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Growing in Coco 10 years. Lost my way

I was concerned I had russet mites or broad mites because people i was close with had them, and the extreme magnesium deficiency I was in I think mimic'd broad mite bottom leaf loss. But got a 1000x microscope. didn't find anything. but still sprayed and shutdown for 9 months.

root aphids? No. I've checked a 1000x. Ive never see anything running around my roots. They are generally white and enjoying life, no bugs. I regularly spray to avoid any other regular nuisance pests. There was a point when I was using PBP that root zones were getting red spots, and I thought if I changed that it'd fix the mag def. But changed nutes, fixed my roots, they are white, and I still see the mag issues.

I did have my water contaminated with coliform 2 years ago, which I believe got trapped in my filter and then contaminated my plants. But that was corrected and have been using clean water for years and it still hasn't fixed the mag issues. I am stumped. ...i use epsom salt in my mix now and you can see they are happier with the epsom. so it's gotta be in the world of mag issues.

I take it you are growing under LED's then?
 

siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
ok I should have replied to this before but I changed a few things up and the problem was solved.

for me I switched to RO water.
I added 5 ml per gallon of cal mag..
I started topping up the res with some tap water. about 10-20%
and I STOPPED using drippers and went back to hand feeding.

the last one I think being critical for me. ive spent years in coco hand watering.. id basically wait until the circumference of the pot of coco started to ''tan'' and get dry, the medium as a whole would be moist, but drying. ive not got a clue what % moisture content that is.

then I switched to drippers and kept the coco ''wet'' so they didn't even dry out. seems like that when my problems started.. calcium deficiencies and nitrogen toxicity symptoms.
but the roots would look great but yield dropped off, plants looked stunted and didn't stack. that's when I posted this thread.

since hand watering again, and allowing the pots to dry out slightly, (not dry but id say 30% as heavy as freshly watered. the problem disappeared. no deficiencies, plants started stacking, yields went back up. so yeah. I know that people rock the whole ''keep it wet'' but it doesn't work for me and how I do things.

might be because I repot at flower and the pots are not root bound. I do have some mothers in veg and I flood them daily. they are over rooted in the pots and its hard/ impossible to overwater them. I thinks that's because the pot volume is small, that the water evaporates + the roots suck up a lot of water. so they don't even get a chance to get overwatered.
so I guess if I played with the same in flower, got a fairly big plant in a smallish pot then I'm sure I could drench them and they would keep growing and sucking it all up.

but it seems like keeping them wet and not allowing them to dry out some interferes with the calcium and nitrogen uptake. that's my guess.

ive now switched to using co2 and a sealed room. now I'm re learning how my plants are going to react to the environment which ive created for them. because higher light intensity and co2 plus higher temps throws a whole new set of potential issues that I need to try and understand. so ive not made things easy on myself.
 
It's always been my experience with this plant they do better with wet/dry cycles.
I'm only using 1 ml per gallon to buffer my RO before my base nutrients.
Big plants small pots, 3 gallon (2.38 actual gal).
 

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siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
Yeah same here. Your plants look happy man. If you pull the quality and yield then it's working. There's no way I could use 1ml per gal. Im using 5ml per gallon and could prob use more for heavy feeders..
 

Fourtay

Active member
ICMag Donor
Hows your light intensity and vpd looking? If youre getting toxicity with 1 ec input and 1.6 EC runoff, it seems like you have a very dry, low lit room? co2?
 

andl

Member
ok I should have replied to this before but I changed a few things up and the problem was solved.

for me I switched to RO water.
I added 5 ml per gallon of cal mag..
I started topping up the res with some tap water. about 10-20%
and I STOPPED using drippers and went back to hand feeding.

the last one I think being critical for me. ive spent years in coco hand watering.. id basically wait until the circumference of the pot of coco started to ''tan'' and get dry, the medium as a whole would be moist, but drying. ive not got a clue what % moisture content that is.

then I switched to drippers and kept the coco ''wet'' so they didn't even dry out. seems like that when my problems started.. calcium deficiencies and nitrogen toxicity symptoms.
but the roots would look great but yield dropped off, plants looked stunted and didn't stack. that's when I posted this thread.

since hand watering again, and allowing the pots to dry out slightly, (not dry but id say 30% as heavy as freshly watered. the problem disappeared. no deficiencies, plants started stacking, yields went back up. so yeah. I know that people rock the whole ''keep it wet'' but it doesn't work for me and how I do things.

might be because I repot at flower and the pots are not root bound. I do have some mothers in veg and I flood them daily. they are over rooted in the pots and its hard/ impossible to overwater them. I thinks that's because the pot volume is small, that the water evaporates + the roots suck up a lot of water. so they don't even get a chance to get overwatered.
so I guess if I played with the same in flower, got a fairly big plant in a smallish pot then I'm sure I could drench them and they would keep growing and sucking it all up.

but it seems like keeping them wet and not allowing them to dry out some interferes with the calcium and nitrogen uptake. that's my guess.

ive now switched to using co2 and a sealed room. now I'm re learning how my plants are going to react to the environment which ive created for them. because higher light intensity and co2 plus higher temps throws a whole new set of potential issues that I need to try and understand. so ive not made things easy on myself.


i carefully read your first post. you provide very detailed info.



so you may need to calibrate your ph or/and ec meter again,
you do this every other month?


if not youre giving too much nutrients, so they build up in the coco (salts) thats why you get lower ph in drain and higher (very high) EC!


or not flushing every other week its needed for coco.


when your plants grow correctly the drain is just 0.1-0.2ec LOWER and the ph will RISE because of nutrient (salt) uptake. less salts = less acid = higher PH



because i got tap water ec 0.2 here


when i add plagron/canna etc... coco nutes



you give A and B 1,6 / 2ml



this is for 10 litres 16/20ml A/B


i didnt even go over 15/15
shedule says 35/35 or 40/40 LOL

this is all too much.


10/10 is even fine with plants over 5 feet! in 11L coco.
no need for EC higher than 1.2



when you dont flush the coco there will be buildups which will fuck up your grow.


i just did a few coco grows, before soil, and outdoor, and this is now my best in 10 years! (also started from seed again)


i always hand water them and give them plenty of nutrients drain in bathroom and put again inside. check drain, be good



worked great really amazing, so in my humble opinion they put a lot inside the coco nutes and its important (flush) because the plant just takes what she needs so the ratio is not correctly balanced anymore between NPK-micro. if you keep them just wet without drain.


PS: you can let the coco dry out fully like with soil and then make a flush and you will be suprised how much they like it in the next day they just KEEP A BIG SMILE FOR YOU!


try this you will be very happy
 
Last edited:
I use base hydro nutrients with the base containing 6% calcium nitrate already. So I don't overdue the nitrates in the mix, I only use the 1 ml per gallon.
 

siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
Hows your light intensity and vpd looking? If youre getting toxicity with 1 ec input and 1.6 EC runoff, it seems like you have a very dry, low lit room? co2?

no actually I run vpd in relation to temps, so its not dry at all. or low lit. 24000w of lighting, 5 plants per 600w.
 

siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
i carefully read your first post. you provide very detailed info.



so you may need to calibrate your ph or/and ec meter again,
you do this every other month?


if not youre giving too much nutrients, so they build up in the coco (salts) thats why you get lower ph in drain and higher (very high) EC!


or not flushing every other week its needed for coco.


when your plants grow correctly the drain is just 0.1-0.2ec LOWER and the ph will RISE because of nutrient (salt) uptake. less salts = less acid = higher PH



because i got tap water ec 0.2 here


when i add plagron/canna etc... coco nutes



you give A and B 1,6 / 2ml



this is for 10 litres 16/20ml A/B


i didnt even go over 15/15
shedule says 35/35 or 40/40 LOL

this is all too much.


10/10 is even fine with plants over 5 feet! in 11L coco.
no need for EC higher than 1.2



when you dont flush the coco there will be buildups which will fuck up your grow.


i just did a few coco grows, before soil, and outdoor, and this is now my best in 10 years! (also started from seed again)


i always hand water them and give them plenty of nutrients drain in bathroom and put again inside. check drain, be good



worked great really amazing, so in my humble opinion they put a lot inside the coco nutes and its important (flush) because the plant just takes what she needs so the ratio is not correctly balanced anymore between NPK-micro. if you keep them just wet without drain.


PS: you can let the coco dry out fully like with soil and then make a flush and you will be suprised how much they like it in the next day they just KEEP A BIG SMILE FOR YOU!


try this you will be very happy

thanks for your opinion, I calibrate my blue lab probe every couple of weeks and its always spot on,
I feed at 2ml per liter, if I fed any less id kill off my plants. ive noticed its actually keeping them wet that fucks them up.. if I keep them at the sweet spot they seem happy..
 

siftedunity

cant re Member
Veteran
I use base hydro nutrients with the base containing 6% calcium nitrate already. So I don't overdue the nitrates in the mix, I only use the 1 ml per gallon.

ok I get ya.. my nute mix is light on calcium from what I remember.
but really high on Nitrogen. which sucks because pretty much every calmag supplement has added nitrogen . so their N is already high. plus whatever the issue is exacerbates the whole N issue.
 

herbertbrown

New member
ok I get ya.. my nute mix is light on calcium from what I remember.
but really high on Nitrogen. which sucks because pretty much every calmag supplement has added nitrogen . so their N is already high. plus whatever the issue is exacerbates the whole N issue.

Hey siftedunity i have the same problems like you had with n toxicity and i have also calmag deficiencys. Runoff ph is low like 5.3 and ec is at 1.6-2.0. I feed at 1.2 ec..
Can i ask you some questions?
What calmag do you use?
What nutrient strength do you give your seedlings/cuttings?


I started my seedlings in rapid rooter and transplanted into canna coco and gave 1ml/l sensi coco, that was around 0.6 and i didnt use any calmag. Im not sure if it was too much from the beginning so i will try my next plants with the right ec but i dont know if i should mix calmag from the beginning and how much of it.
I tried to feed the plants with 1.5ec sensi coco but the plants really start to get dark because of the N in it 🤢 if i feed the plants lower like 1.0-1.2 ec sensi bloom i have calmag deficiencys.
 

doams

Member
well its not that hard with coco just adjust to 6.0 from seedling till flower then rise maybe to 6.3,6.4 during flower and add calmags every watering no need to loose way with coco.


pretty old thread too :D
 
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