Taking mother plants out of hydro into CocoTek?

[NotMeYou]

Hey, I live on these forums, but there are soooooooo many people saying sooooo many different things that I get confused!

I try to take the majority opinion of reading everything, but still get nervous, so here is my question.

Taking 3 week old (4 nodes I guess and I just FIM'd it too today...hopefully not too big of deal since I cut off like less than millimeter little plants tendril thingamajiggies) plants from hydro into COCOTEK that will be 1 gallon pots for 2 "mothers". (These will be their final pot they go in if that matters)

Here is the plan....

1. Put COCOTEK into big bucket and add water till it's soupy. I usually use a Brita water filter, but maybe I should just use tap water? (I don't have RO water before you tell me to use it..hehehe!)

2. Mix it up until it drains out and is more soil-like. Then rinse it again.

3. Mix up a solution PH balanced water (6.1?) and add 2 ml of Canna A and 2 ml of Canna B for Coco

4. Add a little Cal/Mag..not sure how much to use yet though.

5. MAYBE add Rhyzotonic for added root growth? These mothers need to get a move on so I can make 12 clones out of the 2 plants (6 each should be easy after a few weeks right?). The plants are currently only about 5 inches with about 4 nodes already (that's 4 levels of the big fan leaves, right?)

6. Then I was going to rinse the COCOTEK with the above light nute solution and I was thinking that I would layer the bottom of the pot with an inch or so of the COCOTEK and then slowing let the roots kind of lay down on the Coco in a circular motion while kind of letting more Coco "snowing down" and cover the roots as I'm laying them in until the roots are all covered and the plant in its 3" rockwool can sit in the pot and be the right height which I think is having the rockwool barely sit above the coco like a half millimeter.

7. Then back under their Veg light.

8. I don't think I will water it because I have "rinsed" the COCOTEK the final time before putting the plant in with the very mild nute solution.

9. Then I wait until the Coco feels dry on the top and start the normal nute cycle.

Does that sound, right? What am I missing?

Thanks so much for any help you can give me. I MIGHT have the start of root rot because of record temps here making my res get too warm, so that's why I'm doing this now and I'm hoping that these 2 plants get free of it (if it is even happening...the roots are brown in a few spots on some plants, so I don't know if it is staining from FloraNova Bloom and the little floralicious plus I gave them last nute feeding).

 

[10k]

The part you're missing is that you're wanting to have these be your mother plants.
Hopefully they're females, but that's beside the point right now...

Yes, it's doable, but they're just little sprouts in 3" rockwool. A better approach would be to move the two little sprouts to something a little more "mother friendly" like a sunshine mix with some added perlite. In such soil planters, maintaining the mom's over the long run will be a lot easier and less stressful on the mom's. You'll be able to practice bonzai techniques like root pruning etc to keep her around for a long term and productive when you need cuttings.

I'd start by very carefully peeling away the as much rockwool as possible from the root systems. It's really simple, with the cube wet holding it in your hand carefully peel the rw away in fine little string like strips starting at the corners of the cubes. It's not going to harm the roots too much except for maybe breaking off some of the very fine root hairs on the roots that are protruding out of the rockwool. Stop when you get close to the small'ish rootball. If the remaining roots are looking sickly, pretreat them by soaking in a weak h202 solution and then transplant into your planters the way you described in step six, only bury the seedlings all the way up to just below where the round leaves were. Don't fert the promix except for maybe a little b1 vitamin treatment like superthrive or thrive alive.

Keep them under fluorescent lighting until they've recovered from the transplanting stresses. Don't feed them until they're asking for it after they're showing healthy foliage growth. Anyway, you can do the same thing with coco, but it would demand more daily care to keep the moms happy in coco vs using a sunshine mix (promix) with about 20% perlite added.

hth,
10k

 

[Smoke Kush]

The part you're missing is that you're wanting to have these be your mother plants.
Hopefully they're females, but that's beside the point right now...

Yes, it's doable, but they're just little sprouts in 3" rockwool. A better approach would be to move the two little sprouts to something a little more "mother friendly" like a sunshine mix with some added perlite. In such soil planters, maintaining the mom's over the long run will be a lot easier and less stressful on the mom's. You'll be able to practice bonzai techniques like root pruning etc to keep her around for a long term and productive when you need cuttings.

I'd start by very carefully peeling away the as much rockwool as possible from the root systems. It's really simple, with the cube wet holding it in your hand carefully peel the rw away in fine little string like strips starting at the corners of the cubes. It's not going to harm the roots too much except for maybe breaking off some of the very fine root hairs on the roots that are protruding out of the rockwool. Stop when you get close to the small'ish rootball. If the remaining roots are looking sickly, pretreat them by soaking in a weak h202 solution and then transplant into your planters the way you described in step six, only bury the seedlings all the way up to just below where the round leaves were. Don't fert the promix except for maybe a little b1 vitamin treatment like superthrive or thrive alive.

Keep them under fluorescent lighting until they've recovered from the transplanting stresses. Don't feed them until they're asking for it after they're showing healthy foliage growth. Anyway, you can do the same thing with coco, but it would demand more daily care to keep the moms happy in coco vs using a sunshine mix (promix) with about 20% perlite added.

hth,
10k

I second that, Coco is too demanding for mothers. A good basic soil mix is a lot easier too maintain over longer periods of time. If thats what you want to do. If your just going to flower them, you got the right idea.

 

[raygun]

Coco mothers aren't that much of a pain if you work in your veg room often. I like that I can super charge them when needed to grow or stunt them when I don't need them to grow fast. Since I'm in my veg room almost daily for watering of my other plants it's not that big of a deal to care. But that's because of my current set up and situation. So don't be afraid to proceed with your coco mothers just realize it will be more work than dumping them in soil and watering once a while to let them do there thing. But I think you loose some control over the growth rate.

I do however 3rd 10k's "remove the rockwool" statement for sure. That will rot your stems faster than anything. Also in coco you can sink your plants all the way to the first set of branches, not jut the first set of round leaves, and only leave a small portion of the vertical stem showing. Roots will grow all along the covered stem eventually.
When I transplanted this one I sunk it all the way to that first set of small branches and cut off those small branches for clones leaving between an inch or two of vert stem. This helps me keep the height down a little as well.

Disclaimer - I've only mothered one plant in soil and I am no soil master and don't have a whole lot of experience but did kept mothers in DWC/SWC/bubbling cups/buckets in the past, and now coco and I like that I can feed them lightly when I don't need them to grow and then pumping them up to produce shoots/clones with a quickness when I need them. In coco its hard to under or over water coco and you can save your plants from just about any root/nutrient ailment instantly. Still go bonsai and root prune ect.

I know that this ^^looks ugly but it was on its last legs but it was kept in the cut off bottom of a small water bottle probably 4-6oz of coco in there and this was after I aggressively trimmed it way back to try some true bonsai shaping with it. It was just a male that I had and really was an experiment to how small a container and how long could I keep a plant in that small of a container. It was in here for a few months 3+ before I finally just stopped watering it and let it die as I needed the room in my veg area. This would produce at least 6 cuttings about 4 inches tall every month if you needed. (obviously not in its current state with so few branches but before the trimming it was at least 2wice as full.)

View image in gallery​

And here is my veg box and I would consider my veg to be a micro grow. less than 3x2 area All 100% coco from seeds to clones to mothers. Using from 4oz cups, 3x3x3 pots & 16oz cups depending on the stage. I like to have them get a little root bound in each before the next transplant.

So for me coco moms are just the ticket and not really any extra work as I already have work to do almost daily in the veg box anyways.

Sorry for the long post I don't know what happend but all the sudden I wrote a picture book in your thread...
Safe Growing
~raygun~

 

[NotMeYou]

I see

I see

Okay, I already planted it WITH the rockwool surrounding it.

Should I got grab it and take it off since I just did it a few hours ago?

I'm around it every day, so no worries. It's all in a little BloomBox, so mother are in same room as the veggers.

 

[NotMeYou]

Some rockwool left?

Some rockwool left?

I couldn't get ALL of the rockwool off. The roots were to compacted in a couple of spots and after a few surprising painful "pops" of roots snapping, I decided to just leave some rockwool.

Hopefully they will be okay.

 

[raygun]

It should be ok as long as you got most of the RW away from the stem.
safe growing
~raygun~