AutoPots: Soil, Maybe Amended with Coco? Megacrop with Drip Clean in Res?

[organicgordon]

Hello,

Very close to buying an AutoPot system for my 30x24x69” tent. Thinking two 2.2 gallon 1Pot systems.

Had a question about the grow medium. I want to use soil since I like organic feeding and not needing to pH my water. Can I use that in AutoPots successfully? I would use drip clean and green leaf nutrients line products.

Also how does the idea of me amending my home made super soil mix with 5-15% coco? I want to add some extra aeration and water retention with some coco while maintaining the overall qualities of organic soil

Please let me know about these, thank you in advance

 

[fauxnacho]

Hi bud can't help you on the autopots part sorry, just on the added coco, I say yes and others say no, usually cos nutes are medium-specific, to either soil or hydro. For me that argument makes sense and I'd never do a 50/50 mix or whatever. But adding 10 or 15% coco to soil would still give you a good soil mix, that's my opinion and it's what I do in my grow, for same reasons you mentioned. Soil can be claggy and heavy, I add about 15% coco and 15% clay pellets to lighten the mix. And I use nutes for soil. Cheers dude

 

[BII]

For media/soil aeration, perlite or more clay pellets would be more effective compared to coco.

 

[fauxnacho]

Hi bud hope this finds you! Just wanted to dig through and find this thread cos I remember giving advice which I'd now go back on. Coco is a poor soil amendment, and as Bll says you're much better off using clay, perlite or another similar substrate - I now use basalt 2-5mm.
Coco holds on to so much water and prevents good drainage. I have found that I can't water (and thus feed) my plants frequently enough because the soil mix stays wet for too long.

I did a little experiment of seven cup-size pots, with:
Unamended soil
Soil plus 10% coco (by volume)
Soil plus 30% coco
Soil plus 10% basalt
Soil plus 30% basalt
Soil plus 5% coco and 5% basalt
Soil plus 15% coco and 15% basalt

Poured 200ml of water on each and observed drainage for two minutes. The findings were crystal clear that unamended soil drained better than soil plus coco, and soil plus basalt drained better than unamended soil.
My future soil mixes will be plain soil plus around 20-25% basalt. The main point to take away is that adding coco does not "lighten" the mix as I stated before; it makes it much more soggy after watering.
Perlite would be a better option than basalt but basalt costs pennies.

 

[blue]

I agree with everything said here by the contributing members!

Had a question about the grow medium. I want to use soil since I like organic feeding and not needing to pH my water. Can I use that in AutoPots successfully? I would use drip clean and green leaf nutrients line products.

I suggest that you have some options (as an autopot grower) if you want to keep things strictly organic.

I'll guess your location and suggest that Biobizz Lightmix soil could be your best choice and i would ammend that to have a more organic experince with Biotabs (you can find their subforum here, but i'll grab a link for you and come back).

https://www.autoflower.org/forums/biotabs.646/

I'm not sure about running organic nutrients through the rez ... as i've never done it, but would be fearfull of the lines clogging.

To combat this, i'd occasionally and lightly top water in some micro nutrients (like biosys) and when the time comes for PK .. use the organic Biotabs PK and again, lightly top water (1/2 litre at a time - or you'll have a mini flood in your tent!)

This way, all you need in your rez is water .. and anything else can either be foliar or lightly topwatered.

I'm currently growing Easy mode with an autopot, biobizz .. but Canna 1 part veg nute and 1 part grow nute added to the rez.

But in asnwer to the soil in autoots - yes, it wickes well!!

 

[MI_sterGreen]

I'm currently using 3.9 gallon autopots with mega crop. I use roots original soil as my medium. Has a good amount of perilite as well as coco mixed in with the soil. I use about 2 inches of perilite as well as an air dome in the base. This keeps the soil from staying saturated too long. I have had great luck with this grow. Megacrop has worked flawlessly without any huge ph swings. I am using the original 1 part base, Bud explosion, and cal mag pro. I usually put enough solution in my reservoir for 3 to 4 days at a time. Makes it easy to move the reservoir and clean it. Then add another 3 to 4 days worth.

 

[MI_sterGreen]

Just be careful, these 2 ladies grew way bigger than expected haha.

 

[MI_sterGreen]

@blue thanks for the rep points

 

[blue]

@blue thanks for the rep points

You're welcome!! Nice post ... great setup!! ^_^


Good work!!

 

[terp182]

Beautiful setup! Do you recall what ppm you were feeding the Megacrop at? Did you supplement with calmag? I'm struggling with my megacrop autopot setup and am trying to steer toward your results. Thanks!

I'm currently using 3.9 gallon autopots with mega crop. I use roots original soil as my medium. Has a good amount of perilite as well as coco mixed in with the soil. I use about 2 inches of perilite as well as an air dome in the base. This keeps the soil from staying saturated too long. I have had great luck with this grow. Megacrop has worked flawlessly without any huge ph swings. I am using the original 1 part base, Bud explosion, and cal mag pro. I usually put enough solution in my reservoir for 3 to 4 days at a time. Makes it easy to move the reservoir and clean it. Then add another 3 to 4 days worth. View attachment 1231664View attachment 1231665View attachment 1231666