Trouble with Guano

[guanoman]

Hello everyone.

I'm new here, I've been hanging around and reading these forums for over a year now and I've gathered a lot of info from everyone here. I've been trying to grow a few plants organically with bat guano and black strap molasses and worm castings in a coco coir mix. I've run into a few troubles though.

Here is what I got from the Hydroponic store.

King Guano Bat guano "Yucatan Peninsula grow 13-.15-3" and "Super Indonesian Flower .5-35-.1"
6 compressed blocks of Coco coir
2 bags of Promix HP
4liter bottle of Kelp extract
2 5lb bags Worm Castings

I obtained some Dried Blackstrap Molasses at the Local Feed mill.

I started a 3 plants in Promix HP and 3 in strait Coco coir. The plants in the Promix were doing better than the plants in Coco right away and throughout the entire grow.

I didn't seem to have any trouble in the Veg stage feeding 4 of the 6 plants an organic tea mad up of.
1 TBsp Yucatan Peninsula Grow Guano
1 TBsp dried Blackstrap molasses
2 TBsp Worm Castings
added to 4 gallons of water with an air stone running in it for 24hours.

My problems began in the Flowering stage. With my first application of Organic tea made with Indonesian bat guano replacing the Yucatan Peninsula Guano. My plants started to yellow overnight. For the next 5 or 6 weeks all the leaves went yellow and than turned brown and fell off leaving some really skimpy buds to harvest. The 2 plants that got strait water almost outperformed the 4 that received the Organic tea!

The 2 plants that received no Nutrients at all were my controls. 1 was Promix HP and the other was strait Coco Coir. The plant in the Promix almost doubled the yield of the Coco Coir plant and had about the same yield as the plants that received tea.

So I am not sure what went wrong here. I tested the PH of the 2 tea's I mixed, The Indonesian Flower tea had a PH of 8.2 and the Yucatan Peninsula grow tea had a PH of 6.6. This is the only problem I could find so far. could the High ph in my flowering mix basically kill my plants? I tried adding some PH down, but the next day the PH is back up at 8.2, Is there anything I can do to correct this? Maybe I should try a different brand of guano other than King Guano.

My other question is about the performance difference between the Promix and the Coco coir. Everything I read seems to point to coco coir as being the best growing medium. I would like to re-use my growing medium as well, this is another reason I was attracted to coco in the first place. If coco can only yield half that of Promix, I have to ask is there something I forgot to add or missed? Or is promix just better for some reason and I should stick with it? I think I've read about adding Dolomite lime and I do see that it is already a component of Promix. Would adding dolomite lime to my coco coir fix the performance issues?

Thanks in advance for any help. I am so confused at this point, I am not sure what to do next.

Thanks

 

[Suby]

Well you've come to the right place, I had a 50page thread on organics and coco on Og and I must say I was only slightly better off than you are.

Here is the gist of what's fucking up in your grow, coco is a shit medium for a guano grow.
It initially releases K bound up in it matrix (K+) then gets bumped for Mg+2 ans Ca+2 which then get bound in the matrix.
Canna ferts are designed for coco and you'll see they are very high in K and in Ca and Mg, these 3 elements are the trickiest elements to get into your soil throughout the grow so if I had to guess your def. was calcium and to a lesser extent magnesium.
While coco buffers very well, almost too well, it takes on the ph of the fert solution too quickly that's why humic acids are in the Canna stuff to buffer the ph.
Dolomite lime would have helped for ph and Ca and Mg, using calcified seaweed gets plants extra Ca but can be tricky to find.
Nutrient profiles for coco are best suited to all in one ferts and usually not the 100% organic kind, a blend like PBPro with the CalMag formula added will yield very good results but not 100% organic.

What else can I say, been there, done that....i'm back to Promix HP.
If you want I used to blend some coco in my soil for porosity and aeration but peat has it's place and is completely reusable, even more so then coco as coc gets very fine and it's quality is very limited past 2 grows.

Suby

 

[guanoman]

Thanks Suby for the quick informative responce!

I'm surprised that you say Coco won't last as long as peat, I've read just the opposite. I think I'll try a couple more experiments with the coco, but I will stop using it in general based on what you've told me.

I still have a problem with my flowering stage using Promix HP though. All my plants "promix and coco medium" ended up with yellow leaves after the fist application of Flowering tea. Have you ever heard of this happening before? I can only figure it was due to the high PH of 8.2.

Something I didn't mention earlier, I added some of this King Guano Super Indonesian Flower guano to one of my house plants. I gave it 1/4 the recommended dosage "recommended was 1ml per liter" I gave it 1ml for the 4 liter pot. That house plant's leave are all going yellow now as well.

Should I just scrap this Guano, or can I compost it or something to make it perform?

Are there any recommended brands I should get instead?

thanks

 

[Verite]

The cadillac of the guano realm is probably going to be Budswel. But I have had good luck with the following.

 

[Suby]

Hey Verite, my favorite is the Rare earth, great foliar product and does in in soil and hydro.

To be honest I only use a high P guano in flowering and sometime a high N in veg but rarely, I'm not sure about brands and stuff as I bought big bags and I keep them in tupperware containers.
The N-P-K is the essential part, remember that vegetables and marijuana plants are not houseplants, houseplants live off nothing and tomato plants can use high amounts of ferts so it would be a gross assumption at best.
It comes down to the microherd and how readily i wll turn ammendments and guanos into usable forms of plant food.
Ph can be an issue if your not using dolomite lime or balancing your feedings combined with humic acids, or maybe it's burning, tough to say.
At least you had the insight to has testers.

 

[Suby]

Canna Nutrients and Supplements
Canna Aqua - Hydroponic nutrient formula
Canna Terra - Soil nuitrient formula
Canna PK13/14 - A high quality phosphorus-potassium compound, which is added during the blooming phase.
Canna Rhizotonic - A strong vegetable root stimulator for plants that have already taken root. Rhizotonic stimulates root development, increases the resistance against rood disease and improves interior and extrior quality of the plant.
Canna Cannazym - Cannazym is a high-quality enzyme product which breaks down cellulose and activates micro life. Cannazym contains more than 12 different kinds of enzymes. Furthurmore, Cannazym is enriched with special vitamins and extracts of desert plants. It speeds up the process of breaking down dead root material, allows more air in to the substrate and, activates the development of micro-organisms, provides for improved absorption of nutrients and increases the resitance against diseases.
Canna Coco substrate - Canna coco is an organic product with a homogenous structure, free of chemical additives, hamrful viruses and soil diseases. In contrast to coconut fibre, Canna Coco is free of fibre and comes in the form of flakes, which are a by-product of the processing of coconuts in Sri-Lanka. It also contains a special mould, which can protect the plant against soil diseases.

From Canna.

Don't get me wrong, coco is a great substrate for many applications especially marijuana in a run to waste, a drip or even hand feed setup with a quality all in one fert,
But IMHO as far as an organic soil grow with ammended mixes and guanos and teas go it is inferior to a quality soiless mix like the Promixm ,mix it with soil and who knows what could happen.
Peat is superior where recycling is concerned, not pure peat but the soil that is the result of mixing in soil goodies and composting them and ading teas to enrich.
3LB recycled their soil endlessly and to them it only got better, farmers use the same soil endlessly when well farmed.

 

[guanoman]

Ok thanks Suby and Verite.

I probably overdosed my house plant. lol oops.

I'm quite interested in re-using my medium, it just seems to make sense to me. Plus I don't know what to do with all the waste.

Suby, I've read threw a bunch of your posts in other threads. I think I will follow your instructions with blood and bone meal for my next grow.

Lastly, should I add more dolomite lime to my promix and amendment mix?

thanks again.

 

[Guest]

Ok so you want to re-use your medium eh? Well if its just a small amount then 20 min in the oven wrapped in foil will sterilize it for use again. Make sure to flush it well. If u want to sterilize alot..then u need a metal trash can with lid..throw it in a bath tub put dirt in and cover with lid...then add lotz of boiling water to tub to steam the barrel for a hour or so..make sure the drain plug is in...

 

[Suby]

I always add 2TBS of dolmite lime per gallon of ammended soil mix, this combined with the use of some humic acids or a Liquid Karma from Botanicare (similar) will ph buffer your medium and provide Ca and Mg, in peat based soil they are much more available.

Glassmaster

I would only sterilize my soil if it had a pest infestation, otherwise your killing the most productive soil element, the microherd.

 

[guanoman]

Suby have you ever added compost to your soil mix before? I read somewhere that if ya put compost in your potting soil, there will never be a ph problem again. Is there any truth to that?

I wish I remember where I read that.

thanks

 

[zonkerpup]

Have you considered Hydrotron? It's red brown clay balls. I used it for 3 grows without any problems. You can just wash the little balls with a water and bleach mix after each grow and reuse the medium. I used the coco fiber for the seedlings and then planted seedlings/fiber in the 5 gal pots full of the Hydrotron. I've went outdoors this year, but indoors was happiest with the little balls of clay.
Peace, Kathy

 

[guanoman]

I thought Hydrotron was for hydroponics? Can you use them like soil with organic nutrients?

 

[guanoman]

Suby could you elaborate on one of your earlier statements? I'm not quite sure what you meant when you said "(K+) then gets bumped for Mg+2 ans Ca+2 ". I'm just wondering if there is more I should know about these ferts other than just adding Ca or Mg or N when needed. Maybe there is a post or an article that you could direct me to.

quote
"It initially releases K bound up in it matrix (K+) then gets bumped for Mg+2 ans Ca+2 which then get bound in the matrix."

thanks

 

[Suby]

You can use hydroton like perlite or lavarock, it is used more often in hydroponic grows though.

Coco is special because of it's capacity for selective cationic exchange, cation and when a element is positively charge, the more positively charged elements are more agressive in a food web so bump elements of lower cationic force, once bumped these elements are readily vavilable for absorption.

I'll have to get back to your on some links, gimme some time and i'll link ya!

 

[guanoman]

ok cool. thanks

 

[Verite]

*boink* I love wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cation_Exchange_Capacity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coir

 

[Suby]

Some coirs have been chemically treated, this is most often the case with loose pre-hydrated varieties versus compressed blocks. The treatment has been done to satisfy the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the growing media. As a refresher, “cations” are positively charged ions, such as Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, and Potassium. This means that the growing media will hold these ions in a matrix, releasing them as required by plants. There is one slight drawback to this. Until the cation exchange capacity of the growing media is filled, the growing media may hold positively charged nutrient ions, most notably calcium, in reserve, making them less available to plants. However, the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the coir media is quickly filled, and actually assists calcium absorption in the crop cycle. To ensure optimum availability of all nutrients, supply additional calcium during the first week of growth or during the hydrating process of the coconut coir. Calcium supplement products are ideal for this. Some nutrients specifically formulated for coco tend to have elevated levels of calcium and magnesium while having lower levels of nitrogen.

lots of good info here all around, this whole article is about coco:

http://www.maximumyield.com/article269.htm

 

[Suby]

lol 1 min apart posts

 

[darthvapor]

wouldnt guano work best in soil because of the microbial activities it enhances. Is there any way to get the same organisms in a hydro setup without spending shitloads of money on additives.

 

[guanoman]

I came across this little info clip on coco coir.

"Since the pH is already close to 6, liming materials cannot be used because they would increase the pH above optimum. Handreck and Black says that “Therefore, all coir-based media must be amended with gypsum, which also overcomes their low sulfur status.” Ma and Nichols (2004) recently reported that the problems with coir extend beyond its high salinity. Their data indicate that high concentrations of phenolic compounds in fresh coir are at least partly responsible for the growth reductions observed in other studies."

http://www.usu.edu/cpl/research_coconutcoir.htm