Coco desperation

Welp sucks its come to this, but its time to call out to all my intraweb nerds that are mastered in the art of Coco growing.
Ive been a member and browsed these forums since way way back in the day. So much valuable epic knowledge on here.
Im a rare poster but def understand the true value for all growers this forum offers.

Now for the struggle.
I started growing seriously and for a living in 1993. I have probably missed 6 harvests since that year and i harvest every 4 weeks.
I have been growing strictly in coco coir i believe since 2007.
After serious ventures in just about every medium ive personally ever heard of with success in all of them i finally decided Coco gave me consistency the best quality product and the best consistency. Also gives a fair amount of forgiveness compared to most hydro mediums.

Im running into more than a few problems the last year or so and ive had enough of it. Im looking for the advice of not just anybody. Im kindly requesting the advice of fellow veterans not 2 year experienced coco growers. No offense.

Nutrients - ive seriously tested and used so many lines ive long forgotten half of them. Really i can't say that any of them worked much better than the next. If i was forced to make a choice id give my heavy 16 formula the go ahead for the best results i ever personally got in the last 12 years in coco. I think i ran the heavy 16 line for maybe half of that time, 6-7 years or so. Behind that, House and Garden, advanced, then several coco specific lines all worked just fine.
My biggest issues never really came from nutrients if and when i ran into problems. It was always either some ruthless pest, or some sort of plant virus or disease that are always difficult as hell to diagnose let alone to treat.
Right now every since the laws changed in my state of California and the industry flipped on its head. The value of quality packs getting cut by more than half. I finally bailed on the over priced nutrient lines. And i bailed on the several brands of coco that were far over priced as well.
Now im still going through too many new nutrient lines for me, and still figuring out a cheaper way to use coco coir itself with out buying a pallet of fucking Cana, or the several other brands i love that never gave me a single issue. I just can no longer afford it.
I even recycled my old coco for several runs by just doing major flushes, then conditioning it with products like enzyme komplete. Im done with that method though. I don't care what people say because ive put real effort into doing that right and still seen too many negative affects afterwards.
Right now i just bought several bricks of Cocotek, and several bricks of Nutrifield mega-bricks. I also purchased perlite to cut the coco 30/70.
Ive built a very affective coco rinsing system that ive used to literally make any coco virtually free of salts.
I test all my run offs bit by bit to see what these brands start at, and how long it takes them to hit the target range of "clean"
On the Cocotek i was seeing original run off as high as 350-400 ppms and im rinsing with 0 ppm RO water. after about 30-35 gallons of ringing i finally got the PPM runoff to 30 ppms.
On the Nutrifield bricks my initial runoff was fucking 650 ppms. Crazy man. But once again after about 40 gallons of RO rinse over a 6 hour period i got it down to 30 ppms.
Now im going to run a side by side with 100 plants. Honestly once its rinsed and conditioned, i don't really see much of a difference in the fiber. So who knows.

My problem in life is this. Im done spending top dollar on any nutrient line. It just isn't gonna happen anymore. Overhead is too high since electric price has tripled over the past decade, Price of packs is cut into a third of what it once was. So im just not running things like heavy 16 ever again for how ridiculously over priced it is. Even though it works amazing.

The advice im looking for is my veterans that are crushing crops with that insane quality with lower priced affordable nutrient lines. And yes im very aware that genetics is by far the first priority to success. And im rocking the best on earth.
I also live by environmental control is as high a priority or higher than any nutrient line. My environment is on lock.
My last run i was using the US version of the cyco base line with some advanced additives. It did alright, but not as quality as im used to producing.
I just started vegging my newest crop with the Nutrifield Coco base line with their Veg Ignitor. Im seeing a lot of strange deficiencies that im NOT used to seeing in my 26 years of growing. Somethings definitely off and its driving me nuts.
I clone in rockwool, transplant to 1/2 gallon bags til roots are a healthy packed white ball, then into 3 gallon smart pots for final 3 weeks of veg into flowering.
I water DTW and usually once a day in veg, then transitioning in flower i can water sometimes as much as 6 times a day in heavy flowering with minimal runoff and never signs of nutrient burn.
But right now its veg that is showing more than one deficiency. It has to be nutrient based. Im not supplamenting with calmag because im running a coco specific line. And even when i was in heavy 16 i wouldn't supplement with calmag. Just wasn't having problems with it.
So if anybody has been in my shoes and ran super high end nutrient lines for years with great success and then switched over to any nutrient line that was a quarter the price and still achieved the same top level results? Please chime in. Im humbly all ears.
And any questions im open to answer to get some better advice.
Thanks a ton guys.
Theres some shots of a few of my flowers over the years in my profile i believe if you want to see im not talking out of my ass.

Theres a bit of a learning curve i guess...but i have been real happy with what i get using the jacks+calnit approach. Not sure of any real helpful advice for it other than to find the lowest ppm that works with your strains and feed at that level, there doesnt seem to be much buffer for overfeeding and quality can easily take a dive. I feed at roughly a half teaspoon each of their 5-11-26 and calnit per gallon, mid flower start dropping the amount of calnit.

I would venture to guess, if you account for your labor in washing brick coco you would be better off just using canna coco.

Jack's and calnit would be the cheapest way to go.

You might check out megacrop also.

packerfan79 said:

I would venture to guess, if you account for your labor in washing brick coco you would be better off just using canna coco.

Jack's and calnit would be the cheapest way to go.

You might check out megacrop also.

Click to expand...

Canna isn't always on point.Better than others yes but i've had bags that weren't exactly clean,300+ on a meter.Not many but i have had them in the last 7 to 8 yrs in coco.I've had some Botanicare come out the bag at 1100 ppm.

Count me in on the MegaCrop.You running it?Coco?

JACKS FTW!!!

FlaDankster said:

Canna isn't always on point.Better than others yes but i've had bags that weren't exactly clean,300+ on a meter.Not many but i have had them in the last 7 to 8 yrs in coco.I've had some Botanicare come out the bag at 1100 ppm.

Count me in on the MegaCrop.You running it?Coco?

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No megacrop for me, but I hear great things. I was running Veg & bloom. Just went back to canna coco a&b.

I am coco guy for the last 6-7 years.

I don't run coco but I can vouch for Jack's and calnit in my Hempys. Really hard to beat the performance for the price.

Thanks guys. Gonna give Jacks a go. Appreciate it

Check out Floraflex. They have a 2 part grow and bloom. Highly reccomend.

-Funk

G `day MOS

Recharge with calcium nitrate after you wash out the salts . Add Cal Nit when you have hydrated and flushed the blocks .Let sit 24 hours . Then wash back down to 100 PPM . Buffered ready to go .
Canna coco is pre buffered . Adding Cal Nit buffers the bricks . Unbuffered the coco will grab nutes and lock them up unbalancing your nute profile .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

I just switched to Jack's and coco for same reasons. Too expensive to run anything else and remain competitive. You need to check this thread out. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=360359

I use Jacks 321. It works flawlessly and is very inexpensive. Here's a link to a you tube video that talks about it. Give it a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUoTFGXfb60

Elmer Bud said:

G `day MOS

Recharge with calcium nitrate after you wash out the salts . Add Cal Nit when you have hydrated and flushed the blocks .Let sit 24 hours . Then wash back down to 100 PPM . Buffered ready to go .
Canna coco is pre buffered . Adding Cal Nit buffers the bricks . Unbuffered the coco will grab nutes and lock them up unbalancing your nute profile .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Click to expand...

I'm with Elmer on this. The CEC of coco is heavy on the 2+ ions so if you recharge initially with a balanced grow formula, the Ca and Mg will get grabbed up by the coco, leaving you with too much of everything else during the initial waterings. It will also eat a lot of K and H from that initial watering, too, which can lead to unpredictable deficiencies as that is released later, instead of the expected Ca and Mg. Extra Ca and Mg in the beginning eats the coordination sites in the coco and gives you that Ca and Mg buffer without the mystery ratios of H and K and without eating any more Ca and Mg. Whatever you put in for food later will work under this assumption.

This bad ratio persists through the grow; cation uptake in coco is a little like a rechargeable battery. You know how hard it is to rinse that coco clean in the first place, so if you recharge with a bad ratio, it doesn't want to just "wash out" after a couple of waterings.

Good luck. I think more of us should know how to build good nutes and substrates from the ground up.

I used brick coco for a run and had terrible results. Even after rinsing the brick coco, ppm would rise after just a day or two. I believe the brick coco had not gone through a decomposition cycle and was continually breaking down into sodium and potassium which then led to Ca/Mg/N lockout. After switching to a RHP certified coco (Cyco Coco Bitz) all problems disappeared and the plants look better than have ever before even when I was using Royal Gold coco. Still using the same nutrient line - Jack's 5-12-26 with amino chelated calcium and amino acids in place of calcium nitrate and some AgSil16h and MAP along with minor trace mineral adjustments from BuildASoil Big6 and Sea-Crop.

rjrom90 said:

I used brick coco for a run and had terrible results. Even after rinsing the brick coco, ppm would rise after just a day or two. I believe the brick coco had not gone through a decomposition cycle and was continually breaking down into sodium and potassium which then led to Ca/Mg/N lockout. After switching to a RHP certified coco (Cyco Coco Bitz) all problems disappeared and the plants look better than have ever before even when I was using Royal Gold coco. Still using the same nutrient line - Jack's 5-12-26 with amino chelated calcium and amino acids in place of calcium nitrate and some AgSil16h and MAP along with minor trace mineral adjustments from BuildASoil Big6 and Sea-Crop.

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G `day R

I explained the chemistry and the process to buffer the coco on the previous page ...

Ignore at your own peril .

A simple 2 part nute is more than enough to grow primo flowers . Additives when you don`t understand the medium and water just confuse things more .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Elmer Bud said:

G `day R

I explained the chemistry and the process to buffer the coco on the previous page ...

Ignore at your own peril .

A simple 2 part nute is more than enough to grow primo flowers . Additives when you don`t understand the medium and water just confuse things more .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

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I appreciate the reply Elmer. I should have mentioned that I did buffer with CaNO3 and MgSO4 but it did not improve the brick coco. Admittedly I was using the cheapest brick coco available which is what led me to believe it had not gone through a decomposition cycle.
https://www.cannagardening.com/growing_with_coco

Often piles of coir dust were not left to decompose sufficiently and the resulting coco had a high nitrogen draw down index, this meant that under soilless cultivation, even with well balanced nutrients, nitrogen deficiencies in the early stages of growth were common.

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Also it was very dense coco with low air porosity. Simply put, all cocos are not created equally which is why I opted for a RHP certified brand that undergoes stringent production quality standards.
I understand that the complex nutrient program I'm using is not necessary however I've found it to produce a much higher quality product and yield than a standard 2 part program as well as pest and mold resistance through higher brix levels.

Elmer Bud said:

G `day MOS

Recharge with calcium nitrate after you wash out the salts . Add Cal Nit when you have hydrated and flushed the blocks .Let sit 24 hours . Then wash back down to 100 PPM . Buffered ready to go .
Canna coco is pre buffered . Adding Cal Nit buffers the bricks . Unbuffered the coco will grab nutes and lock them up unbalancing your nute profile .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Click to expand...

What are you using to 'wash' both before and after adding calnit? I always thought you just flushed with 1/4 strength nutes and that was fine. I'd like to test your way sometime.

G `day 40

I bought coco blocks from the local nursey supplies store .
Dude there told me this coco is not buffered . I asked what was required ? He said these blocks need charging with calcium . How ? Use Cal Nit 100 grams dissolved in water per block .
So I put in a tub fill with water add the 100 g Cal Nit dissolved in solution and leave sit 24 hours . When I check the EC of the solution the brick has been soaking in its off the scale on my Blue Lab truncheon . I then put the now expanded and nuted up coco in 20 litre pots and flush prolly 3-4 times the volume of the pots through with tap water . I collect the run off from the pots and test EC . When the EC is down around 100 -200 . Good to go . Just regular nutes . Though I use Great White innoculant at transplant and some kelp solution to encourage new roots .

Wal Mart or equiv coco prolly needs the flush treatment before the cal nit . Just to wash out the sea salt they use to help break up the coco nuts .

Decent quality bricks from a farm supply or nursery should be better grade and lower salt . But still need that buffering .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Coco info.
https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/how-to-prepare-and-buffer-coco-coir/

I've used that Nutrifield coco A&B for years in Tupur and it's rocked... Shouldn't see any deficiencies at all using it