[Coco Nuts]

Quite a few have expressed interest in a forum for Coco growers. Perhaps this unofficial thread will give us an idea of interest in such a forum.

I personally feel this is a wonderful medium to grow in, but there was a learning curve to go along with it. Perhaps other coco growers, whether it be hand-watered (like myself), drip, ebb, or whatever I think it would help out others intersted in pursuing this medium.

Let's hear it from the Coco fans out there.

yep me too i love the cocco wot nutes do you use and wot bloom booster

tricky

Up to this point my experience with coco is limited to rapid rooter things for starting seeds

I have a batch of 20 Isis seedlings going that I will be potting up this weekend. I got a free bag of Atami B;cuz coco coir that I will be using and it says its buffered and pre-washed.

Should I do the cal-mag soak with this stuff or is it ready to go out of the bag? I will add perlite.. I'm thinking 2 parts coco to 1 part perlite. I will hand water this in veg, 30 days or so then put them in 3.5 gal buckets with a top feed set up for flowering.

Any comments/tips would be a great help.

[TheBoyWhoGrwBud]

First grow with coco-coir soil....way better than the soil i used last grow!!!! Im goin to be using pure blend nutrients for veg an flower...


...also i find adding coco pellets (orange balls) to the top of the soil helps keep the soil even an not get to dried out..

[Coco Nuts]

Originally Posted by GroNut

Should I do the cal-mag soak with this stuff or is it ready to go out of the bag? I will add perlite.. I'm thinking 2 parts coco to 1 part perlite. I will hand water this in veg, 30 days or so then put them in 3.5 gal buckets with a top feed set up for flowering.

Any comments/tips would be a great help.

When I prepare my coco from bricks, I usually soak them with a clearex solution. I then drain and press out as much water as I can and water then re-wet with 1/4 strength nutrient solution.

I'm not sure if the clearex solution is actually any better than plain water, but I have it, so I use it :-) I have taken EC readings in the past from the water that drained and was quite shocked at how high the reading was, but I can't remember what the actual reading was (must have been smoking).

I do water with Cal-Mag added to nutrient solution when I transplant. You'll find that even after all the pre-soaking and flushing the first watering with the newly prepared coco will have a dirty water runoff. At least that has been my experience.

Right now I'm bouncing back and forth between 0:1:2 Lucas GH and Pure Blend Pro. Depends on the mood I'm in. Plus keeping the microbial population up is an added bonus when using the organics on occasion.

I personally foliar feed on a regular basis. The reason I chose to do this is for a few reasons. The first being that I have a perpetual garden in which it would be an endless task to mix various strengths solutions, boosters, etc... to target each plants current phase. Therefore, out of laziness my nutrient solution I hand-water with is the least common demoniator in the area (excluding a plant nearing harvest). I can easily target via foliar feeding any plant that might want a boost.

I water everything in my garden with plain PH'd water on sundays and that will keep the salts at bay as long as you are not feeding too strong of a solution to begin with. I've read where someone chooses to do ferts one day, water the next, ferts, water and so-on. I personally don't understand the logic behind that because you are keeping the EC constantly fluctuating at the root-zone which could attribute to stress. It seems to me that if you are dialed-in and giving the plants only what they need then you don't need to do the flip-fop water shedule.

Thanks for the tips I'll fill up my pots and run some water through and check the run-0ff and see what I get.

Hey good thread. I'm using a coco/perlite mix. Watering by hand daily, was feeding every third watering during veg. Now that they're under 12/12 just going to water them daily for a week or so before I start feeding again.

CN-- These are some shots of my garden plants. I too love coco!

The first shots are of my Double Dutch plant stem grown in 50% coco, 30% hydroton clay rocks and 20% perlite. The second pic if of some Warlocks in my garden. I use a feed-to-waste drip. Coco gives GREAT results!
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Double Dutch


Warlocks


Peace, Mosca Negra

nice place

lets see what we can make out of this

peace all

hello peeps, yes coco is the shit, I just pulled my first harvest off and yes it took some tweaking for sure.
I find the info regarding coco on the web pitiful, it has such potentiel alone or mixed with other substrates,.
Here is some info and tips for using coco in no particular order...

1.Don't cheap on the coco, bricks are good for ebb and flow but you have to watch the compressed stuff, sometimes it's too salty. Canna is very good.
2.Do an initial wash with a light cal/mag solution.
3.The best results in coco are using ferts designed for coco like Canna series, I've just completed a run with PBPro series with added calmag and it works well too.
4.You cannot overwater with coco but it does help to cut it with hydroton or 20%perlite for grit and oxygenation.
5.You can reuse you medium up to 3 times and coco is a renewable and eco friendly source of substrate.
6.The typical increase in yield from soil to coco is ~10%, typically this is from increased aeration in the root zone but also from it's nutrient web that favors cationic exchange.
7.It actually works well with hard waters wich typically can lead to ph fluctuations in hydro.
8.Coco can harbour a thriving microherd and is ideal for organic or inorganic grows alike.

Well that's all for now, i'll look into some links I used to have.
Coco and organics has occupied my thoughts for awhile now, it's relatively unchartered teritory when applied to 100% hardcore organic regime based on ammendments like kelp meal, worm castings, guanos and teas etc.
It is unclear to me yet whether dolomite lime is a compatible source of calcium and magnesium as well as a good ph buffer for the coco.
Dlime had a clear role in peat based mixes as ph of peat is low and lime buffers to upper 6's so we get an even 6.-6.5 range.
Coco is self buffered, it easily takes on the ph of the nute solutions we feed it.

Peace coco nuts and ty for taking up the cause.

Jinx