't make their minds up either

I believe what they're saying is, it's comparable to Rockwool as a hydroponics medium as it has similar porosity and air space, but I think drains and wicks better. I've seen twice as many drippers needed for Rockwool to wet it evenly as coco.

As for the relation to soil you may safely assume they're talking about cation exchange capacity which allows for excesses of Ca, Mg, and K cations to be held in the medium by colloids until the plant needs them the medium will also force out excessive cations which is why coco rarely locks out even when people feed with seemingly high K which locks out Ca and Mg in low CEC hydro setups.

Incase you didn't get that coco has high CEC as does soil, coco has high porosity and air space, as does rockwool.

 

[Hazy Lady]

Heehee, I was only playing.
The OP has a fair point though, going back to Canna, initially they advised us to water 4 times per day.
Since then they have changed their minds and say a single watering per day is preferable

Canna

A way of achieving a higher air level in the substrate is to drip irrigate less often. More water is taken up from the substrate, the root system develops stronger, and moisture saturation occurs less often. The tests revealed that drip irrigating only once a day meant 3% more air was present in the substrate.

 

[Carl Carlson]

What exactly qualifies coco as a soilless medium and not a hydro medium?

Could hydroponics not be defined by it's water and air properties compared to soil?

Ie. saturated coco being 90% water yet having 100x more airspace than unamended soil, coco is often compared to rockwool as it has similar medium attributes.

I thought about it a lot more and realized coco can go both ways and that first post was very definitive and rigid.

For example, when compared to rockwool, coco is organic, not inert and can be used as a soil amendment or as a base in a soilless mix. It's got cation exchange capacity. It also can be used alone in containers and watered to waste. I don't believe this is a hydro application, no matter how many times a day the plant is watered.

At the same time, because of it's air porosity and water holding capacity, it can be used as a hydro medium in some systems. Ebb and flow for sure. Passive systems like that of Hempy and Delta9nxs. etc.

 

[asstastic]

100% coco would cause root root is if you fill your pot withe dry coco and wet it it will make a rock at the bottem that wather barley drips out
wet the coco before filling pot then when it drys it gets airy and loose and gives the roots air to breath

 

[fred b]

my plants roots seem to love pure coco.
here is what I do and have been successful with for quite a few years (imo it actually summarizes a few posts):

fresh sack of Plagron coco coir is poured into a huge pot with a flynet glued into (so the coco does not fall through the holes). then I water the coco with tap water until the drain EC of the coco is the same as my tap waters (=0.2).

the washed coco is put into pots. (I've used 3,5l(=~1gallon) before and just switched to 6,5l(=~1,8gallon) pots) plants are placed into the coco pots.

i then water the plants with 180litres (per square meter) nutrient solution (ph 6.0, ec 1.1, +rhyzotonic root booster).

then (and this is important) the plants don't get watered at all for 2-3 days (3 days in winter, when its not so hot, 2 days in summer) so the coco dries out and the plants have to shoot their roots everywhere in the pot to get food.

after the dry period I start to water the plants.
First week 3 times a day, then 4 times a day.

the pump runs 10 minutes each time. first week: 30minutes total: 500ml, then: 40minutes total: 666ml the watering period is extended as the plants grow and drink more. I always check the drain tank to see if I have 10%-20% drain per day (not per watering period). I also check the drain EC and if it is 20% higher than my nutrients solution I flush the plants with 100liters of abit weaker nutrient solution.

actually I believe if coco could be overwatered, the flushing would kill the plants already.
at the moment I only have one dripped per plant and it takes about 6 hours to flush 180liters through the pots, so the coco is pretty much saturated during the flushing and the plants don't seem to mind it (I want 3 drippers per plant to reduce the watering period, but they're sold out everywhere)

 

[!!!]

100% coco would cause root root is if you fill your pot withe dry coco and wet it it will make a rock at the bottem that wather barley drips out
wet the coco before filling pot then when it drys it gets airy and loose and gives the roots air to breath

Yes I'm not sure if anyone actually does this, but if you put dry coco into a pot and then wet it, it will expand and become almost solid. You need to wet the coco OUTSIDE the pot and then break it up as you're putting it into the pot or transplanting. It shouldn't be compressed down although in my experience the consequences aren't as bad as compressing down soil.

 

[Carl Carlson]

I never wet it outside of the pot.

What brand of cement, I mean coir, are you guys working with?

It sounds like an over-complication to me, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Carl Carlson]

Or rather, maybe I should ask, what kind of containers?

I use the "mesh-bottom" style rounds and squares that have many, many holes in the bottom. The square ones have slits on the side too. I've never experienced either the "sour spot" in the middle of a pot nor a "rock" at the bottom. Sure there is a small amount of water that doesn't drain out unless the container is held at an angle, i.e. the perched water table. But it never causes root rot and doesn't last long. Minimum 400w lighting here. The water that can drain via gravity is usually dissipated pretty quickly, either by transpiration or evaporation.

 

[Strangely]

Interesting thread. I was planning on using one big tub (10x5x6inches say) with loads of holes drilled in the bottom (and now slits in sides too!) sat on/in a second tub filled with nute water with a series of wicks going into the coco above in a 'eat/drink what the plant wants' kinda way. Mainly as I'll only be able to water every other day at most. I like the idea of a heavy first water leading to a drying out to force the root growth on a hunt for moisture. Any other tips or things to look out for in that sort of setup would be much appreciated. Cheers

 

[superbolan]

coco wicks very well by itself, you could do a hempy that size and it would simplify things greatly, the watering every other day schedule is perfect for growing in a hempy

 

[Hash Man]

This subject already has a super long thread on it that died out long ago. The thing with coco is it can be overwater in the beginning. You are suppose to increase the amount of water given when the plant needs it, as the roots expand. As the roots start to expand and use more of the area inside the pot, more water is required. When the roots are basically potbound, a high saturation level is needed, otherwise the roots will dry out and die. I have never seen a plant in coco in midflower that has been overwatered. I have seen overwatered plants in veg and this is because their roots are drownable and not established enough to handle excess water.

I still have my questions regarding watering to runoff every feed or every fortnight is better. I have yet to see a noticable increase or decrease in yield in both cases.