Grow Mediums Why organic nutrients do not work in coco

[MesaBoogie]

So it's been a long road on my little giagreen experiment in coco. The first plant didn't auto, then my second attempt the dog pulled my plant out of the pot lol... Dogs REALLY like giagreen. I saw someone mention this before, and I was like "nah my dog would never do that". So here is my third attempt following the Mr.Canucks water only method in coco. I've been watering plain tap water between 6.1 and 6.4 in coco and letting it get pretty dry between watering's. Pretty much everything your not supposed to do in coco. Treating it like I would a soil grow. I have noticed some issues with the soil becoming hydrophobic. I have to water really slowly to over come it.

She's pretty small but that's the genetics.

 

[Hypathetical Gardener]

@MesaBoogie
Get it mesa!! I love doing it "wrong" and being successful. Im honestly surprised you havent run into calmag issues. I have always experienced a need to increase calmag as i go with coco and attributed it to the coco breaking down and needing the new cation exchange sites filled. But this seems to be proving that theory wrong.

 

[Hunter11]

So i

So it's been a long road on my little giagreen experiment in coco. The first plant didn't auto, then my second attempt the dog pulled my plant out of the pot lol... Dogs REALLY like giagreen. I saw someone mention this before, and I was like "nah my dog would never do that". So here is my third attempt following the Mr.Canucks water only method in coco. I've been watering plain tap water between 6.1 and 6.4 in coco and letting it get pretty dry between watering's. Pretty much everything your not supposed to do in coco. Treating it like I would a soil grow. I have noticed some issues with the soil becoming hydrophobic. I have to water really slowly to over come it.

She's pretty small but that's the genetics.
View attachment 1244659

So is it your opinion that this is a legit grow method, or is it a poor choice. I was going to try making my own soil mix using coco, earthworm castings, compost, and a combination of perlite and vermiculite... along with some bio live....

 

[MesaBoogie]

So i

So is it your opinion that this is a legit grow method, or is it a poor choice. I was going to try making my own soil mix using coco, earthworm castings, compost, and a combination of perlite and vermiculite... along with some bio live....

Well it's hard to give a good answer to that. I would say so far I'm making it work. Is it a poor choice ? Well maybe, depending on your situation. I want to make this work in CoCo because I'm trying to solve a problem. Peat/soil hold water way to long in my set up and cause me all sorts of issues. CoCo fix's that problem for me. I believe If I could make peat/soil work it would be superior with water only method.

So I guess I would have to throw a question back at ya , why do you want to use Coco as your base ? Adding things like compost and vermiculite, and castings to Coco are going to change CEC and buffering in ways that are beyond my expertise. I'm just learning along the way with this experiment following some dude on youtube so I don't want to stray to far.

ohh I forgot to mention the other reason why I'm doing this.. Because I'm LAZY !!! If I'm going to be stuck with COCO it would sure be nice not to have to water all the time and mess around mixing nutrients up... ohh man I hate watering !

 

[Hunter11]

Well it's hard to give a good answer to that. I would say so far I'm making it work. Is it a poor choice ? Well maybe, depending on your situation. I want to make this work in CoCo because I'm trying to solve a problem. Peat/soil hold water way to long in my set up and cause me all sorts of issues. CoCo fix's that problem for me. I believe If I could make peat/soil work it would be superior.

So I guess I would have to throw a question back at ya , why do you want to use Coco as your base ? Adding things like compost and vermiculite, and castings to Coco are going to change CEC and buffering in ways that are beyond my expertise. I'm just learning along the way with this experiment following some dude on youtube so I don't want to stray to far.

ohh I forgot to mention the other reason why I'm doing this.. Because I'm LAZY !!! If I'm going to be stuck with COCO it would sure be nice not to have to water all the time and mess around mixing nutrients up... ohh man I hate watering !

To be honest I bought a few bags of coco after watching some of "Mr canucks" videos. And since then I have changed my mind on trying that exact method. But I still want to use up my coco. So I figured I try making my own soil mix using coco as the base.

 

[Hunter11]

Well it's hard to give a good answer to that. I would say so far I'm making it work. Is it a poor choice ? Well maybe, depending on your situation. I want to make this work in CoCo because I'm trying to solve a problem. Peat/soil hold water way to long in my set up and cause me all sorts of issues. CoCo fix's that problem for me. I believe If I could make peat/soil work it would be superior with water only method.

So I guess I would have to throw a question back at ya , why do you want to use Coco as your base ? Adding things like compost and vermiculite, and castings to Coco are going to change CEC and buffering in ways that are beyond my expertise. I'm just learning along the way with this experiment following some dude on youtube so I don't want to stray to far.

ohh I forgot to mention the other reason why I'm doing this.. Because I'm LAZY !!! If I'm going to be stuck with COCO it would sure be nice not to have to water all the time and mess around mixing nutrients up... ohh man I hate watering !

I plan on using the 1/3 +1/3 + 1/3 recipe... but with some personal tweeking. The first 1/3 will be Canna Coco, the second 1/3 will be a 50/50 mix of earthworm castings and coast of Maine lobster compost, and the last 1/3 will be a 50/50 mix of vermiculite and perlite. I also intend to add 2 tablespoons per gallon of down to earth bio live to the mix.i will top dress with down to earth vegetable garden and later down to earth rose and flower mix. Or a combination of the 2.

 

[Suzy Bee]

So it's been a long road on my little giagreen experiment in coco. The first plant didn't auto, then my second attempt the dog pulled my plant out of the pot lol... Dogs REALLY like giagreen. I saw someone mention this before, and I was like "nah my dog would never do that". So here is my third attempt following the Mr.Canucks water only method in coco. I've been watering plain tap water between 6.1 and 6.4 in coco and letting it get pretty dry between watering's. Pretty much everything your not supposed to do in coco. Treating it like I would a soil grow. I have noticed some issues with the soil becoming hydrophobic. I have to water really slowly to over come it.

She's pretty small but that's the genetics.
View attachment 1244659

Aha! So you are doing what Mr. C. does and looks like you're getting results! I think it was his dog that likes the Gaia green.

 

[MesaBoogie]

Aha! So you are doing what Mr. C. does and looks like you're getting results! I think it was his dog that likes the Gaia green.

Yea I wanted to see if he was full of BS with his grow method. If you search around you'll see there is a lot of failed attempts to copy his grow. I have not found any journals that have made it work in coco. I can see a few potential issues now why guys are failing. First he doesn't talk about rinsing and buffering his coco. I think he's found himself a really good brand of coco where they do a good job of washing and buffering it for him. Another issues is he's all over the place with what PH to use. Early vids he is using between 6.5-6.8. His later vids he says to keep it under 6.5. I think some people may have missed that. I find watering to be a bit of a pain to not get any run off and give it more of a wet dry cycle. The coco becomes really hydrophobic and if you water too fast it just goes right through the pot. You have to be super slow with it to make sure and get even coverage and no run off. Maybe this is just an issue for me though and I need to water more.

 

[Suzy Bee]

Yea I wanted to see if he was full of BS with his grow method. If you search around you'll see there is a lot of failed attempts to copy his grow. I have not found any journals that have made it work in coco. I can see a few potential issues now why guys are failing. First he doesn't talk about rinsing and buffering his coco. I think he's found himself a really good brand of coco where they do a good job of washing and buffering it for him. Another issues is he's all over the place with what PH to use. Early vids he is using between 6.5-6.8. His later vids he says to keep it under 6.5. I think some people may have missed that. I find watering to be a bit of a pain to not get any run off and give it more of a wet dry cycle. The coco becomes really hydrophobic and if you water too fast it just goes right through the pot. You have to be super slow with it to make sure and get even coverage and no run off. Maybe this is just an issue for me though and I need to water more.

Thank you for this response. So if I get Coco from the local place and rehydrate it myself, what do I have to do to "buffer" it?

 

[Proph]

Thank you for this response. So if I get Coco from the local place and rehydrate it myself, what do I have to do to "buffer" it?

If you are not familiar with buffering, I would not suggest trying it. 99% of bagged coco is pre washed and buffered.