coco runoff

[HIGHGROOVE]

hey community wanted your dieas...reading a old post from the legend lucas he explained having run off in coco isnt good? my plants are day 18 flower and i water about every 3days maybe 4 in 3 gallon ccontaincers of pure coco....so whats teh deal is run off ok in this situation because theya re getting a chance to dry out a lil and breath let me know your ideas

 

[reddy1]

i would say runoff is a must in you are watering that infrequent. you don't want to let those nutrient salts and fungus' to build up. any green or white stuff on the surface? make sure you check the runoff pH and EC.

 

[pray4pistils]

Yeah, what reddy1 said. Flushing is absolutely crucial. Some fungus is great to have, though. Feed with a tea containing beneficial organisms and you won't have to worry about the bad stuff.

 

[petemoss]

The reason Lucas says not to water coco to runoff is that the coco will remain too wet that way. He recommends daily watering but only enough to keep the coco moist but not sopping wet. Only add what the plant uses in a day.
If you water soil or coco without runoff, salts will accumulate. Regular flushing with water only will prevent salt buildup.

 

[Guest 18340]

I dont know about that. I've been taught to water to 15% runoff. I do whole runs without flushing until the last week of harvest. The very reason you water to runoff is to wash away the salt build up.
I dont understand his statement. Coco doesnt ever remain too wet for me, if it was, the plants sure didnt mind.
Anybody out there growing in coco without any runoff?

 

[theHIGHlander]

I dont know about that. I've been taught to water to 15% runoff. I do whole runs without flushing until the last week of harvest. The very reason you water to runoff is to wash away the salt build up.
I dont understand his statement. Coco doesnt ever remain too wet for me, if it was, the plants sure didnt mind.
Anybody out there growing in coco without any runoff?

^^^^^^^ same hear bro

keep it green
highlander

 

[Wait...What?]

too wet?? coco??? isn't that like saying rockwool is too wet?

 

[petemoss]

I always heard that you can't overwater coco and that you should water frequently, until 15% runoff. I had poor results in my last run following this advice. Maybe it was the tall, narrow 20 oz soda bottles I used, but my pots stayed wet for days and the plant's roots suffered. I've since followed Lucas' advice with much better results. Here's what Lucas has to say about runoff in coco. (Cut and pasted from the tread "ask Lucas"):

> 4. Is feeding everyother day a good Idea for coco, no matter if the medium is dry or not?
No
it is very bad to water a plant that is already too wet
to feed and water properly, you should NOT water till runoff in your coco based medium
instead, you should only water as much as the plant drinks in one day.. THEN you could feed every day
watering not too much is an art.
Watering coco till it has runoff is a very bad idea. It hurts the plants if they stay wet for more than 3 days. They need to breathe.

> What is the watering schedule for coco ?
depends how big the pot is, how big the plant is, and how fast the pot dries out. You want it to dry out daily, so you can water daily, but, only give enough water to be used up by the plant..
it would probably kill a 6" plant if you put it in a 5 gallon pot and water it till runoff every day.
> 5. If run off is a must with coco can I still use 3 gallon pots, thats a lot of feeding to get run off and a lot of saturation if feeding everyday ?

runoff in coco is not your friend.. as you are surmising, abandon the idea of runoff in coco

> 6. at the old cannabis world I read that growgreen yields better with the Floranova lucas formula with floracious bloom than with pbpb formula, what are your thoughts ?

Yield is more based on plant health, which is more based on not overwatering, than on what is being fed.
Learn to water enough, but not too much
if you are going to feed with every watering.. figure out how many times you water per week, then feed a ppm that adds up to 1000 per week on a .5 meter
iow, if you water 4 times a week, feed 250ppm each time..
or, as you have developed a system of feeding twice and watering once, keep doing that, but again, figure out how often that happens per week, and make it add up to 1000.. iow, if you are watering 3x per week with 2 of them being feed.. use 500ppm each feed, twice, the plain water once..
the goal is to get the runoff not to be above 1000ppm.. but you should not check for runoff every single watering
(find my posts about how to water and read more)
hth
Lucas

 

[Greyskull]

there are many different ways to successfully grow cannabis in coco
what works for some may not work for others

i ebb n flow my main crops, which are in 8" pots, and i flood them 3x per lights on. Been doing so for almost 2 years now. Works great. I've got a couple of friends I helped set up the exact same way (strains & nutes) and they are gettign the exact same results i have grown accustomed too...

while i also have a crop of plants in 1g containers under a spare light i am hand feeding, and they get fed daily (1/2L per pass... 2 passes) with maybe 10% runoff. NO FLUSH YET AND WONT HAPPEN UNTIL DAY 56 (of 63). they look just as good except i am breaking my back bending over to water them plants each day....

as long as you are "hands on" and dedicate time to your garden you will be successful regardless of your style

 

[DeezyH]

i would say runoff is a must in you are watering that infrequent. you don't want to let those nutrient salts and fungus' to build up. any green or white stuff on the surface? make sure you check the runoff pH and EC.

**HIJACK**

I just noticed this white stuff growing on some of the coco, what is it and should i be concerned?

I should probably elaborate more:

The last two waterings I had no runoff, and now there is white stuff growing on the top of the coco. I just did a ph'ed tap water watering with ~15% runoff. I've noticed that the very top of the coco is getting dried out after about a day in between waterings, but my plant sometimes droops after watering like its getting to much.

 

[krunchbubble]

in my group of growers, we do constant side by side comparisons to find what is the best. in a side by side comparison, keeping the coco moist and not soaked significantly increased yields, big time.
we used to water coco till there was runoff or a certain set time. now watering 1 min, 3 times a day on drippers. my last run was 6+ lb's with 3000 watts.
if you use drip clean from house and garden, you never need to flush. it creates an ionic bond with the salt in your nutrient, making it impossible to lockup! look into it, trust me

 

[BobbleheadJed]

Here's an interesting article that touches on the subject.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=116785

I water every day in 4 gallons buckets with a good 10% runoff at least. I had big problems with ph drifting too high in the coco and locking out nutes when I didn't water every day. I stopped flushing with plain water also.

There are too many variables to know what will work good and what will work great. Pot size, temps, lights, etc. Less water more often seems to be the optimum.

Only when plants are small have I noticed overwaterng symptoms. Once they've got good roots, you really can't over water in coco or I would have by now. Although might depend on coco brand and I also added perlite, which I won't next time.

 

[Wait...What?]

Commercial farmers [the people who grow your food] target a 5% runoff rate. Just enough to make sure the old stuff is replaced with new stuff.

Here's some good reading on the subject:
Application of Fertilizer and Water

if you want to poo-poo it becuase it isn't coco, that's up to you. the concepts and methods are still sound.

 

[Guest 18340]

Good reading indeed

 

[HIGHGROOVE]

humm now you gusy have me questioning what im doing...3gallon pots pure coco fed every 4days last time i watered id say give or take about 25percent runoff...shoulld i cut it back? day 37flower gdp

 

[Tony Danza]

Day 37 is kinda late to make a major change in style. How big of a plant are you growing in that 3g pot? If it's not a huge plant, you might try a smaller pot with more frequent watering. Watering frequency is what puts coco into overdrive, when you replace the water, you replace the oxygen, the only time I don't water daily is right after transplant when there isn't adequate root coverage to process the water. But I only grow in 1 and 2 gallon pots, big pots can be a whole different thing.

I'm thinking about cranking it up to the 1min 3x method.

My leaf tips usually get cooked when my coco is allowed to dry.

I think that Lucas post might be old. I've read a few coco threads from 3-4 years ago and they are full of stuff that would be laughed right out of this sub-forum today, while everybody does it different, I would say most people here are watering daily or more, these days anyway. And slight runoff is about as close to a carved in stone law of the universe as it gets. But then again, people make shit work that goes against the rules all the time.

 

[krunchbubble]

trying to tell ya, moist coco, not wet coco will give you the yields and quality you want......

 

[RetroGrow]

Yup. Gotta agree with Lucas and others.
I am on my third coco run, and having noticed that watering until runoff kind of leaves the ladies droopy and stagnant, I began watering/feeding lightly, just a cup of water poured on the plants, not soaking them. Well, the result has been very positive, with better growth and happier plants. Not sure if this has anything to do with re-using the coco. I have noticed that the performance of the coco seems to diminish after re-using. It just seems as though the coco breaks down into smaller particles, which maybe don't allow for the same oxygen content?
Anyway, I'm going to go drip on my next run, as it seems evident that watering lightly, but frequently, gives better results.

 

[Wait...What?]

I dont know how you guys get enough coco left to re-use in the first place. I'm left with a giant solid root mass when I take it out of the grow bag.

on edit: I don't get the droopy thing, either. Droopy when foliar feeding, sure, but from regular watering? I'm not sure what that is all about...they shouldn't droop simply from being watered at the root zone.

 

[RetroGrow]

You shake/squeeze it and the coco separates from the roots. Then I run it through a colander to get remaining roots out. Yes, coco is reusable, although I believe new coco works better.