How much to water coco after transplant?

[Martha Focker]

in case you lost it amongst all the bad advices. water once after transplant. don't water again till dry. do this a couple of times until roots are poking or pots dry fast. resume watering like usual everyday keeping top layer moist.

 

[Pragma]

My My.. Lots of bad advice.

The correct way to do it is to lightly water the coco with a low EC (0.6-0.8) solution.

You want two things in the beginning. First for the roots to seek water, and second for them to seek nutes as well.
Dont just dump a lot of water into the coco, finely spread some water in circles midway between the center and edge of the pot..

You don't want too much water because the transplanted plant won't be able to drink it up all fast enough.. You generally want enough water in the pot so that you are able to water again in ~2 days... instead of saturating the pot and waiting a week or so. You also don't want too little though, or the roots won't have any water to seek lol. the coco should be wet to feel but not easily release water if u squeeze it.. Once the coco starts to lighten in colour and the pot starts to feel light its time to water again.

If you aren't sure exactly how much water to initially use,, experiment !
If u have multiple cuts to transplant experiment with different amounts of water and see which performs better,,, tho make sure the cuts are from the same mom and both of equal health or the results might be misleading.

Make sure you start giving runoff by the second or third watering or else the EC in your medium will start to steadily climb. If your coco is precharged with nutes this is extermely important.

Check your runoff regularly and make sure it is equal or less to the input EC (1.2 in veg,, 1.4 in flower for most strains). If it is higher you need to either give more runoff or lower your feed, or feed once with very low or no nutes.

After your plants are about ~20-30cm, maybe 2-3 weeks after sowing depending on conditions and strain, you need to start more or less watering every day. At this point the roots will go hydro and will be able to take several waterings (smaller ones though) per day and this is where the fun starts. Your plant will start growing almost too fast and will bush out more and make thicker stems.. All things you probably want

Hope this helps..
If you need more help feel free to ask.

 

[stoned40yrs]

My My.. Lots of bad advice.

The correct way to do it is to lightly water the coco with a low EC (0.6-0.8) solution.

You want two things in the beginning. First for the roots to seek water, and second for them to seek nutes as well.
Dont just dump a lot of water into the coco, finely spread some water in circles midway between the center and edge of the pot..

You don't want too much water because the transplanted plant won't be able to drink it up all fast enough.. You generally want enough water in the pot so that you are able to water again in ~2 days... instead of saturating the pot and waiting a week or so. You also don't want too little though, or the roots won't have any water to seek lol. the coco should be wet to feel but not easily release water if u squeeze it.. Once the coco starts to lighten in colour and the pot starts to feel light its time to water again.

If you aren't sure exactly how much water to initially use,, experiment !
If u have multiple cuts to transplant experiment with different amounts of water and see which performs better,,, tho make sure the cuts are from the same mom and both of equal health or the results might be misleading.

Make sure you start giving runoff by the second or third watering or else the EC in your medium will start to steadily climb. If your coco is precharged with nutes this is extermely important.

Check your runoff regularly and make sure it is equal or less to the input EC (1.2 in veg,, 1.4 in flower for most strains). If it is higher you need to either give more runoff or lower your feed, or feed once with very low or no nutes.

After your plants are about ~20-30cm, maybe 2-3 weeks after sowing depending on conditions and strain, you need to start more or less watering every day. At this point the roots will go hydro and will be able to take several waterings (smaller ones though) per day and this is where the fun starts. Your plant will start growing almost too fast and will bush out more and make thicker stems.. All things you probably want

Hope this helps..
If you need more help feel free to ask.

Not too bad, you are point on about the moisture content of the coco the transplant should go into and how to nurse root growth. Then ya go and spread some BS about runoff. Thousands of us grow with no runoff in coco. No your ec doesn't rise unless you feed them too high an ec to start with. Also runoff test isn't accurate. If you want to know the ec in the rootzone then you do a slurry test. Start to finish no runoff. Runoff is pouring money down the drain. You don't get any better growth or health with runoff. Blumats and coco FTW

 

[brainzfuxed]

My My.. Lots of bad advice.

The correct way to do it is to lightly water the coco with a low EC (0.6-0.8) solution.

You want two things in the beginning. First for the roots to seek water, and second for them to seek nutes as well.
Dont just dump a lot of water into the coco, finely spread some water in circles midway between the center and edge of the pot..

You don't want too much water because the transplanted plant won't be able to drink it up all fast enough.. You generally want enough water in the pot so that you are able to water again in ~2 days... instead of saturating the pot and waiting a week or so. You also don't want too little though, or the roots won't have any water to seek lol. the coco should be wet to feel but not easily release water if u squeeze it.. Once the coco starts to lighten in colour and the pot starts to feel light its time to water again.

If you aren't sure exactly how much water to initially use,, experiment !
If u have multiple cuts to transplant experiment with different amounts of water and see which performs better,,, tho make sure the cuts are from the same mom and both of equal health or the results might be misleading.

Make sure you start giving runoff by the second or third watering or else the EC in your medium will start to steadily climb. If your coco is precharged with nutes this is extermely important.

Check your runoff regularly and make sure it is equal or less to the input EC (1.2 in veg,, 1.4 in flower for most strains). If it is higher you need to either give more runoff or lower your feed, or feed once with very low or no nutes.

After your plants are about ~20-30cm, maybe 2-3 weeks after sowing depending on conditions and strain, you need to start more or less watering every day. At this point the roots will go hydro and will be able to take several waterings (smaller ones though) per day and this is where the fun starts. Your plant will start growing almost too fast and will bush out more and make thicker stems.. All things you probably want

Hope this helps..
If you need more help feel free to ask.

Pragma you know your shit no question about it but if I may ask. How is my Advice any different than yours? Plants in coco need to go through wet and dry Cycles initially until roots are well established in container. Once they are established is when you can start with daily or multi feeds per day. Initially to start off all my seeds and transplants I have always completely saturated the medium and Then wait til coco is dry til watering again. It has never proved me wrong yet and plants are as Healthy can be for me. The only problems I've had have been later in plant development but starting seeds or transplanting is easy peasy after you've done it once or twice. I think it's one of those things that you just have to learn how to read your plant and your medium. Since we are talking about coco its important to keep it moist not wet cuz u can over water. But after roots are fully established in container you cannot over water. And I think this is where people go wrong with coco. It is a hydro medium but you have to treat it as a soil medium (in terms of watering) initially but after roots have sought out container is when you really can treat it as hydro and understand the potential and the results. I appreciate the great discussion we r having as am I always trying to learn and advance my skill set and green thumb as well

 

[MickFoster]

@Mick When you say you "Saturate" and "never let dry out", does that mean you water to run off?

Yes - everytime I water to run off.

 

[Pragma]

@brainzfuxed:
Thanks for your kind words again . I think you've misunderstood what I said.
Yes, exactly, plants in coco initially need the wet/dry cycle which is why you don't completely saturate the coco initially so the wet/dry cycle can be around ~2-3 days instead of much more if the coco is "saturated".

Just like you don't completely saturate your rapidrooters initially to encourage root growth (and avoid rot) you want to do the same thing with the coco. A bit wet but not too much, and cycle it to dry a few times for the first week.

You -can- saturate the coco initially and in most cases nothing goes wrong. You just get a bit slower (relative to nonsaturated) growth for the first few days. I've done it both ways for a while to see which is better and for me initially having the coco not completely watered helps accelerate the cuttings taking.

@stoned40yrs:
Not too bad ? lol thanks I try
Not sure what to say. I disagree with almost every statement you made because my experience has shown me otherwise.
Runoff EC readings are not useless when you are feeding multiple times per day.
They might not be exact obviously but seeing whether the runoff EC is higher or lower than input EC when you multifeed tells you a lot about how much the plant is feeding, whether it needs more EC or not (BEFORE it starts showing signs.. IF you care about perfecting your grow), and whether or not your runoff is enough.
I've never had to do a slurry test because I don't allow the EC to rise in my medium to begin with

Cheers

 

[Pragma]

@Underveggies:

First watering to prepare the coco for cuttings you don't need runoff. Again you just want to dampen up the coco and since you are probably using bagged coco which is moisty you don't need to water alot.

After that I would advise you to give runoff everytime you water so you don't accumulate salts in your medium.

 

[brainzfuxed]

@brainzfuxed:
Thanks for your kind words again . I think you've misunderstood what I said.
Yes, exactly, plants in coco initially need the wet/dry cycle which is why you don't completely saturate the coco initially so the wet/dry cycle can be around ~2-3 days instead of much more if the coco is "saturated".

Just like you don't completely saturate your rapidrooters initially to encourage root growth (and avoid rot) you want to do the same thing with the coco. A bit wet but not too much, and cycle it to dry a few times for the first week.

You -can- saturate the coco initially and in most cases nothing goes wrong. You just get a bit slower (relative to nonsaturated) growth for the first few days. I've done it both ways for a while to see which is better and for me initially having the coco not completely watered helps accelerate the cuttings taking.

@stoned40yrs:
Not too bad ? lol thanks I try
Not sure what to say. I disagree with almost every statement you made because my experience has shown me otherwise.
Runoff EC readings are not useless when you are feeding multiple times per day.
They might not be exact obviously but seeing whether the runoff EC is higher or lower than input EC when you multifeed tells you a lot about how much the plant is feeding, whether it needs more EC or not (BEFORE it starts showing signs.. IF you care about perfecting your grow), and whether or not your runoff is enough.
I've never had to do a slurry test because I don't allow the EC to rise in my medium to begin with

Cheers

@pragma
I guess the reason I flood or completely saturate immediately after transplanting is to help the coco set around the plant and the medium and to get the medium on the same ph and Ppm of my desired solution mix. I would almost call it a quick reset. Now I live in a dry state so maybe this wouldn't work in a different environment.

 

[mango420]

Lots of different advice here, as a newb to coco mixes your going to have to try things a few different ways to see what works best for your plants and strains. Obviously there are different ways to grow in coco and coco mixes. I will add my 2 cents to the pile as I have experimented with coco and mixes for years. I now run roughly 80% perlite the rest coco and will be sticking with that ratio. When transplanting into a smaller pot like a 2g I would wet the mix so you can work with it and make your space for the rootball. Tp it and feed with whatever your feeding them, I would feed them enough so they are dry the next day and need feed again. This way they will pretty much be over the tp shock in less than 24 hours. I find the more you soak the pot your tping into the longer they take to recover, this really goes more for larger 5, 10, 20 gal pots altho the principle still applies in smaller ones. Once they recover i would put them through a couple wet dry cycles then start feeding everyday. I dont feed to runoff and never test my runoff ppm or ph anymore. Once you get experienced enough you can look at a plant and can tell if the roots are dry, too wet, overfed, underfed etc. And if people think i dont know what im talking about check out some of my plants on coco trees thread. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=208236&page=9

 

[northernm]

@brainzfuxed:
Thanks for your kind words again . I think you've misunderstood what I said.
Yes, exactly, plants in coco initially need the wet/dry cycle which is why you don't completely saturate the coco initially so the wet/dry cycle can be around ~2-3 days instead of much more if the coco is "saturated".

Just like you don't completely saturate your rapidrooters initially to encourage root growth (and avoid rot) you want to do the same thing with the coco. A bit wet but not too much, and cycle it to dry a few times for the first week.

You -can- saturate the coco initially and in most cases nothing goes wrong. You just get a bit slower (relative to nonsaturated) growth for the first few days. I've done it both ways for a while to see which is better and for me initially having the coco not completely watered helps accelerate the cuttings taking.

@stoned40yrs:
Not too bad ? lol thanks I try
Not sure what to say. I disagree with almost every statement you made because my experience has shown me otherwise.
Runoff EC readings are not useless when you are feeding multiple times per day.
They might not be exact obviously but seeing whether the runoff EC is higher or lower than input EC when you multifeed tells you a lot about how much the plant is feeding, whether it needs more EC or not (BEFORE it starts showing signs.. IF you care about perfecting your grow), and whether or not your runoff is enough.
I've never had to do a slurry test because I don't allow the EC to rise in my medium to begin with

Cheers

100% correct as per my experience!

Re Saturation:
I just transplanted from 1l (about 0,25g) to 6,5l (about 1,6g) coco and saturated the coco till runoff after the plant was in her new pot...took her about a full week to start growing again.
Clones in a moderate moistened medium would have rooted much faster and would have started growing at least 2-3 days earlier.

Re Runoff readings:
There def is a relationship between runoff readings and plant health/vitality. Surely there are differences to be noticed between runoff of, let´s say, 1,0 EC or 1,6 EC. Signs of over fertilisation will show with a couple of days delay.
Of course a slurry test is more accurate when it comes to the "real" EC of the medium, but the main task of measuring runoff is to see the direction of movement of the EC value, the trend, not the EC-value of a single measure.
By the way: I had some serious pH-problems during my latest run due to the coco I used, I took runoff readings several times and also did the slurry test several times, the values of both are very close to each other, so yes, runoff readings are helpful, at least when multifeeding...

Just my 2 cents...

I am no native English speaker, so if anything is hard to understand or if there are mistakes in grammar/vocabulary, please don't hesitate to correct me

Greetz
N

 

[stoned40yrs]

@stoned40yrs:
Not too bad ? lol thanks I try
Not sure what to say. I disagree with almost every statement you made because my experience has shown me otherwise.


Cheers

I never put down something without trying it first. I hand watered to waste for 5 months last winter. The waste was my time and the amount of good nutes I was pouring down the drain. NO BENEFITS over no runoff. I think from reading that there are more people who grow with no runoff in coco then grow with runoff. It also saves you from the urge to check runoff because there is NONE. I noticed you never tried to defend your statement that you need runoff to grow in coco. Goodluck

 

[carson]

Stoned, doesn't that mean that some of the coco is dry in the pot? I have read that dry spots are bad for roots because the EC increases in those areas. How do you know the pot doesn't have dry spots if you don't get any runoff?

It's obvious that there are many ways to skin a cat, so I don't know why people get so argumentative in these kinds of threads. Present your opinion and move on, no point trying to "win" and unwinnable argument.

 

[stoned40yrs]

Stoned, doesn't that mean that some of the coco is dry in the pot? I have read that dry spots are bad for roots because the EC increases in those areas. How do you know the pot doesn't have dry spots if you don't get any runoff?

It's obvious that there are many ways to skin a cat, so I don't know why people get so argumentative in these kinds of threads. Present your opinion and move on, no point trying to "win" and unwinnable argument.

True, lots of ways to grow in coco. That said there are defiantly winnable arguments. When a false statement is made to some newbie I'm jumping in and it's not with an opinion.
Fact- You can overwater a plant in coco when it's root system isn't developed enough in the container. After transplant is an especially bad time to overwater.
Fact- You don't need runoff to grow in coco.
These are NOT unwinnable statements

 

[stoned40yrs]

Stoned, doesn't that mean that some of the coco is dry in the pot? I have read that dry spots are bad for roots because the EC increases in those areas. How do you know the pot doesn't have dry spots if you don't get any runoff?

No I've never seen a dry spot after removing the rootball from a container. Coco wicks very well. That said you have to give the container enough water/feed for it to spread the wealth. No runoff isn't my idea, like I said I think more guys do no runoff than runoff. Start a thread saying you NEED runoff in coco if ya want to get stomped by the no runoff guys.

 

[Martha Focker]

i water for no runoff. sometimes a little drips out. then i have to clean up mess

it's not hard to properly water a pot and have no runoff. timed drippers, knowing how much you need to water, weight of pots. etc. many ways to water and not get runoff. if you water slow you don't have to worry about dry spots.

 

[Phases]

I have had problems going from solo cup to 2gal and overwatering. You need to let the roots get established before you start feeding daily or multiple times per day.

Stoned is right you will end up with problems of you start feeding till runoff right away. Give them a good water then let them dry up a bit. Not bone dry just till the pot feels light, it is key to establish a good root system. I learned this the hard way.

 

[Asslover]

FYI, Botanicare calls for water until runoff every time. Been doing it that way for 10 years now with stellar results (check my album).
Phases is 100% correct, water through thoroughly (runoff) the first time and don't water them again until the pot is almost dry. What you're trying to do is get the roots growing down into the coco as they chase the water. Coco dries from the top down.
Anytime you water i would do it to compete runoff. You want to exchange the old with the new completely (nutrients) and pull in fresh O2 as the water passes through the coco.
Can you water without runoff? Sure. But it's not the recommended way...Coco is not soil, and shouldn't be treated that way.
Ain't trying to start a pissing contest with those that do no runoff. To each there own.

 

[stoned40yrs]

FYI, Botanicare calls for water until runoff every time. Been doing it that way for 10 years now with stellar results (check my album).
Phases is 100% correct, water through thoroughly (runoff) the first time and don't water them again until the pot is almost dry. What you're trying to do is get the roots growing down into the coco as they chase the water. Coco dries from the top down.
Anytime you water i would do it to compete runoff. You want to exchange the old with the new completely (nutrients) and pull in fresh O2 as the water passes through the coco.
Can you water without runoff? Sure. But it's not the recommended way...Coco is not soil, and shouldn't be treated that way.
Ain't trying to start a pissing contest with those that do no runoff. To each there own.

If you don't want to start a pissing contest then don't say watering with runoff is the "recommended way". So some bozo nute company "recommends" to pour their nutes down the drain so you'll have to buy more of their nutes FASTER and this is the TRUE PATH. BS

 

[Phases]

I have heard that drop clean is awesome when using coco and not having a lot of runoff - I think having a little bit of runoff is good but I think both ways can be done. But using like more than 10% seems like a lot to waste, esp when running a ton of plants. If it's only a small show then not a big deal.

 

[Asslover]

If you don't want to start a pissing contest then don't say watering with runoff is the "recommended way". So some bozo nute company "recommends" to pour their nutes down the drain so you'll have to buy more of their nutes FASTER and this is the TRUE PATH. BS

Nowhere do they say to use their own brand of nutrients, just to water until runoff is achieved. Nor do they say how much runoff.
Don't get upset with me brother, take it up with coco manufacturer's.
Good on you for saving a few pennies on your grow, ain't nobody knocking you for it, but those "bozo" nutrient companies, the one that manufacture some of the best coco sold, they know a thing or two. Take it or leave it. You offered your method, i offered mine. You follow your own path, i follow the directions.
Stating the manufacturer's recommended way is just that, putting up pictures of my plants and comparing them to yours is a pissing contest...