Strait Coco or Perlite cut???
- Thread starter GET MO
- Start date
I mix in a small amount of perlite to give the coco some extra texture. 10-20% maybe.
I was thinking about this a while back when preparing some coco. I noticed clumps forming spontaneously while tossing around 100% coco that was properly hydrated. After adding perlite (10-20% maybe,) the clumping effect essentially went away.
On most brand's bags of perlite it says something like "helps prevent soil compaction," and I believe it has the same benefit for coco.
This is to aid drainage basically and keep the medium from clumping up in the pot. I've done some seed runs with coco alone & some plants mixed with perlite, and at transplant time the plants in the perlite mix had clearly rooted better. Coco with a small amount of hydroton was superior to the pure coco as well, but I only tried that with a few plants.
Even with good pots, I think the perlite makes for better drainage and better oxygenation in the medium. It is inexpensive & I don't see a reason not to use it. The benefits in traditional soil are well documented, and they all seem to translate to the coco medium as far as I can tell.
I was thinking about this a while back when preparing some coco. I noticed clumps forming spontaneously while tossing around 100% coco that was properly hydrated. After adding perlite (10-20% maybe,) the clumping effect essentially went away.
On most brand's bags of perlite it says something like "helps prevent soil compaction," and I believe it has the same benefit for coco.
This is to aid drainage basically and keep the medium from clumping up in the pot. I've done some seed runs with coco alone & some plants mixed with perlite, and at transplant time the plants in the perlite mix had clearly rooted better. Coco with a small amount of hydroton was superior to the pure coco as well, but I only tried that with a few plants.
Even with good pots, I think the perlite makes for better drainage and better oxygenation in the medium. It is inexpensive & I don't see a reason not to use it. The benefits in traditional soil are well documented, and they all seem to translate to the coco medium as far as I can tell.
I use straight coco. I don't understand why you'd want more drainage in coco, well certainly not in my situation.
Look at it this way: if you saturate a pot of coco so it's poured out the bottom and rested for a bit, then pour a small container of water on top again and you'll see that it drains out quite rapidly. Combine that with the fact I have to water every friggin' day, and if anything I'm actually looking for ways to lower the drainage of coco, not raise it. But that is just my situation.
Look at it this way: if you saturate a pot of coco so it's poured out the bottom and rested for a bit, then pour a small container of water on top again and you'll see that it drains out quite rapidly. Combine that with the fact I have to water every friggin' day, and if anything I'm actually looking for ways to lower the drainage of coco, not raise it. But that is just my situation.
B
badugi
No perlite. Adding perlite doesn't add to drainage, as perlite holds more water than coco.
S
Shan Diego
1:1 works great for my recirculating, and I have reused it a coupla times now.
V
vaprpig
I used to mix equal parts coco, perlite and hydroton before someone told me to just go straight coco. It works just as well, no difference and a lot easier.
jocat
Active member
when i switched to coco from soil i did 5 pots, same strain, tried straight coco, coco hydroton, coco perelite, coco hydroton perelite, and plain coco with a few inches of hydroton balls on the bottom for better drainage, they were all very healthy all thru the cycle, in the end the plain coco alone had the biggest flowers. of course this could very by strain, feeding style, nutes used. but from what i saw and the fact that i don't enjoy lifting and mixing, i will stick with plain coco. have you ever noticed how ugly and obvious perelite is when a load of rootballs is dumped, i sure have. coco can be saved and reused but if you just dump it somewhere it will blend in better without all that growers dandruff. J
ScrubNinja said:
To me, the perlite is not about achieving more drainage, its about more efficient drainage.
If you pour 1 gallon into your pot, you will prolly get a similar amount out with 100% coco or with a perlite cut assuming they are equally hydrated beforehand.
The difference is that the water, when poured into the pot with perlite, will travel through the medium more completely because there will be less areas where the medium has clumped together and that fresh water cannot penetrate properly.
When you water, put your ear to the pot... The "snap crackle pop" sound is oxygen being pulled into the medium via gravity. That cannot happen properly in areas where the coco has bunched up, even if they get oxygenated water later via the sponge effect.
As we'll get to momentarily, the perlite does retain more water than coco, so in your circumstance I believe a perlite cut would actually be beneficial all around. You'll get all the drainage benefits, and perhaps be able to space out those waterings, though I don't think it will have that big an effect on watering interval. If there are areas that are clumped though, that could create inefficiency and thus more of your watering will end up as runoff that otherwise would have stayed in the medium were it absorbed faster & evenly, so perhaps that could help with the watering interval as well.
Maybe you could give the perlite cut a try on a plant or 2 in your next round and see how it treats you.
badugi said:
It is true that perlite holds more water than coco, but your logic fails when you consider what is actually going on in the medium when you water the pots (as described above,) and falls apart completely when you recognize that the benefits of perlite for drainage have basically nothing to do with how well or poorly it retains water.
In fact, Hydroton can provide the same benefit for more even drainage by breaking up the medium & preventing clumps, and retains less water than coco. In the end though, they both enhance the drainage/watering process via the same method. Regardless of how much water they retain.
As such, your statement that perlite doesn't help drainage because it retains more water than coco doesn't make any sense.
If you really understand what is going on, then you should be able to visualize how clumped/compacted areas will present a problem for water traveling through the medium, and how without those areas, drainage/hydration will be more even and complete.
Perhaps you can ask Pico why he used perlite before and has now switched to a Hydroton cut when the perlite wasn't available.. I mean, you're on his jock about everything else, so maybe you'll take his word for it instead.
B
badugi
I asked him already, actually.
Done my homework, sir, and still growing in pure coco.
Done my homework, sir, and still growing in pure coco.
Last edited:
badugi said:
You can grow in peanut butter for all I care, to each their own.
Just don't misrepresent your opinion about the drainage thing as fact. Got enough snopes.com worthy ideas around here.
D
dongle69
Use good coco and break it up as you plant.
It will never clump again in the pot.
Fuck perlite.
It will never clump again in the pot.
Fuck perlite.
dongle69 said:
I have to disagree.
Good coco, no matter how well you break it up, still clumps up in the pot, immediately no less as far as i can tell.
I just filled a 1 gallon pot with Botanicare bagged coco, well broken up as it should be..
After saturating it with water, it basically sits there like a big lump. When I shake the pot a bit, it maintains the shape of the pot almost like jell-o. When shaking, it takes some force to get it to break up into chunks of any kind. When it did, they were large ones. This is the standard behavior of all brands of fine coco, be it canna, gh, botanicare, whatever.
I encourage anyone who doubts to go try this yourself.
Did the same thing with coco mixed with perlite, 25% or so, and the difference is night and day. It breaks up immediately into pieces and tiny chunks when shaken with about half the force it took to get anything to happen in the pot of pure coco.
Seems the best way to alter that behavior while still retaining the benefits of the medium is to give it just enough texture to prevent it, thus the perlite or hydroton cut.
I guess that is the point of the chunky coco like PieceCoir, though I don't care for it myself, and found that regular coco and the perlite mix outperforms chunky coco alone. Kinda think that chunky coco sucks really.
So anyways, based on my past experience, and in the informal tests I just did in my bathroom laboratory (hehe,) I stand by my comment that pure coco is prone to clumping, especially when compared to the perlite/hydroton mix.
D
dongle69
I'm glad I don't shake my pots. LOL.
C21H30O2 said:
Fair enough.
Perhaps size references or something though will help clear things up, as I've seen the clumping I describe with all major brands. As for the stuff I used today, that was bagged Botanicare, good coco in everyone's opinion I know.
Anyways, it takes serious jostling to make it break down into anything other than like lemon sized chunks once its saturated in the pot. The perlite mix breaks down into tiny chunks the size of like nickels and dimes or just loose coco with much less effort. So that is the effect I'm getting at.
As mentioned humorously above, we're not shaking our pots here normally, but I think giving a good shake to a properly saturated pot of coco demonstrates how the medium behaves when stationary. To see it in comparison to the pot with a bit of perlite in the mix especially seals the deal for me.
