Coco multiple feeding questions??

mango420 said:

10 plus years of growing in coco in 25 plus light shows and never an issue giving water in coco in between several feedings. This is called real world experience. I’m sure others have many more years experience tho.

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25 grows is certainly enough to of formed an opinion of your own. That is all it is though. A short history of what worked for you. It's no reason to say other things are categorically wrong. Your man enough to of stayed around though, and I respect that your not sticking your head in the sand somewhere right now. I can't see a diary post or any pics in your current album. If your over 1g per kwh then that is interesting. In any case, try to fertigate every time, with a target run-off seen as acceptable. You should do better.

f-e said:

25 grows is certainly enough to of formed an opinion of your own. That is all it is though. A short history of what worked for you. It's no reason to say other things are categorically wrong. Your man enough to of stayed around though, and I respect that your not sticking your head in the sand somewhere right now. I can't see a diary post or any pics in your current album. If your over 1g per kwh then that is interesting. In any case, try to fertigate every time, with a target run-off seen as acceptable. You should do better.

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25 lights, not 25 grows. been growing for 15 plus years. im always down to learn new things thats how you improve. Ive never had an issue giving plain water, i get the science but in real world experience ive never had an issue. And i always laugh when i hear people giving advice to never feed plain water in coco, like their plant will shrivel up and die if you do lol.

Heres a pic from my first coco grow 10 years ago, 27 gal totes, they got a bit outta hand lol

It really depends on a lot of things. If you are pushing your nutes really hard, you may want more plain water feedings. But in general flushing once a week is good enough. It's unlikely you will have problems either way. But flushing occasionally is definitely a good idea, just to reset the balance. You can feed immediately after a flush even if you want. As said above, It you flush every day, your plants are not going to die, and if you feed straight after a flush, it probably won't make much difference at all if you are flushing everyday. But once a week if probably enough under normal circumstances.

The real question here is "how do we keep our root zone in proper condition", which all comes down to proper EC of nutrients going in, providing enough feed to not allow the media to dry out (which drops the salts out of solution), and having proper runoff to push out any salts that do accumulate. Everyone's situation will be different - for example smaller pots or dry rooms would cause the media to dry out quicker, necessitating more shots per day. If someone has 3-5 gallon pots, there's a good chance that 1 or 2 heavy feeds a day would keep them moist enough. The only real way to know is to test your runoff EC and let it tell you what to do. If it starts to spike then this is evidence that you are not feeding enough volume, or your input EC is too high. There is nothing wrong with running clear water to flush salt buildup if it does happen once in awhile, but it is only necessary if your feed regiment is out of wack. I have never seen any ill effects from occasional fresh water in coco - the side effects of salt buildup however I have seen: root rot, spikes in soil acidity, nutrient lockout, leaf necrosis.... moral of the story is keep an eye on your runoff and there's multiple ways to skin the cat to get there

3 good posts there.
I'm going to unleash the geek.. but understand he needs training..

coco is negatively charged overall. So positively charged bits will stick to it. The bits of major interest are calcium, magnesium and potassium. The plant likes these around in a certain ratio. To ensure this, coco comes pre-treated. Which is a process of soaking it in a conditioning solution.

The ratio of these we want on the coco, isn't that found in our feeds. Our feeds don't unset the coco's balance much though, as the pre-soak allowed a feed cation to pair with the free coco anions, leaving non spare to take on the wrong element of feed. However if the cation is taken from the anion, can it be replaced with another. Or any type.

Now if our feed had the same ratio, then there would be no issue. We could strip the coco bare, and the next feed would recondition it correctly. However, we have too much potassium in our feeds. If we strip the coco bare and condition it with feed, we get to many anions taking on potassium instead of calcium or magnesium ( or others I have not spoke of, that are in much smaller quantity so easy to push out completely).

Now I'm not saying you can't take unpopulated coco and condition it with your feed. You can. Though it won't be as good.

The act of feeding just water, will see calcium and magnesium taken from the coco, not the feed, as you didn't give any. Then when you feed, the anions of the coco will bond with cations from the food again. But what cations? There is too much K used in feed that's not for the plants. K that should be flushed with each fertigation. Not allowed to take up residence on the coco.


Now the round table thread has many experts that will tell you the ratio's of calcium magnesium and potassium are everything. The very first thing you should get right. Which is hard to ignore. However, when an English lab was asked about this, they thought it outdated.

I guess this post isn't really answering much. It's more about awareness. My coco is so old that it's not getting any worse unless aphids move in. I'm not practicing the no flush because of these reasons at all. I maximise my feed, which means it must be flushed every time. But not with water. With fresh feed, as high as I can get away with. Sometimes as high as EC1.6 but never 1.8 or it would be over fed before the next fertigation. A situation that starving them for a day wouldn't change, in my opinion.

Been growing in coco for 3 years. At the moment i'm giving the ladies 8 feedings per Day with daily runoff. Low ec, going up to 1.4 for the last two weeks before flushing.
I test the runoff ec, when it's too low, I give the plants more food, when it's starting to be higher than the nutrient solution ec, I give them a lower ec.
Apart from that I keep an Eye on the N/K ratio all along the grow.
I flush one time after two/three weeks in flowering. But I feel I don't need it if I keep the ec low enough.

Ive been growing in coco for a long time now. The only time i would give just ph'd water was on sundays
but i never had run off from my pots..then at some point in those years i will do no run off during the week only on sundays with ph'd water haveing run- off after a while it was ritual..i did good

F-e thanks for the info. Thats why i come here