[BlueBear]

Nice to have a coco forum, thanks to those who made it possible.
Now, question, I know that when growing in soil you can put a top layer of construction grade sand on the top of the soiled to stop any fungous Nat problems and it is a cheep, quick and easy fix. If you do this with coco will it create a problem? Has anyone tried?
Adieu

[The Slickster]

It's best to simply start off with a sterilized soil blend to avoid all the pests. Any bug will reduce yield as will a layer of oxygen robbing sand, and even diatomaceous earth too. Beneficial fungi and bacteria cannot completely kill all the pests, as good as they are for the plants and roots. Getting a large 8-16 qt cooker will sterilize more soil each time, heated at 15 psi for 15 minutes. Granted starting off with a more expensive mix like Foxfarm, will come minimally infested so as not to become apparent when in use for the first time. Pests can come from any store bought soil, the most common peat based mixes that are infested with insect eggs are Jiffy, Schultz, and Ferry Morse. Each brand comes with most of one kind of insect and their eggs like thrips, fungus gnats, spidermites, etc. The coco can even arrive with the wrong fungi or bacteria on it and should be rinsed and sterilized. One way to know your mix is clean for the best results is to sterilize the soil yourself, just make sure to rinse it. Then there is no need for using any chemical pesticides on them.

[BlueBear]

From what I have read coco is a natural attraction for nats, and sitting up hear in AK in 4 FT of snow I have had no nat problems in my Black Gold potting soil this winter , but since using coco I have found some nats using the GH coco and it runs along the lines of what I have read else where.
Adieu

[SoulRebel]

Never once had a gnat with Canna Coco (loose in bag). Can't emphasize how great this stuff is...


... S R...

[gaiusmarius]

well normally speaking the coco is gnat free. but if you use the coco a few times like i do, you can definitely get fungus gnats, in extreme cases i have known whole crops to be sitting loosely on the slabs because the gnat larva ate through the roots. but that's in a bad case, where nothing was done about it.

if you notice gnats crawling around on your coco, then you should use a BTi product, this is a natural organism that lives in earth. this stuff will kill the gnat larva. it's best to buy the stuff in liquid form and then water with it. solbac can even be added to the tank in a slab grow with drippers and it will totally slow them down so they can not fuck with your roots. you should repeat the treatment once or twice in a couple of weeks. this way your plants will still make a normal yield.

but it is true that the best coco has no fungus gnats in it and will stay free of them for at least 1 grow. then there are also nematodes which you can also apply in the water and they are natural predators of gnat larva.

as long as you fight them you can save your harvest even if there are lots of larva already in the coco. the gnat larva look really disgusting, they are like white worms, then there is the middle stage which look like some kind of flees. if you pull the plant out of the pot you should see if there are any of the above in the coco. with slabs you can just peek at the coir from the side of a rw cube to see if it's infested or not.

then there is one more way to kill all the gnat larva, this is better for an earth grow. you just let the pot get so dry till the plants are hanging. gnat larva can not live unless the medium is very wet, like it is in a dripper set up. but even in coco with pots you can let the pot get dry and light, the plant will take no harm from it if you catch it at the right time and water it again.

best of luck

edited to add:

ps: what i mean by save the harvest, is not just getting any harvest. but getting a propper harvest as if you didn't have gnats. peace out :wave

[SoulRebel]

I've still got GNATROL from when I used to use soil indoors, but haven't had the need to use it since switching to Canna Coco...


... S R...

[gaiusmarius]

wow that's cool Soul Rebel, do you reuse your coco?

[SoulRebel]

No brother, I don't. I think you just double or tripple the dose of Cannazyme the last week for reuse ... not sure how well it works, as I only use it once.


... S R...

[BubbaBear]

a tripple dose of cannazyme will probably cost ya more than replacing the coco...lol

[gaiusmarius]

i re use my coco slabs up to 4 times. i use a zym product at the normal dose and just cut the old cubes off and replace them with the new ones. i have been doing this for years and it often grows better the second or third time i use the slabs.

also the price of the zym is nothing compared to having to dispose of a bunch of coco slabs every 3 months lol. at the moment i'm on the third run with the present slabs and the plants are picture perfect.

but reusing the coco does mean you might have to treat for gnat larva, which to me is still much easier then replacing a table of slabs.