Am I too noob for coco?

[Guest]

Does my heart good to see all these coco folks. It's truly a great medium. Unless it's Canna or B'Cuzz coco coir, pre-soak your coco to keep from having residual salt in the coco from the very beginning. Canna and B'Cuzz may be used right out of the bag. May be others that are ok but these two I have personal experience with.

Peace

 

[Guest]

blackone

I am a newbie to coco......

It helps to know how to check ph and tds and such so any hydro experience is a plus but not necessary in my opinion....

Like it's been said, water daily, or spread out a little if in bigger containers...just keep a constant flush don't let it dry up.... and feed mildly...that's what me and a buddy have been doing with good results for a first run......

Good to have you as a coco convert, Berry_Coughin'

You're gonna do great! I would suggest anyone starting out try to stick to daily watering to runoff. Even in 3 gallon pots.

I use 3 gallon pots and when I watered by hand, my ec stopped climbing when I started watering once a day and increased my runoff to 20%. As a result, I only had to flush twice during the 4 month grow and one of those was because I used Cal-Mag+ and my plants didn't like it. Probably got something to do with my tap water. Or maybe Cal-Mag+ isn't necessary with tap/ro mixing. Anyway, I'm using a recirc system now and go with a 200% runoff each watering twice daily. I guess I'm really flushing every time I water, hehe.

Peace

 

[blackone]

Thanks, a lot of activity here at the coco board

blackone hows that sweettooth comin?

My sweet tooth is doing ok - I'll get some more pics of them later.
It's not gonna yield much but I don't think that budrot will be a problem either - The humidity is pretty low in my room because it's winter. I'll be harvesting them in a week or so and after that it's one more soil grow before I might go coco.

I've got pretty hard water where I live with an EC of 0.6 so I don't think I need Cal-Mag.

 

[Guest]

I reckon coco is really, really easy to get great results with. Start simple, I recommend Canna Coco a+b and canna coco. You don't really need additives other than PK13-14 imho. Just keep ph 5.5-6 and handwater once a day till 10% runoff and you'll get really good results I reckon.

 

[blackone]

If I go coco it won't be handwatering that's for sure One of the reasons why I wanna try coco or hydro instead is that I'm tired of watering all of the time;p Or rather my gf is tired of me watering all of the time I personally wouldn't mind watering twice every day hehehe.

 

[Guest]

If I go coco it won't be handwatering that's for sure One of the reasons why I wanna try coco or hydro instead is that I'm tired of watering all of the time;p Or rather my gf is tired of me watering all of the time I personally wouldn't mind watering twice every day hehehe.

Drip systems are definitely the way to go if you or someone who bothers you, hehe, is tired of handwatering, lmfao.

I feel exactly the same as British_Hempire on coco. Simple is good. I've got my watering timer set so that it comes on with the lights and waters immediately. It's set to water ever 10 hours so then it waters again 2 hours before lights out. It's got a photocell in it that automatically turns it off at lights out so the whole process happens daily.

Peace

 

[aeric]

To answer the 1st post....no problem at all, go for it you won't look back, it's better IMO (when using drip, or handwatering) than either soil or full on hydro, all things considered. You're wasting precious time and space if u do a side by side, or just one more time with soil, etc...

Mojo: have u thought about 3-4 waterings/day every 3-4 hours? Or situation doesn't allow? You will see a marked improvement bulee-dat lol.

 

[OGRaq]

Yea I agree, coco is very forgiving, really simple medium to work with, you shouldn't have any problems, just listen to everyone you'll be fine

 

[Guest]

To answer the 1st post....no problem at all, go for it you won't look back, it's better IMO (when using drip, or handwatering) than either soil or full on hydro, all things considered. You're wasting precious time and space if u do a side by side, or just one more time with soil, etc...

Mojo: have u thought about 3-4 waterings/day every 3-4 hours? Or situation doesn't allow? You will see a marked improvement bulee-dat lol.

I'm not opposed to trying it. Of course I know you've watered every way possible more than likely, but are you sure about this? Seems to me there was some discussion a while back where "scientist" and some others were raising hell about being in favor of letting the coco dry out. Anyway, gaius came back and said he waters 4 times daily but if growing in pots, one should water once or twice a day.

I'll try it. Don't know when but I will, lol. I've got a second 3x6 tray and res I didn't use this grow already set up. I can literally do a side by side. Thanks for trying to help me increase yields. I'll take all that kind of help I can get.

Peace

 

[aeric]

IMO to water multiple X daily it is advisable to have pots no larger than 1 gal., unless in a vertical situation where plants can get pretty tall/wide. I'm thinking in terms of ratio of pot size to plant size....where the plant is 4x or more the height of the pot, that is where the benefit of multiples can really show. I've watered once every 3 days in larger pots, every 2, every 1, and per day 2x,3x,4x and guess which was the best? You may also be able to guess that there was no negative side effects at each point or i would have stopped? lol. I really sound like I'm preaching though, sorry if it sounds that way....just amazed by the results and want others to join, but each has his/her own path to that point. I'm just thinking if ur already autowatering...why not go all the way?

 

[blackone]

yeah I want to do sog grows in either small pots (3.5L) or just on slabs. Problem with slabs as I see it is that I'm pretty much forced to clone in rockwool then. I could of course let the rooted clones grow a solid root system in 0.4-1L square pots with extra holes in the bottom and place them on top of the slabs..

Am I understanding it correctly that overwatering in coco is not a problem as long as the medium can drain freely so it doesn't have standing water? (Although it seems like some people are even having success with standing water in hempy buckets)

 

[BillowingBudMkr]

Even the article says for smaller pots more frequent waterings are desireable to prevent the medium from drying out. You would think if you could maintain optimal humidity and air/oxygen and nutes in the medium the frequency of waterings becomes irrelevant. Something that would be cool is to have some kind of humidty sensor in your soil and set it for 55-60 and set your system to go off until it hits the desired humidity level. Obviously this would be a low nute setup.

From canna:

A common rule is that one daily watering is
sufficient during the first few weeks under normal
circumstances; then increase up to 2 times a day;
2 hours after the lamps have been turned on and
2 hours before they are switched off again. Please
keep in mind, smaller root volumes per plant (small
pots or many plants per slab) will make Coco dry out
quickly. Therefore it is critical to water these plants
more often.

 

[aeric]

Blockone: Rockwool, why? I clone in rockwool but no need, just easier. A little block of RW will not conflict with the coco in any way. You can also use those little mouthwash cups to clone in, fill 'em with coir, also i believe there is a brand of plugs that are made with coco.

You would think if you could maintain optimal humidity and air/oxygen and nutes in the medium the frequency of waterings becomes irrelevant.

I'll ask this...if you think in terms of flowing water (each watering) adding oxygen, and more oxygen = more rapid growth and yield....then what is better...supplementing oxygen once or even a few times per day, or all the time? What would be optimal? Hehe it sounds odd doesn't it? Coco has optimal water/air ratio within a few minutes of draining after irrigation, so technically we could water once every....say...10 minutes. Canna changes their recommendations all the time....I don't pay them any mind any more, but the fundamentals they laid down years ago are still mostly relevant IMO.

 

[blackone]

What would you do with the coco cups or plugs after the clones root? Place them in larger rockwool cubes and put them on the slabs or just plant them in the slabs?

Notaving any experience with drip-watering: would I have trouble anchoring the dripper spikes if I'm not using rockwool plugs?

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

Coco is easier than hydro so I don't see why you'd need to learn hydro first.

You should probably have a PH and PPM/EC meter, and that's likely why many people say learn hydro or seem to already have this info by the time they try coco.

Coco should be more forgiving in root temps and PH stability, but of course you'll always need a supply of coco and be throwing away coco vs plain water.
I'd think of coco more like hydro with a built in PH buffer. Hydro with a chiller would prove to be less work and more ideal imo, but who can handle those high up front costs.

 

[humble1]

Stick your babies direct on the slabs and handwater in to insure even moisture.

The dripstakes should be installed when you place your babies iin their final destination,

so that you don't disturb the roots. No muss, no fuss!

Peace, Love, & Coco

 

[blackone]

Yeah coco does seem to be the lowest cost up front for me, unless I go for dwc or a DYI ebb-flow. I got a Hanna PH/EC/Temp combo that I'm already using in soil. Coco slabs seem to be the cheapest option but of course it has the disadvantage that when clones are rooted in the slabs then it's too late to move the plants around.