What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Need help with my ROOTS in COCO PLEASE!

Raw710

Member
Hi I am new to icmag have made a few posts and it has been a rollercoaster with coco. When I first started growing with coco it was a total success. I run a perpetual grow and have encountered different pests and have taken care of them without fully sterilizing my room. The problem I am having now is my roots are great in my ez cloner then to solo cups they are ok but not exploding like they should. But the real problem is when I transplant to a 1 gallon pot, plant looks great on top. The stems are not as green or thick as they should be. The bottom half where the problem is with the roots. The roots start off white with a lot of tiny hairs and then they start to turn colors from white to brown. Yet there are still new roots piping out sometimes that are white with hairs like it should be but then always turn to the god awful looking brown roots. The first problem I had with coco was fungus gnats and I still do sometimes but never that bad maybe a couple larvae here and there. Then I had root aphids which I took care of them with OGBIOWAR and it really did a great job. I do check my rootzone quite often and not see any crawlers. Could it be to strong of nutes or ph? There is no burning of leaf tips. I am paying close attention of not to over water with little to no runoff from the pots. The plants look good but my yield at the end is a little on the light side. I would normally yield 16-20 Oz on a plant but now it’s downward to 8-10 oz.
I would keep using the OGBIOWAR as a preventative but it seems to invite springtails which I have read both ways of being beneficial and harmful of eating the root hairs. Plus it seems like it does not take care of the fungus larvae 100% anymore.
So with your guys and girls help I would like to know what to look for to fix this problem thank you.
 

Desert Hydro

Active member
Veteran
I had a rootzone infection that caused this as well. plants went from healthy to stalled, to looking underfed and then dead.

my honest opinion would be to sterilize your medium with bleach or similar dead res technique and then once your roots recover you can start over with the beneficials.

if you go the bleach route you do .4ml per gallon hand watered to heavy runoff for the first few days then after a couple days drop to .2ml per gallon for another week or so. bleach breaks down quickly so add it to a small res that will get used up daily right before you use it.

after they are back to clean healthy roots hit them with the beneficials again.

before and afters on some stalled clones that had the infection. most had to be killed but I was able to save a few to demonstrate how it worked and brought them back from the dead. pics are on the other pc. i'll get em up later
 

Raw710

Member
I had a rootzone infection that caused this as well. plants went from healthy to stalled, to looking underfed and then dead.

my honest opinion would be to sterilize your medium with bleach or similar dead res technique and then once your roots recover you can start over with the beneficials.

if you go the bleach route you do .4ml per gallon hand watered to heavy runoff for the first few days then after a couple days drop to .2ml per gallon for another week or so. bleach breaks down quickly so add it to a small res that will get used up daily right before you use it.

after they are back to clean healthy roots hit them with the beneficials again.

before and afters on some stalled clones that had the infection. most had to be killed but I was able to save a few to demonstrate how it worked and brought them back from the dead. pics are on the other pc. i'll get em up later

How would I dose bleach? Have you ever used dutchmasrer zone?
 

Raw710

Member
I had a rootzone infection that caused this as well. plants went from healthy to stalled, to looking underfed and then dead.

my honest opinion would be to sterilize your medium with bleach or similar dead res technique and then once your roots recover you can start over with the beneficials.

if you go the bleach route you do .4ml per gallon hand watered to heavy runoff for the first few days then after a couple days drop to .2ml per gallon for another week or so. bleach breaks down quickly so add it to a small res that will get used up daily right before you use it.

after they are back to clean healthy roots hit them with the beneficials again.

before and afters on some stalled clones that had the infection. most had to be killed but I was able to save a few to demonstrate how it worked and brought them back from the dead. pics are on the other pc. i'll get em up later

Hey desert_hydro I fully apologize I was reading this when I was driving and I read the first couple lines without full reading.
 

Raw710

Member
stupid question but are you getting runoff in the solo cups and letting them dry out between waterings?

Yes I am I have a side by side test going on right now with ones that are getting watered everyday and ones that I let dry out. I have mixed feelings about letting the coco dry out and watering everyday to exchange the gases. I have tried watering my veg plant in 1 gallon smart pots everyday and I saw no negative reactions from the plant growing up top and neither the bottom until I transplanted them. The pot actually looked great I thought white roots were growing like crazy on the outside until the other side of the pot they were brown.
 

Speed of green

Active member
Media source & brand, new or reused?

water source and e.c if tap or well

feed e.c & ph

runoff e.c and PH

temps

humidity

pens recently calibrated?

it sounds like you have had a few issues going on, probably best to get some base information and work backwards through all the variables.

Pictures are great too :)
 

Absolem

Active member
IMO majority of the root problems associated with coco coir happen from transplanting wrong. When you buy a bag of canna coco it comes out of the bag very fluffy. This is how the coco coir should look when you put it in the new container when transplanting. Once the container is full don't bounce the container to compact the coco or shake the container to make the coco settle. If a person does this it takes away the air spaces in the coir and limits the amount of oxygen to the roots. Once the coco coir becomes to compacted the plants roots will suffer from a lack of oxygen the entire grow. Not much one can do at this point.

Regarding the OG Biowar the latest tests I've seen done on it from the Oregon Department of Agriculture show very little spore count in the product.
 

Raw710

Member
Media source & brand, new or reused?

water source and e.c if tap or well

feed e.c & ph

runoff e.c and PH

temps

humidity

pens recently calibrated?


it sounds like you have had a few issues going on, probably best to get some base information and work backwards through all the variables.

Pictures are great too :)


My media source is coco brand name canna it is new never reuse

Water source is RO. It comes out 0 ppm

I feed 700 ppm 1.3 ec

My temp for veg is 78 f humidity is 60%

I use a pen and blue lab guardian and both have been calibrated recently
 

Raw710

Member
IMO majority of the root problems associated with coco coir happen from transplanting wrong. When you buy a bag of canna coco it comes out of the bag very fluffy. This is how the coco coir should look when you put it in the new container when transplanting. Once the container is full don't bounce the container to compact the coco or shake the container to make the coco settle. If a person does this it takes away the air spaces in the coir and limits the amount of oxygen to the roots. Once the coco coir becomes to compacted the plants roots will suffer from a lack of oxygen the entire grow. Not much one can do at this point.

Regarding the OG Biowar the latest tests I've seen done on it from the Oregon Department of Agriculture show very little spore count in the product.

Yes I agree with both of your answers. I agree the coco can not been compacted or else they will not get the amount of o2 needed but how do you not get them compacted after the watering because the water will make everything settle.

Secondly I agree 100% about the OGBIOWAR I used this stuff about a year ago or maybe a little longer and it solved my problems like a dream and made my roots blow up crazy but recently the past few months it really hasn’t done anything except I believe cause problems 1 being the springtails like I mentioned earlier the OGBIOWAR puts fungi in the medium to counteract the pests in soil but fungi is what feeds the springtails from my research. Also I don’t believe that it is killing really any of the fungus larvae in the medium. I recently read a post that they role the spore count down also and there wasn’t any of the fungi to kill the root aphids which is Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae. Which if that stuff isn’t in there what else isn’t in there and how much is the spore count off seems like a high priced talc. Before when I first used it I was a 1000% percent behind cap and his work. There was no other reason to seek another product in my eyes.
 

Absolem

Active member
Yes I agree with both of your answers. I agree the coco can not been compacted or else they will not get the amount of o2 needed but how do you not get them compacted after the watering because the water will make everything settle.

Secondly I agree 100% about the OGBIOWAR I used this stuff about a year ago or maybe a little longer and it solved my problems like a dream and made my roots blow up crazy but recently the past few months it really hasn’t done anything except I believe cause problems 1 being the springtails like I mentioned earlier the OGBIOWAR puts fungi in the medium to counteract the pests in soil but fungi is what feeds the springtails from my research. Also I don’t believe that it is killing really any of the fungus larvae in the medium. I recently read a post that they role the spore count down also and there wasn’t any of the fungi to kill the root aphids which is Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae. Which if that stuff isn’t in there what else isn’t in there and how much is the spore count off seems like a high priced talc. Before when I first used it I was a 1000% percent behind cap and his work. There was no other reason to seek another product in my eyes.

Watering will settle the coco to the appropriate density. Just a side note it's best to transplant when the coco coir is less than or around 50% saturation or the coir can compact to much from all the water weight dumping it into the new container.

Springtails.........So I had fungus gnats and used BTI dunks. I saw less flyers but when I looked at the the roots I kept seeing all these damn fungus gnat larvae. So I increased the dose saw less flyers but holy balls the damn fungus gnat larvae seemed to increase. Anyway they weren't gnat larvae they were springtails. Haha. You are right about springtails feasting on fungi in OGBIOWAR or BTI dunks. I'm not a fan of springtails. Once they eat up their food source they eat roots next.

The spores Cap deals in are a bitch. The stuff goes bad within 18 months. It's hard for a small operation like Cap to buy enough spores, mix and package them up and rid your merch within such a small amount of time before the product goes bad.

Cheers
 
Last edited:

Raw710

Member
Watering will settle the coco to the appropriate density. Just a side note it's best to transplant when the coco coir is less than or around 50% saturation or the coir can compact to much from all the water weight dumping it into the new container.

Springtails.........So I had fungus gnats one time and used BTI dunks. I saw less flyers but when I looked at the the roots I kept seeing all these damn fungus gnat larvae. So I increased the dose saw less flyers but holy balls the damn fungus gnat larvae seemed to increase. Anyway they weren't gnat larvae they were springtails. Haha. You are right about springtails feasting on fungi in OGBIOWAR or BTI dunks. I'm not a fan of springtails. Once they eat up their food source they eat roots next.

The spores Cap deals in are a bitch. The stuff goes bad within 18 months. It's hard for a small operation like Cap to buy enough spores, mix and package them up and rid your merch within such a small amount of time before the product goes bad.

Cheers

Yea my understanding the springtails eat the roothairs so it slows down the uptake of nutrients. What do you think the best way to go about benifiecials and what do you think about helping the root infection with bleach?
 

Kesey

New member
Watering will settle the coco to the appropriate density. Just a side note it's best to transplant when the coco coir is less than or around 50% saturation or the coir can compact to much from all the water weight dumping it into the new container.

Springtails.........So I had fungus gnats and used BTI dunks. I saw less flyers but when I looked at the the roots I kept seeing all these damn fungus gnat larvae. So I increased the dose saw less flyers but holy balls the damn fungus gnat larvae seemed to increase. Anyway they weren't gnat larvae they were springtails. Haha. You are right about springtails feasting on fungi in OGBIOWAR or BTI dunks. I'm not a fan of springtails. Once they eat up their food source they eat roots next.

The spores Cap deals in are a bitch. The stuff goes bad within 18 months. It's hard for a small operation like Cap to buy enough spores, mix and package them up and rid your merch within such a small amount of time before the product goes bad.

Cheers

Bacillus Thurengesis are not fungal hyphae, lol.
 

Kesey

New member
Azadirachtin and diatamaceous earth will clear up the springtails in no time. Best way to prevent all this is keep your rooms clean, meaning don't leave puddles of water in your rooms, and inspect your coco before putting it in a pot.
 

Desert Hydro

Active member
Veteran
pics of the stalled and dying clones. there was a shit ton of these that had to be killed off because they stalled for so long but i was able to save the few that i needed to make sure i had mothers.

i dont think the bleach will help with the bugs but who knows. im not advising it for that. just clean white roots and then start fresh with beneficials. h202 is good too but the 35% is pretty pricey and you use quite a bit per gal every 4-5 days.
 

Attachments

  • MVIMG_20171223_213509.jpg
    MVIMG_20171223_213509.jpg
    89.9 KB · Views: 16
  • MVIMG_20171209_144855.jpg
    MVIMG_20171209_144855.jpg
    57.6 KB · Views: 14
  • MVIMG_20171209_144844.jpg
    MVIMG_20171209_144844.jpg
    68.4 KB · Views: 15
Top