Me too head, I think hydroton, rockwool and soil all have major drawbacks whereas coco is all-round a high performing medium with no major flaws.
Why Use Coco With All These Known Problems?
- Thread starter rrog
- Start date
That works great rrog, but I never managed to get it just right so for me, coco with bottled nutes works better. I know a lot of people have managed to make organics work, just I haven't!
Puff Daddy
Member
I agree wholeheartedly, never looked back since hazy first persuaded me to try coco.
Recently did a few plants in soil with organics just to try something different.
Took me one grow to realise coco was a far better medium for me, and this pic sums up why.
Two White Rhino cuttings, they were roughly the same size when I put them into flower, the big one is in coco, the little one in soil. They have been fed exactly the same, handwatered daily. You can clearly see the greater nutrient uptake in coco, this will be due to the superior cation-ion exchange properties and superior aeration. It's one thing reading about the advantages of coco, but when you see the superior performance as clearly as this, it's pretty clear it outperforms soil by a good deal in intensive indoor situations.
I bet the coco one is gonna yield 3x as much as the soil one and it will have no less resin, taste or quality.
Cal/mag issues are rare with a quality complete nutrient, never see cal/mag issues with canna nutes for instance. PH is buffered well in coco and with a good nutrient, ph issues are rare, just keep it around 6. I had loads of ph issues with my soil grow and hardly ever see any ph issues at all with coco.
I don't see how you can draw any conclusions from those plants.
Neither one looks happy, both nute burned, especially the soil one.
Seems to me you need to dial in both mediums before you can comment on one vs. the other.
Very picky pheno I won;t be running again.
Same pot size, same feeding, same everything, only difference is medium.
Therefore a valid comparison.
Same pot size, same feeding, same everything, only difference is medium.
Therefore a valid comparison.
Wierd, maybe the lockouts were due to salts in the coir? Did you thoroughly flush it before use? I use the cheap no-name bricks and never had a problem as long as I flush em good before use. I re-use the same coco at least 4 or 5 times with no problems.
Castelvetro
Member
argueing? whos argueing, whos even talking to you, i only responded to the starter of this thread and you thought i was talking to u so i went with it, do what u want i could care less as i never asked u single thing-
Puff Daddy
Member
LOL, perhaps a vaild comparison of what happens when you treat coco like soil or vice versa.
And why would you use a picky pheno to compare two mediums in the first place?
Nah, everything you just said makes your comparison *less* valid.
I haven't run this cut before, two cuts taken from a plant grown from seed, first time running it, was a bitch to keep happy in veg, and is proving finicky in flower as well.
They are in 3.5 litre square pots, one is straight coco with a little bit of diatomite added, the other is in Westland Advanced Plus, which is delignified wood with some added organic feed, I happened to have half a bag of it left over from repotting some houseplants and decided to try it for an MJ plant. I added a couple of handfuls of worm castings to it, so it's a fair representation of a light soil mix with only a month's worth of ferts at most. Being delignified wood it drains very freely, in fact, it drains like coco, so it's not a problem treating it like coco.
Perhaps a more valid comparison would be coco vs a full organic soil mix with a full range of amendments and innoculated with beneficial bacteria and mychorrizzae, but to me, this comparison is valid enough as the sole variable is the medium, everything else is identical, they have had exactly the same feedings at the same frequency, same genetics, same size cuts, same pots, same illumination.
It's quite obvious that the plant in coco has uptaken far more nutrients, hence it has grown bigger, that clearly shows the greater performance of coco when growing in pots and handwatering, mileage will vary with different methods, obviously.
They are in 3.5 litre square pots, one is straight coco with a little bit of diatomite added, the other is in Westland Advanced Plus, which is delignified wood with some added organic feed, I happened to have half a bag of it left over from repotting some houseplants and decided to try it for an MJ plant. I added a couple of handfuls of worm castings to it, so it's a fair representation of a light soil mix with only a month's worth of ferts at most. Being delignified wood it drains very freely, in fact, it drains like coco, so it's not a problem treating it like coco.
Perhaps a more valid comparison would be coco vs a full organic soil mix with a full range of amendments and innoculated with beneficial bacteria and mychorrizzae, but to me, this comparison is valid enough as the sole variable is the medium, everything else is identical, they have had exactly the same feedings at the same frequency, same genetics, same size cuts, same pots, same illumination.
It's quite obvious that the plant in coco has uptaken far more nutrients, hence it has grown bigger, that clearly shows the greater performance of coco when growing in pots and handwatering, mileage will vary with different methods, obviously.
H
Hazyfontazy
This is what I hate about misinformation on the net....
just for you and so as not to misinform (god forbid),ive changed it to
"coco is probably the best medium for growing canabis"
I think a big benefit to coco is the air. Especially if you have aerobic micro-herd. That's why I was using it in the first place. Through this discussion and the subsequent research, I now believe coco to be an excellent product, providing it has been chelated with CalMag and washed of Na and K. Some coco suppliers do this before selling it. Others like Sunleaves apparently do not.
In my opinion, there isn't good coco and crap coco. There is only treated and untreated.
I'm definitely using Coco again
In my opinion, there isn't good coco and crap coco. There is only treated and untreated.
I'm definitely using Coco again
the sunleave piece coir is crap coco. did you see anyone recommend sunleaves coco? I think not
Its not 'broke down' yet. You can (and I did) wash it till it runs clean, load it with your fert mix and be good to go. The plants will look ok/good though veg(its actually hard to clone in), but 1/2 way though flower they just go haywire with mulitple lockouts. I attribute this to the medium continuing to break down (possibly releasing too much K).
IMHO, 'quality coco' does not do this, and is basically stable (as long as youre not trying to fuck with the cation exchange).
I also believe that the old wisdom of 'coco has lots of K' (and thus need special nutes) does not apply to 'quality coco'
Every coco that posters have recommended im sure would qualify as 'quality coco', but all coco is not created equal.
Once i discovered the biobizz and phase 1, i threw all my sunleaves coco out, ive been reusing (and adding too) this coco ever since
hygrozyme is great!
Its not 'broke down' yet. You can (and I did) wash it till it runs clean, load it with your fert mix and be good to go. The plants will look ok/good though veg(its actually hard to clone in), but 1/2 way though flower they just go haywire with mulitple lockouts. I attribute this to the medium continuing to break down (possibly releasing too much K).
IMHO, 'quality coco' does not do this, and is basically stable (as long as youre not trying to fuck with the cation exchange).
I also believe that the old wisdom of 'coco has lots of K' (and thus need special nutes) does not apply to 'quality coco'
Every coco that posters have recommended im sure would qualify as 'quality coco', but all coco is not created equal.
Once i discovered the biobizz and phase 1, i threw all my sunleaves coco out, ive been reusing (and adding too) this coco ever since
hygrozyme is great!
Shroom, interesting that I never tried shrooms... someday.
Anyway, you bring up some good points. I think it's safe to say that all coco starts off as crap. Full of salt. The crap coco gets packaged and shipped. THe quality coco gets chelated and rinsed. Then packaged and shipped.
I used bulk brick coco and Sunleaves. Both junk, but the bulk variety provided the looseness and airy-ness I needed for my bubbers at the bottoms of the pails.
That brock coco was re-hydrated in boiling water to flush salts. I did nothing to the Sunleaves, since I didn't know any better.
You make a good point about the possible breakdown of the coco and release of even more (Na and K) salts.
It still stands to reason that a small and steady supply of Ca and Mg would reduce the ionic issue of coco to squat. I attribute my lockout to the very high pH of my well water. Since stopping that practice and adding low dose CalMag and pH water to 5.5 the symptoms have been reduced:
Last week:
5 days later:
Anyway, you bring up some good points. I think it's safe to say that all coco starts off as crap. Full of salt. The crap coco gets packaged and shipped. THe quality coco gets chelated and rinsed. Then packaged and shipped.
I used bulk brick coco and Sunleaves. Both junk, but the bulk variety provided the looseness and airy-ness I needed for my bubbers at the bottoms of the pails.
That brock coco was re-hydrated in boiling water to flush salts. I did nothing to the Sunleaves, since I didn't know any better.
You make a good point about the possible breakdown of the coco and release of even more (Na and K) salts.
It still stands to reason that a small and steady supply of Ca and Mg would reduce the ionic issue of coco to squat. I attribute my lockout to the very high pH of my well water. Since stopping that practice and adding low dose CalMag and pH water to 5.5 the symptoms have been reduced:
Last week:
5 days later:
I attribute my lockout to the very high pH of my well water. Since stopping that practice and adding low dose CalMag and pH water to 5.5 the symptoms have been reduced:
Last week:
5 days later:
Im using well water with a ph near 8 and about 190 ppm on a .5 conversion, having a similar problem using canna coco and their nute line.
If I ph it down to 5.5-6.1 should this help and be ok? dont have money for an RO machine right now, any advice? thnx
Z
Zoolander
The only problem with coco is the grower which includes myself . I've done coco for a few years now and when I have had a problem it's always been my lazy ass not checkin PH or something stupid but my dialed coco grows are something of beauty like alot of others here . I take the blame 100% when I fuck up
Castelvetro
Member
Im using well water with a ph near 8 and about 190 ppm on a .5 conversion, having a similar problem using canna coco and their nute line.
If I ph it down to 5.5-6.1 should this help and be ok? dont have money for an RO machine right now, any advice? thnx
buy a brita , it takes my water from n 8 to a 6, i have no problems at all. but i use the tap with nutes as it also brings the ph down two points, i use the brita water for non feed days or flushing.
Mine too.
Oh wait, I am hazy.
Let's be a little more careful who we're calling hazy around here. Only one.
Not to be confused with the absolutely correct about coco hazyfontazy.
