COCO in a DrBud SOG?

[Anti]

I have a question for those using COCO in the DrBud method;

If you feed hydroponically, how do you get plants what they need all with ONE mix?

If you have a few plants in every stage of flowering, wouldnt you have to mix up a bottle for every stage?

I used to do this, then I did some research into Lucas method and KISS method and started feeding everybody (including vegging and mother plants) with the same nutes, same strength.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but my experience thus far is fantastic.

I feed about 1.5-2 tsp of floranova per gallon of water. I flush for ten days at the end with bubbled tap water and clearex. This is the only point of departure from all plants getting the same mix. Plants exiting the chamber soon get a clearex bath. Otherwise, they get the FNB.

I do not PH my mix nor do I test my runoff.

 

[jakeh]

311devon,
I think another good source other that the responses you have already gotten is Thunderkel. He went all coco dr. bud style and has side by side pics of both. Pretty amazing difference on the plus side of coco.. If I can find the post I'll post a link.

 

[jakeh]

311devon,
I couldn't find the picture but this is what Thunderkel had to say:
"Well I can't give you a gram per watt without having my box full and finish at the same time.. I can tell you that with a little tweaking DrBud's method can bring you outstanding results I am going to start a new thread since this was my old cab in all of the pics and I have switched soil and have some testing to do.. I can tell you that I did a little test of DrBuds nute line up in soil vs GH Flora Nova nutes in Ready Gro Coco Peat mix and the 2 soil girls had a head start by 2 days in veg and I have pics detailing it and holly shit have the Coco girls just blown everything out the box and they are by far the biggest in the cab with the thickest stalks,huge root system and they are 16" when the soil girls stopped stretching at 13" and they were all started at 4" which is the sweet spot for my strain. So now the next test I'm going to run in the cab is Fox Farm soil and nutes vs Coco and Flora Nova Nutes, I'm also going to do a test with the Black Gold brand soil with Alaska Fish Emulsion 5-1-1 for the first 3 weeks in flower then finish it off with Alaska Morbloom 0-10-10 and see if I get the same yield and quality as the Fox Farm line up cuz I still want to stay away from grow shops and I can get everything I need for top quality organic growing from my Ace/Emigh Hardware and I want to be completely organic in the next year so I will post my results and what I find out just know I'm staying with CFL's and may get into LED growing but I wont go HID!!!"

Shoot him a pm and I'm sure he can tell you exactly what you want to know.
__________________

 

[311devon]

jakeh- DUH! lol....when i started this thread i didnt have enough posts to pm. Thanks for the heads up.

Tilt,Anti, Zen Trikester- How much did your start heights change when you switched pots and nearly doubled your media volumes? I like these tree pots but i am concerned my sativa dom strains will be unrully in 28-32oz of media.

Zen Trikester-Could you post or pm that soil mix for me? Simplicity is what im really after. Water only with a organic soil mix or pure coco with a one step, no PHing, nute program would be ideal. I really want to avoid grow shops either physical or online.

Thanks for all your input and experience.

 

[wiseone]

here's my method:

For the doc's method I use 16oz clear cups that sit inside 16oz red cups.
* My soil is 50% coco and 50% soil. I then cut that with 30% perlite.
* I add the appropriate amount of lime at 2 tbsp. per gallon.
* Fertilizer is Espoma brand. I use Bio-tone plus in the beginning. When I go into flower mode I switch to Espoma Flower-tone and hit the plant when I switch to 12/12 then again 4 weeks later. Occasionally I'll give them a weak seaweed solution or a shot of molasses.
I've been using this above method now for about 2 years, and it's basically a water only all the way through, except for the seaweed feedings every once in a while.

If I go this route my watering is every 2 days by hand but very simple. I fill my red cups 1/2 way with water and place the clear cup inside for about 30 seconds to bottom feed. Lift out, place on rack and let them drain/drip for about 15 minutes. Then back inside the empty'd out red cups and back in the closet they go. For about 20 cups, everything takes about 30 minutes from when I start till done.
My watering is bottom feed which does 2 things:
1. Helps the roots towards the top reach for the bottom looking for water.
2. Helps tremendously with controlling fungus gnats since your keeping the top part of your mix dry.

Hope this helps.

 

[wiseone]

Anti...
what is your average yield per plant with those tree pots?
thanks-

 

[Anti]

jakeh- DUH! lol....when i started this thread i didnt have enough posts to pm. Thanks for the heads up.

Tilt,Anti, Zen Trikester- How much did your start heights change when you switched pots and nearly doubled your media volumes? I like these tree pots but i am concerned my sativa dom strains will be unrully in 28-32oz of media.

My plants in the tree pots in soil could be flipped at six to eight inches and not grow into the glass at top of my cab. In light mix, plants flipped at 2 inches grew about an inch too tall and had to be tied down slightly.

So basically from now on my plants will go into flowering the moment that they root and get planted, shaving 3 to 5 days off their cycle.

My pots are about four inches taller than they used to be, but the increase in diameter of the buds more than makes up for the loss in height. (Don't have weights because I ruined my digital scale making canna butter.)

 

[Anti]

Anti...
what is your average yield per plant with those tree pots?
thanks-

It depends on plant density. Fully packed in, in soil, I was averaging about Five grams per plant, but that was in tree pots cut down to about 18 oz. with full sized mt2510, using light mix and flora nova, they are about twice as big, but my scale is broken so actual weights are unknown. But huge difference.

 

[zen_trikester]

jakeh- DUH! lol....when i started this thread i didnt have enough posts to pm. Thanks for the heads up.

Tilt,Anti, Zen Trikester- How much did your start heights change when you switched pots and nearly doubled your media volumes? I like these tree pots but i am concerned my sativa dom strains will be unrully in 28-32oz of media.

Zen Trikester-Could you post or pm that soil mix for me? Simplicity is what im really after. Water only with a organic soil mix or pure coco with a one step, no PHing, nute program would be ideal. I really want to avoid grow shops either physical or online.

Thanks for all your input and experience.

Hey Devon.

I actually went down in soil volume when I went to the treepots. The coffee bags were about 6 cups capacity at 8" tall and the mt38's are about 4-5 cups. I am in the process of reworking all of my plantlet heights for the new pots. I rearranged my veg cab to give me a couple more inches of height between the pots and the lights. It was at about 2" of clearance and now am at about 4". that is a big difference though!! I'm getting things the way I like them, but not yet fully dialed with the mt38s.

If you haven't read through the dr bud thread where he takes 6 plants from clone to cut, you should. I think that was a journal and his lasts posts were there. That thread talks a lot about getting the veg height right, and that is definitely key. My coffee bag shot isn't to show the huge pull I get from my Apollo 11 cut btw... that is by far the weak link for me production wise. That one seems to come in about 4g per plant no matter what I do, but it clones, veg, and flowers fast so it isn't all that bad when you add the extra cycles per year and the otherwise grower-friendly-ness. My Rocklock cut is an 11 weeker but fills in far better. Below is my 12/12from clone record of 8.5 grams dry.

Heights are trial and error. Once you get a feel for how a cut performs it is pretty easy to keep it up if your feeding is consistent-ish.

Man, which soil mix do you want? LOL I have been playing a lot lately. I'm onto recycling things now so I would have to dig for the original, but it was bone, blood, lime, epsom, perlite and both mg organic, and promix organic soils.

The current soil is gal of used soil, plus 2 gal castings, 1 2/3 cup epsoma bio starter plus w/ mycos, 1/4 cup epsoma kelp meal, 1/4 cup epsoma garden lime, 1/4 cup Epsom salt, 5 cups DE (Napa 8822) and 1 cup bone meal. I was adding the bone meal while potting up thinking that would help me push more at the end of flower but after some side by sides I prefer having it all premixed and cooked before use.

With the new mix, even though it will certainly go from start to finish with nothing but water, I have found that a light feeding of 5-1-1 fish E at potting helps things get going out of the gate , and they are now all getting 1-2 of feedings of "Dramatic-O" 2-5-1 hydrogenated fish at some point after the start of the stretch. I'm trying to get a feel for hand feeding which is not something I am overly comfortable with for whatever reason. I am trying to push my weights a little bit, more like the Rocklock below.

Hope that helps.

 

[311devon]

Hey Devon.


Man, which soil mix do you want? LOL I have been playing a lot lately. I'm onto recycling things now so I would have to dig for the original, but it was bone, blood, lime, epsom, perlite and both mg organic, and promix organic soils.

The current soil is gal of used soil, plus 2 gal castings, 1 2/3 cup epsoma bio starter plus w/ mycos, 1/4 cup epsoma kelp meal, 1/4 cup epsoma garden lime, 1/4 cup Epsom salt, 5 cups DE (Napa 8822) and 1 cup bone meal. I was adding the bone meal while potting up thinking that would help me push more at the end of flower but after some side by sides I prefer having it all premixed and cooked before use.

LOL!! This is exactly where i'm at. The girls that are almost finished right now are the first in recycled soil. They did much better in this mix than the last. Still have some tweaking to do but overall things are better
.
Looks like you are using DE as a perlite replacement. How is that working out long term? Are the chunks holding together?

I was looking for perlite replacements the other day and while looking into using charcoal, I end up in the Terra Preta thread. AMAZING STUFF....seems as though charcoal mixed into soil, over time, increases water retention and aeration, plus it drasticaly improves fertility to the point nothing other than top dressing with lil compost and mulching every year is required. I am adding it to my vegetable garden and my grow. The charcoal is being charged with nutes as we speak. I'm thinking this "charged" charcaol may be the answer for a true "set it and forget it" Drbud sog.

Anybody else think a "Show us how you run your DrBud sog" thread would be interesting and helpful in consolidating informataion? or am i just gettin lazy?

 

[one Q]

I am always nerd for watching other growers grow details. DOIT

 

[311devon]

2. Helps tremendously with controlling fungus gnats since your keeping the top part of your mix dry.

How thick is the "dry layer" you are leaving? I like simple methods like this.

 

[Anti]

Imho, it doesn't get much easier than submersion.

Mix nutes and water in a container. (I use five gallon bucket.)

Take entire pot and submerge below waterline until bubbling stops.

Remove from water, drain, stick back in cabinet.

 

[wiseone]

How thick is the "dry layer" you are leaving? I like simple methods like this.

In the beer cups I would estimate about 1/2-1 inch. It doesn't get rid of gnats totally but will cut down on the area that they will breed in. I find by bottom feeding, the roots have to search down from the top to find water. I think this helps to promote a very large root structure in such a small container, not sure if that's true or not. But I have noticed that the rootball at the end of the grow is SOLID all the way through. You literally have to cut through it with a knife if you want to peak inside the rootball.

I also have another method on taming the roots but will keep hush hush on it. 90% of the folks would call me crazy if they heard/saw what I do. But not once has it ever hurt the yield if I use small containers.

 

[wiseone]

311, do you have a link for the thread about the charcoal? I'd like to check that out sometime.
Thanks

 

[311devon]

311, do you have a link for the thread about the charcoal? I'd like to check that out sometime.
Thanks

Here ya go..... https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=73866 Its the Terra Preta thread in the Organic Soil Forum.

C'mon Wiseone, lets hear about the root technique. Who cares if anybody poo poo's it. If it works for ya, share it. Few of us here have the cred's needed proclaim ourselves an official of any sort.

 

[zbenjii]

What do you guys think of mixing coco with sphagnum peat moss? I've realized a lot of high grade soil mixes have a lot of peat moss. I feel like the peat moss does a good job of retaining water while coco would provide good aeration. What do you guys think?

 

[ganjasuiteseat]

i like the peat moss i myself use those pellets and pucks.shit some time i break them open into tub!lol they should be good together also add perlite or hydroton/leca/clay balls the latter being best

 

[zbenjii]

why do you think hydroton is better than perlite? Is it because it doesn't degrade as quickly?

 

[ganjasuiteseat]

holy shit i posted about crushed hydroton (pantend pending !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!lmao)deleted perite floats