Why Use Coco With All These Known Problems?

[indifferent]

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

I agree with Sun, all the coco issues I've had (apart from Fungus Gnats) was MY fault.

I really don't think there is crap coco, only untreated coco. I used canna bagged coco for a couple of years, superb stuff but expensive.

I switched to Hercules Neopeat brand cheap bricks, everybit as good as Canna I have found, I expand them with hot water then test the runoff (not had one yet that needing flushing, luckily) and then pre-charge with ec1.0 nutes and use.

I have used other cheap bricks that did need a flush, just stick it in a big pot with holes and run water through it till the runoff is below ec 8.8 then pre-charge with nutes and it's good to go.

The only downside to cheap coco is some of it needs flushing of salt, this will be the stuff grown by the sea.

All Canna do is steam tree their coco to remove salts then innoculate it with Trichoderma Harzanium fungus and bag it for sale.

I prefer to do this myself with hot water and mychorrizae and other beneficial funghi.

 

[Hazyfontazy]

Mine too.

Oh wait, I am hazy.

Let's be a little more careful who we're calling hazy around here. Only one. .

yes lets ,,i think you'll find i'm the original ,one and only hazyfontazy ,otherwise known as " hazy" ,since 2001 online and in reallife prior to that ,,we can call u the other hazy if u like

 

[Hazyfontazy]

Why Use Coco With All These Known Problems?

to answer the original question ,,

coco easy easy to learn and gives outstanding results

 

[BlindDate]

I posted this in a new thread but not too many views. Maybe it will help some of you guys. This is from the Canna website.

The most reliable method for measuring the nutrient levels in Coco is using the 1:1.5 extraction method. EC and pH of the root environment can be determined by using this method. The pH and EC of the drain water generally deviates from the actual root situation, as Coco is able to retain and release elements.

1. Take a sample of Coco from the slabs or pots. This can be done with a soil core sampler or a trowel.
To get a representative sample the Coco must be collected from as many places as possible.

2. Put the sample in a bowl and determine whether it contains the right amount of moisture. The Coco has the right amount of moisture if moisture disappears between your fingers when you squeeze it. Add demineralised water if necessary and mix the Coco.

3. Take a 250 ml measuring jug and fill it with 150 ml of demineralised water. Add Coco to the 250 ml mark. Fully mix and allow the slurry to settle for at least two hours.

4. Mix again and measure the pH.

5. Filter this material and measure the EC.

 

[Castelvetro]

whats so hard about feeding the plant and reading how its doing with your plain eyes? nice to know that run off is misleading and now u guys have to actually take chunks of your medium out to test it.... i guess it wasnt hard enough already for some of you

 

[rrog]

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

Do you have access to tap water? I would suppose not. I can only say what I'm doing. Biggest thing is to use the pH down you have to get it to 5.5 or so. That's working for me.

 

[indifferent]

You can reduce the ppm of your well water using coco. In India and other places they use coco coir to filter particulates from water. Take a trashcan, punch a few holes in the bottom, fill with coco then pour the water through and collect it, you will probably be able to get below 50ppm. Coco actually works better for this application than the sand/gravel we use in the west in water treatment plants as coco is fibrous and all those thin fibres give it much more surface area for shit to stick to than you get with even sand and very fine gravel.

 

[rrog]

I really don't think there is crap coco, only untreated coco. I used canna bagged coco for a couple of years, superb stuff but expensive.

I switched to Hercules Neopeat brand cheap bricks, everybit as good as Canna I have found, I expand them with hot water then test the runoff (not had one yet that needing flushing, luckily) and then pre-charge with ec1.0 nutes and use.

I have used other cheap bricks that did need a flush, just stick it in a big pot with holes and run water through it till the runoff is below ec 8.8 then pre-charge with nutes and it's good to go.

The only downside to cheap coco is some of it needs flushing of salt, this will be the stuff grown by the sea.

All Canna do is steam tree their coco to remove salts then innoculate it with Trichoderma Harzanium fungus and bag it for sale.

I prefer to do this myself with hot water and mychorrizae and other beneficial funghi.

Great summary. If you start with raw, untreated (Sunleaves) coco, this is what needs to be done. Not all coco needs this sort of starter treatment. Some here seem to think this suggestion is for all coco, but that's obviously not the case.

Again, in my growing scenario I needed that big super-chunk coco for air reasons.

My biggest lesson behind all of this is proper pH going in. Pretty simple.

 

[indifferent]

Canna used to give out a free DVD that showed their production process, it was really interesting, from the fields to the finished bag.

I always think if going above 5 litres on coco you should either amend it with chunky perlite or diahydro or mix some coarser grade coco in with your pith grade as having a large pot of saturated pith coco defeats part of the advantage of coco - it's superior aeration.

Coarser grade coir is not that easy to find in the Uk so I would use Canna COGR slabs and mix them with regular grade coco if I was doing larger pot sizes, but I don't grow big plants and am happy using 3.5 litre pots, don't see any need to go bigger and with handwatering daily, 3.5 litres is even a bit big as they don't fully dry out. I think 2 to 2.5 litres is ideal for the size plants I grow and might switch back to smaller pots from these square 3.5s. I will probably do a side-by-side comparison with the same cut in two different size pots before I do though.

 

[rrog]

I always think if going above 5 litres on coco you should either amend it with chunky perlite or diahydro or mix some coarser grade coco in with your pith grade as having a large pot of saturated pith coco defeats part of the advantage of coco - it's superior aeration.

I have chunky perlite, chunky Coco, and very chunky Vermiculite. Also medium coco and humus. Under all of this is 2 gallons of big lava rock & water and big bubblers. The airy medium allows air to flow upwards, carrying moisture and nutrients. Huge micro-herd is maintained.

 

[indifferent]

Sounds good mate, I've often wondered about putting airstones in the bottom of pots with a layer of diatomite or big coco pieces, but I think I manage okay with the heavy hand watering as you can really see it sucking the air down into the medium as the water runs out of the pots and my roots are always well developed and bright white.

I'm not sure there are many things I can do to get more out of coco. I am going to setup some drippers with a 90 litre reservoir soon I think. I've had all the kit bar the res for ages, and if i go for drippers I'll probably get some chunky coco to mix with my fine grade. I already add chunky diatomite as I have a fungus gnat problem and I also like the idea of extra silicates, although I do use liquid silicon.

I'm not sure how much I'll gain in yield from drippers over hand watering daily, probably not more than 10-20%, and the thing that puts me off is I don't run mono crops, I grow different strains at the same time, but I;m thinking of switching to running monocrops so I can get some strains dialled in and get some nice big yields.

 

[rrog]

That sounds great. The extreme aeration that I do is to feed the microbes and fungus as well as the roots themselves. Seems to work very well so far. Top 2" of medium is dry, while the rest is nicely moist. Never too wet or dry. That was a relief.

The raw amendments such as blood and bone meal, worm castings, kelp etc. are broken down by the micro-herd and provided to the plants. Obviously I don't need huge air to accommodate that, but the extra O2 seems to really encourage great growth.

Three weeks into flower in my micro scrog:

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

So rrog, have you done any side by side tests? Grows with and without airstones in the medium? You keep saying how great it is, and I'm not saying your plants don't look good... but do they look better than they would if there was no airstone? I've seen the idea tossed around for years but I've never seen evidence showing that it's worth it.

 

[rrog]

I like this grow style because... I love this grow style. Not looking to start a religion.

In my last grow (drip chem hydro in hydroton) I found great benefit to adding SubCulture to the res, aerating it and feeding them with molasses.

I also decided I didn't want chem ferts any more. So I came over to the organic hydro forum here and read up on some different techniques. This OBBT technique was being discussed and it resonated positively with me. I couldn't see a downside, and my personal experience told me it would be a good thing.

So I did it, and am glad I did.

 

[m4rkk]

rrog, I am moving from soil to passive hydro (hempy buckets). I did organics in soil and would like to go that route however, my research turned up little in support of organic hempys. Can you point me in the right direction? Is the OBBT at all related to hempys?

 

[rrog]

m4rkk, I'm no expert by any means. I simply gather information, but I gather a lot of information.

It is my understanding that the OBBT is like the famous hempy bucket. I'm very familiar with the OBBT. Here's my build thread. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=135017

I'm not saying this is any better or worse than any other method. I like it because it's totally organic, uses very helpful microorganisms and fungus, it's simple and cheap. I will try and answer any question you may have.

 

[~Shhh~]

posted this on the coco forums but may be of use here too...

Canna Tips from Ralph B. and J

WATER SOURCE: We design our Canna products for less than perfect water. Also, nutrients work best with some pH controls in the water especially Calcium. However, we advise using a source water that is about 0.2 EC or just below 200 ppm with most of this coming from Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg). This is important, and the level of Ca is important because both pH and minor elements can be effected by this mineral.

CALCIUM: Nutrients are built, and plants will develop based on ratio's of elements to each other with the element that is in shorter supply being the limiting agent for plant development.

Ca in high amounts will lock out Potassium (K). It also affects Phosphorous (P) availability resulting in reduced energy. Mixing Ca and PK in high enough amounts will result in the formation of percipitates (clouding). Many times the CA is the trigger.

"Cal Mag Plus" and "MagiCal" has other things in it... especially Iron, Nitrogen and another group they do not identify, including sulfur.

Again, these can cause additional ratio and lock out issues. Both of these products change values and make end prediction tough at best.

Iron in excess will cause toxicity. The proper way to mix if needed is to add it to the source water to achieve roughly 0.2 EC, mix then add the rest.

All our products have more than enough Ca, Mg and everything else to do the job IF the 0.2 EC of mainly Ca and Mg is available in the initial water source... This we are 100% certain of.

This causes a gradual and persistent low Ca condition which would show a difference in the final weight of the plant. There is also another question that can and does go hand-in-hand with this one: poor water relations. Ca and water move with, and are affected by each other... Too much or too little have effects:

If I inhibit water uptake by reducing Ca availability, the roots look fine but water moves slower and so, too, all other minerals.
If I dry out OR over water a plant, even just a little, I will cause the same issue.
If I increase Ca to offset the loss, I get results;
if I overdo the Ca at the beginning to offset a future problem, I get horrble things happening.
From, odd greening patterns on the leaves, strap leaves, spots, browning spots, distortion, etc,

If you are having problems, I suggest your cure most probably lies in bringing the initial EC of the source water to 0.2, go back to the normal feed chart, water consistantly (same point of dryness) and at the right time (50% of water applied is used before the next irrigation), never use plain water to flush, keep humidity 50 - 60% day and below 80% at dark.

OTHER TIPS: the total EC will be brought up by the CalMag and PK so dont burn your plants.

 

[LJB]

I almost came to the same conclusion. And that was because I didn't start with good information.

As the great KNNA (the person, not the Dutch company) says:

You need to keep cations balanced in the media. Its accomplished by knowing your nute profile and managing the pH according to it: ph below 5.8 achieves higher Ca uptake and lower Mg uptake, thus you reduce the Ca stored in the coco and increases Mg. By using ph over 5.8, you achieve the inverse. Keeping the amounts of Ca and Mg balanced in the coco is the key to heving the best yields and avoiding problems. And more importantly, it allows you to not flush until preharvest. Coco doesn't react well to flushing, as growing in it is based in its high CEC. Anyway, after any flush in coco you should water feed immediately after, or plants could develop have an N deficiency quickly.

There are two basic schools of growing in coco. One is based on using a similar nutrient profile and ph management than with other hydro mediums, and which requires flushing, and another other based on a different nutrient profile and specific coco pH management without flushing. The first one is easier, especially for those growers with previous hydro experience, but will achieve lower yields, is especially problematic when water quality is a concern, and often is playing on the edge of salts lock out (mostly, excess Ca stored, which causes difficulties with Mg and K uptake). This also usually requires supplementing to avoid Mg deficiency.


The part about lower yields is probably disputable, but I don't think any of the rest is. Certainly not the main theme about pH mgmt. If you do that, coco is really f'n easy.

Hazy: the pH 5.8 has no particular importance concerning Magnesium. It starts getting locked out at 5.4 and below.

You sort of the missed the point.

When working with the high Cation Exchange Capacity of a 100% coco grow, it's easy to keep the availability of Ca and Mg, from the coco to the plant, in balance by alternating the pH of the solution that is fed to them. I literally alternate with every new res. The soft tap-water here has low alkalinity (buffering capacity), but that doesn't matter. It moves up very predictably, not down. This is one way to manage pH from seedling or cutting to the chop without the plant suffering from any toxicity or deficiency problems. The point is that cations are what cannot easily be flushed. That's also why I'll keep on repeatedly correcting people in the coco threads when they talk about reliable pH and EC readings from their coco grow runoff. Those readings are always incomplete and that is an indisputable fact. When I started out with coco, looking back, the many problems arose when I stopped treating the coco like coco. Coco is different than other mediums people are used to, such as hydroton and rockwool.

Here's a product endorsement: Botanicare Cocogro Loose - no need to rinse and less expensive than Canna and Bcuzz at the stores in this area.

ph below 5.8 and Ca is uptaken at a much higher rate than Mg. (on the right below)

this is a nice little article on CEC

http://soils.tfrec.wsu.edu/webnutritiongood/soilprops/04CEC.htm

 

[BlindDate]

Amending coco using Perlite will do nothing but reduce the pot size. Think about it. Once the coco surounds the perlite particles there is no aeration advantage. To get an aeration advantage using perlite you would need to apply it in layers. That way the little perlite pebbles will make an air space between them.

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

Amending coco using Perlite will do nothing but reduce the pot size. Think about it. Once the coco surounds the perlite particles there is no aeration advantage. To get an aeration advantage using perlite you would need to apply it in layers. That way the little perlite pebbles will make an air space between them.

I thought the same until I saw this side by side test done. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=108257&do=filter&fid=36904

And on this thread overall... rrog, you don't have a coco-based grow going. You're growing in OBBT, which uses a coco that is more coarse than any coco grower uses. Your use of coco is as an amendment to your soil, as opposed to being the actual medium for your plants to grow in. You're growing in soil.