how do you recover coco from old plant for next round?

[habeeb]

Hi guys,

was wondering what way do you 'recover' your coco for re-using it..

I tried last night, and honestly went way worse then i thought, as the coco is embedded is a mass of roots. so I took a wet rootball, pulled the bottom in like 1/4's and then shook it, problem being I ended up with so many roots in the coco.

my question is,
-how do you avoid all the small roots ending back up in the coco
-how do you deal with first starting to retrieve the coco when it's tangled with roots

please walk me through this

any help would be great

 

[Ganja baba]

my old routine was to chop the plants when the coco is wet , bull the main stem out and then use garbage bags and fill um with the coco , leave them for a week and they should be all mush and loose .
you then have to add a new bag to the old or depending on how much is lost , but after many years of trying to pull out the old roots , i then stopped and didnt notice any difference the zym does break it all down .

in holland they use coco slabs quite a lot and just pull the plant out and add another , and thats in them thin slabs

the key factor was the canna zym i would chop the plants and then double dose with the zym and re water the coco then bag it all up ,

hope this helps , just remember that coco nuts can float in the ocean for years the stuff is robust and can be reused over and over if done right ,

i would also add some canna akrivator or white shark mykros when replanting ,

 

[frito bandito]

after chop i leave the soil in the pot and wet it good, then leave it about a month, and let it dry on its own. and if you do that the roots will rot away and basically rip to dust when you dump the soil out and break it up.

 

[Greenheart]

A post from the soil recycling thread that runs along similair thought waves.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=5218927&postcount=100

 

[burns1n209]

Let them dry out and they break up easy, the longer left to dry the more roots that break down also.

 

[Arthritis_sucks]

I always recycle my coco like this:

let them dry to the point like they need to be watered then put them in this


then put the small rubbermaid tote into a bigger one to collect an press/smash to break up, then shake it to separate. toss the big roots that dont fall through an the rootball in trash or compost pile. I use cannazyme at double strength to make the lil roots left turn into food. i water for 2 weeks like this, an plant.

 

[Granger2]

I've dumped it out, broken it up, removing roots. Last 2 runs, after harvest, I watered heavily with heavy dose of Hygrozyme. Watered w/half strength veg nutes w/CalMag and trace mins 5 days later to 25% runoff, planted. Could tell no difference. Plants took off, crop was gorgeous. Huge labor and mess saver. Good luck. -granger

 

[caljim]

I have been reusing my coco for about two years now.

After 10 or so days of plain ph'd water i let the pots go dry, and harvest while the plant is still turgid.

Flip the pot upside down over a thirty gallon tub, and pull the coco out by the stem of the harvested plant. Beat and shake the coco off of the root mass. Chuck the wad of roots attached to the stem and just forget about the rest of root mass. Fill pots for next round.

My plants dont seem to mind the old root bits, and actually seem to grow faster in the recycled mix. If I find the coco getting too pithy and compacted I add some perlite or move some old coco to the garden and add a 5kg block of new.

One caveat, I use fresh coco for clones. But it works fine with recycled also. Just my preference.

 

[Epic Resin]

Do you have to use cannazym? I have not tried to reuse coco yet, but I am really wanting to try.

 

[SeaMaiden]

I put all the old coir into a bin and inoculate it with microbes. I don't worry about the old roots, they break down (be used up by microbes). Interestingly enough, the rice hulls don't break down very quickly. I use rice hulls in place of perlite, for a 100% sustainable/renewable medium.

 

[DHF]

I pulled 64 #5 smartpots every month+/- and used Rubbermaid cattle troughs to submerge container and rootmass in pond zymes from Home Depot/Lowes till the next cycle 4-5 weeks later.....

Soaked em , pulled what was left of the mainstem and rootball , and let em dry out after couple weeks....after drying , added back to new and kept mixing and re-mixing ftw.......but....word of advice.......

Once coco degrades down to the "coffee grounds" powdery mushy shit , get rid of it......and......

Major props for SM and her rice hulls as a sustainable re-useable rootzone amendment......

Peace.....DHF............

 

[ak-51]

Dry, break up, dry, break up more

Rehydrate with heavy dose of cannazym.

Mix 50/50 with new coco.

 

[Chunkypigs]

I've been using mine for two years and I don't use any zyme type products.
I pull the roots and shake. I rinse and soak 3 to 6 times until the ppm's of the soak
Water are within 200 ppm of my rinse water.

I add back perlite EWC and bene's.

I never sweat the bits of roots and never use zymes or drip clean additives.

 

[noyd666]

recovered perlite of my coco 9l buckets, rewashed coco out many times, mixed 50/50 60/40 for short time, did not work that well , to much bullshit work in finish, what was tipped on garden certaintly worked well, was nutrifield coco.

 

[Arthritis_sucks]

Do you have to use cannazym? I have not tried to reuse coco yet, but I am really wanting to try.

Ive done it with an with out, and the coco recycled with cannazyme made plants a bit happier. Basically up to ur pocket if ya want to use it or not, but it does help.

 

[Ganja baba]

because i have not noticed any difference removing roots as opposed to keeping them and just letting them rot down with the zym , i think its best to break up your coco wet , it falls apart easier , even if you want to remove roots , you can swirl your and around in damp coco and remove them quite easily , its much harder dry imo.

i would say try both ways , removing as much as you can and plant a few plants in it and same for the coco that has been enzymed and roots left in