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Best Brand Of Coco Coir Today
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neural_rust
New member
Been using bagged canna for awhile, but hese days, I've been using UGrow bricks.. They've been working fine, I like some bigger chunks of coco in my mix these days.. Nothing bad to say about canna, thou.. They're all good, if you know how to use them..
indeed. i did not mean to sound sharply, it would be a pain to have to expand a warehouse worth of bricks as well. but honestly i almost never do any breaking up by hand, i just set the big ones in tupperware, hit them with about 4 gallons and let them grow over an hour. but if i had to do that 50 times at once, i duno, haha...
SecondAttempt
Active member
What did you dislike about the beats peat? I just prepped my third block of it and received 3 more blocks from amazon. By no means is it the best but I've grown some pretty nice plants in it.
i have gone through a hole pallet of it and 3/4 of it is fine{beats peat}. 1/4 of the pallet of the blocks just will not hydrate and or garbage{end of the pressing run?? like straw or course hair} some of them are salty and some of them are not, i have a had a a few good runs with beats peat but i always had to get more blocks then i need cause of the failure rate. I have great success with GH and it is the same price, no failure great product. I got my local feed store to bring it in after a failed pallet of beats peat.....
N
noyd666
the way we go through it won't be long before we find fronds in the bags lol.
Here's the way Cheffy looks at it; if it costs a few bucks more to have an out of the bag product that is pre-buffered, and it yields just a slight amount more in the end...I have saved money and a pain in the ass. Difference in cost per kw planted between the best bagged and compressed coco is no more than $20. If it yields a zip more with the really good bagged, you have lost money buying the bricks.
I've tried probably 8 different kinds of coco. All but one of those needed flushed and charged. Most have a similar ratio of pith (dust) to fiber, but some are definitely worse and better than others. The better mixes in my experience are the ones that have a higher ratio of fiber to pith. It increases drainage. Some brands are almost entirely pith with little or no fibers, and these I find to be subpar with poor drainage. So now what I do when buying coco is just buy any brand that has a high enough fiber content, then flush and charge it if it's necessary, and it almost always is.
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Baron Greenback
Some interesting ideas and uses throughout this topic.
I use u-gro 1 metre slabs which seem to work well for me. I have a recirculating hydroponic system and the only issue is loose coco clogging the water pump from time to time. My ph usually stays nicely within my tolerance and I'm lucky enough to have a well with a 5.9ph.
The other advantage is disposability, I started with rockwool but disposal was difficult. Now, straight onto the compost heap.
I use u-gro 1 metre slabs which seem to work well for me. I have a recirculating hydroponic system and the only issue is loose coco clogging the water pump from time to time. My ph usually stays nicely within my tolerance and I'm lucky enough to have a well with a 5.9ph.
The other advantage is disposability, I started with rockwool but disposal was difficult. Now, straight onto the compost heap.
yep...it's not even close.
I tend to prefer coco that has very small amounts of fiber, the best thing about coco is that even at full saturation you still have about 30% air content, and the products that contain more pith typically retain moisture better resulting in an even more ideal saturation/air ratio...you want to keep coco wet, not dry.
b'cuzz FTW, followed by canna.
fyi- coco that is in compressed bricks is typically coming direct from the source in that form and is just labeled, you are essentially relying on the washing/pretreating done in a 3rd world country that doesn't even have enough fresh water for their citizens to drink, much less to be treating millions of cubic feet of coconut husk...bagged coco's are treated by these companies after they purchase shipping containers filled up with thousands of bricks of compressed coco...they expand,wash/treat, and bag it up. fwiw- I have been debating starting a coco company for the last couple of years...this is how it's done.
also fwiw- peat moss based medium is terribly unsustainable, peat bogs that are 1000's of yeas old are being stripped to nothing. coco is very sustainable, it's a byproduct in nature, and can also support economies in 3rd world countries(sri lanka is where the majority of bagged coco is sourced)
I know coco needs to wet, not dry. That is irrelevant to the fiber content. They will both retain similar amounts of water, but coco that has too much pith drains too slowly. It's a practical concern. I have to wait on it to drain if I'm flushing or whatever, and I don't want to do that. If you don't care how slowly it drains, then it doesn't matter, but that's a big concern of mine. I don't have the patience for slow draining coco.
fulltimehuman
Active member
I tried the coco with perlite etc. I hated that shit. the camo bag whatever that crap is like using foam peanuts to grow in all fluffy.It was that roots organics lame didnt like at all. The botanicare COCOGRO loose bags not the brick too much hassle. I just dumped that no flush nothing and it worked great....some benny's and fungi with the regular nutes and the roots are shooting up thru the top of the coco. I have to get the photos off my old phone of that. Biggest Stems ever in Botanicare coco for me.
how many of you all have gone to reusing the coco indefinitely. theres a few folks out there totally crushing it that do this. not to say its why they are crushing it but it dont seem to be slowing them down by any means. its absolutely necessary to not have root bug outbreaks lol. which is totally doable if you are diligent. one member claimed the coco got better.
im going to start experimenting with this. im doing one 3x6 tray of gold label or canna this round.ill not discard the coco and replant after flushing and charging coco and removing the root ball. reinnoculate and go!
im going to start experimenting with this. im doing one 3x6 tray of gold label or canna this round.ill not discard the coco and replant after flushing and charging coco and removing the root ball. reinnoculate and go!
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Baron Greenback
Mine goes onto the compost heap to be dug into my vegetable patch at a later date. Doesn't seem to be doing that any harm either, it is well flushed and then degrades a bit further on the compost before further use.
Ph fluctuations seem to be less in coco and I like the fact that it is a by-product of another industry.
It's also only personal opinion (with no scientific basis), but I feel that as it's made up (partially)of the "roots" of the coconut, the hairy bits must pick up some valuable nutrients/beneficial fungi that then are passed on to other plants.
Ph fluctuations seem to be less in coco and I like the fact that it is a by-product of another industry.
It's also only personal opinion (with no scientific basis), but I feel that as it's made up (partially)of the "roots" of the coconut, the hairy bits must pick up some valuable nutrients/beneficial fungi that then are passed on to other plants.
