Why Use Coco With All These Known Problems?

[dunkybones]

This thread has gotten nasty.

But it seems Neoruler has some questions...

1). I have grown in soil in pots and done hydro in waterfarms in the past. When you guys are saying to treat coco like hydro when it comes to watering fequency are you saying like water several times a day or everyday or what? I have sort of been taking an "in-between" approach through my first/second grows in coco. I water till the growbags are pretty heavy and then basically wait until they are starting to get dry and are probably 1/2 or less weight than they were. It usually takes a one gallon bag with well developed plants 2 days, sometimes 3 to get to that point. That seems infrequent since everyone seems to be implying at least once a day watering. I am trying not to treat it like soil, but am a little confused about this aspect and have wondered if I might be seeing better results with more frequent waterings.

Coco is a hydro medium insofar as it is inert, just like rockwool or hydroton. Unlike rockwool or hydroton, coco holds a lot of water. A LOT of water, so you don't need to water as frequently as you would hydroton or rockwool, because those mediums dry out so quickly. You are doing it correctly now, letting it dry down to half weight before the next feed. My plants get watered 2 or 3 times a day, by drippers and dtw, but I have them in small pots, so they dry out quicker. Feed your plants as they need to be fed, and feed them like hydro, that's the only nutrition they'll get. Coco is inert.

2). I see alot of people saying they feed nutes all the way through w/o flushing b/c coco does not react well to being flushed...but then I read other people saying that best method is more like a feed/water/feed/water regimen. That seems to be 2 pretty big extremes to me, given that one is saying to never ever use fresh water and the other is saying to use fresh water every other watering. The owner of my local hydro shop (and I am in a heavy growing area) who is very familiar w/ coco said in his opinion feed/water/feed/water is the best method in coco.

Feed/water/feed will work. So will feed/feed/feed. Straight water cycles in hydro work because you are basically starving your plants, so they use the excess nutes built up in the medium, and the plant itself. If you feed at lower levels, or level off your feed before it builds up extra salts, flushing or water feed cycles won't be necessary. This is especially true in drain to waste systems, as every feeding is basically a flush, you're just flushing with nute solution instead of water. I like my plants to have a smooth ride, so I feed my canna nutes at 1.0 ec, rising up to 1.5 ec for a couple weeks while the growth is strongest, and then back to 1.0 ec., and down to water for a few days before harvest.

If you're really having problems with salts and lockouts, I'd give some consideration to backing the nute strength down.

 

[aktattoo]

I have learned the hard way I chose coco for its ability to be re-used. but its not like growing in anything else and anyone should do their research before committing a large grow in coco. I was using r/o water along with all canna nutes by the book and had nothing but problems until i received an email from canna telling me that their coco nutes are designed to be used with tap water with a ppm of 250 to supplement calcium and mag. I started to use cal-mag plus and had even more problems because of all the additional trace elements in it were making lockout. Bottom line use tap water and no problems! I should have never spent all that time making r/o what a waste of time. Also there is alot of confusion about how much to water. I have found the best growth when I water every 3 days in 3 gl pots but don't let it dry out and make sure when you water that there's runoff that keeps any excess nutrient from building up in the medium and never flush with plain water because you will wash everything out except ca. and that can cause an imbalance in root zone ph

 

[Tokesome]

I have learned the hard way I chose coco for its ability to be re-used. but its not like growing in anything else and anyone should do their research before committing a large grow in coco. I was using r/o water along with all canna nutes by the book and had nothing but problems until i received an email from canna telling me that their coco nutes are designed to be used with tap water with a ppm of 250 to supplement calcium and mag. I started to use cal-mag plus and had even more problems because of all the additional trace elements in it were making lockout. Bottom line use tap water and no problems! I should have never spent all that time making r/o what a waste of time. Also there is alot of confusion about how much to water. I have found the best growth when I water every 3 days in 3 gl pots but don't let it dry out and make sure when you water that there's runoff that keeps any excess nutrient from building up in the medium and never flush with plain water because you will wash everything out except ca. and that can cause an imbalance in root zone ph

I`ve had the opposite experience, my tap water (ec0.3) gave me constant lockout/def, with lots of intervienal yellowing, it affected things from an early stage too, such as cuttings in the prop box and young plants in pots. Now I`ve switched to RO water, supplemented with Calmag, my plants are lush again and looking good at the end of week4 of 9 flowering.

This is with B`cuzz coco A+B, not Canna, but I think they have similar properties. I`ll soon find out as I`m switching back to Canna nutes after the next res is used up.

I never had this issue at any other house I`ve been in tho, and know others locally that do well with their tap water. I think there`s maybe some damage to the pipes coming to my property, so much so that I only drink RO water now too!!

I feed mine once a day, with plenty of run-off, 1 plant per 3gall pot straight coco are fed between 1.5 and 2.5 ltrs each watering. Healthy plants that have no issues with defs/lockouts should handle this, ones with issues, I`ve found, dont handle it well and get too wet, causing further problems. That`s my experience anyway, and I also learnt the hard way.

Toke

 

[rrog]

Thanks for keeping it civil, guys. People like me are learning.

 

[Tokesome]

Yeah, some angry people about eh? Heh heh, should smoke more

 

[Sn@tcher420]

bump...

 

[usda101]

dunno what problems your experiencing ,but i been growing in coco since 1994 and never had any ,,

persevere ,dont treat it like soil ,you'll dial it eventually and u will love it ,coco is probably the best medium for growing canabis

im doing my frst grow after studying the process 4 a few years, organic fox farm products are what im using, 60 pot 16 strain grow i no pretty aggressive for a newbie im in my 6th week of veg a freind who gave me so clones came to see them last week 4 the first time an was impressed ,who new i have a green thumb!!!! lol will post pics soon . but anyway im going coco my next grow an will be needing to tap your knowledge i hear yeild is 10% higher an for me its about yeild is this true an how is the flavor as opposed to soil i would go hydro but dont want to give up flavor for yeild on a hydro system ,enlighten me please