Shady’s Natural Selection… Round 4: More Strains & Growing Pains

[winta]

well done good sir! the mystery will be over soon enough :)

 

[HighTolerance]

You welcome Shady, the MK looks superb man.

I have tried coco in a flood and drain before and more than once a day for 15 mins was too much. Is it possible that you could raise a the coco pots using a one of those simple square dish racks from K-Mart, Target, etc. And just hand water the coco ever 1-3 days depending on the stage and size of the pot. Are you gonna run any soil next round.

 

[Shady]

well done good sir! the mystery will be over soon enough :)

Thx again winta... Indeed the mystery shall soon be revealed. :bubblez:

You welcome Shady, the MK looks superb man.

I have tried coco in a flood and drain before and more than once a day for 15 mins was too much. Is it possible that you could raise a the coco pots using a one of those simple square dish racks from K-Mart, Target, etc. And just hand water the coco ever 1-3 days depending on the stage and size of the pot. Are you gonna run any soil next round.

Yeah man that MK is looking very dank and fire... :mmm

That's exactly what I was afraid of with the coco feeding/watering intervals... Do you always feed with the same mix over the 3 day period or do you sometimes use just CalMag and R/O? Maybe I could find a bucket that will fit a 2 gal Smart Pot, which has a bottom diameter of 8" and is 7" tall with no taper to the sides. This would prevent water from entering the coco pots if placed on my tray, but it might just be easier to place them on my other black tray (which is really too far from my light, that's why the 707HB in Section B is better looking than Section A's).

Hmm, I really think I could have gone with 2 gal Smart Pots instead of the 3 gal ones I'm using for Section B, but that would have required me to water in between weekly feedings more often with soil... As for soil next round, I'm prob gonna run a couple soil plants, but I need the 3x3 tray for hydro, cuz that's where I have much more experience... :itwasntme

 

[HighTolerance]

I would place the coco pot just like you mentioned, in section B with better light. unless you can add some cfls on the coco pots, I don't want you to have a mediocre experience with coco, so make sure if gets good light.

One thing I learned in college was to learn micro experiments to save money/time/space/other resources. I tested plain water in between feeds, I also tried runoff/no runoff. I been testing the run-off like a maniac and running small experiments for the last few months on coco, to figure it out for myself, it is too dang new and there isn't much solid factual information out there, it is mainly opinions. Below is what I am finding at the moment to be the best situ for coco, i will let you know as I make more amendments.
_____

treat it as an inert medium with a capability for salt build up.

how to avoid the salt build up, dial in the dosing for the plants so you don't have much left over nutes in the pot

never use plain water on coco in mid run, unless you know for sure that there are nutes left in the pot but no water. if there are no nutes in the pot and you use plain water it the bacteria will starve.

Instead of flushing I sometimes just feed plain RO at pH 7 during mid run, but with no run off. A lot of people might disagree with the pH, but this works great for me, because after two weeks of feeding with no run off, the pot pH tends to drop. When I feed with the plain water it dissolves the salts/nutes and brings the pH to right about pH 6.0

Although people suggest pH of 5.5 with coco, i found better results with 5.8-6.0. I do alternated the pH during the feedings a bit just to get the plant to absorb nutes in all ranges.

So every time you water feed add quarter dose of nutes, and do this frequently.

I did read this before, that pot size for coco doesn't matter much. I have to agree completely, it is crazy how you can grow a pretty huge plant in a small coco container.

I went from 5 gal to 2 gal and next run will be 1 gal. I have been experimenting with clones in smaller cups, again micro experiments, I just convert the ratio of the plant size and pot size later. I was discussing this matter with a fellow coco grower, and he feels the same about how plant can go way farther in coco than any other medium before it gets root bound. He grew a huge bush in a solo cup.

for your size of plants 1-2 gallon would be plenty, although I think you could get away with smaller.

___

I am getting pretty sleepy, I wrote down all the crap in a pretty unorganized manner, if I did that at work I'd be fired, so sorry bout that.

If you do coco, that would save me a lot of time running soil, so I am def willing to put in as much time as needed to keep an eye on your coco run and fight the problems with you.

Let me know what nutes you want to run in coco, and I will make up a plan that I would use if I was to run those nutes, after I give you my plan you can over look and make adjustments.

Also may be you have mentioned before but are you running soil as an experiment or you like growing in soil.

 

[Shady]

HT... Excellent detailed response for night owl's like us, burning the midnight oil, or hash and buds in my case. :bong2:

To be honest... I started in hydro and loved it, but I thought I should teach myself soil so I could keep mothers, and then I realized I need to work on my pruning, trimming, and LST techniques. I've got supercropping down... So technically soil is an experiment in bloom to ensure that I could successfully produce some kind buds and be able to help other rookies like myself in soil...

I really appreciate the offer... :friday: Honestly I'm tentative about this next run as it has to be on point and no mistakes or learning curves cuz I need to get these meds done properly if you know what I mean. One reason why I want to go back to hydro in the next round, is to automate the feeding/watering with pumps and timers... I don't like having to water individual plants especially since I plan on upgrading. So the question is whether Smart Pots and Coco need to be watered with drip rings like LEBDOG's setup or if I can get away with flood and drain every other day or so... In Hydro, IMVHO, I'm very good with GH's 3 part, CalMag, Hydroplex or Hammerhead, and MOAB for aggressive bloom.

That being said, I'm also comfortable with PBP Grow and Bloom, Bud Candy, and using beneficials such as Great White, as well as liquid composts for soil... I assume that this will be more along the lines with the idea that Coco although inert apparently allows for mycorrhizae to build their network and process organics...

I would like to run GH's 3 part in coco, unless the potential yield would benefit from the organics and mycorrhizae... think about it and we'll discuss this major decision tomorrow. :sleepy

 

[HighTolerance]

HT... Excellent detailed response for night owl's like us, burning the midnight oil, or hash and buds in my case. :bong2:

To be honest... I started in hydro and loved it, but I thought I should teach myself soil so I could keep mothers, and then I realized I need to work on my pruning, trimming, and LST techniques. I've got supercropping down... So technically soil is an experiment in bloom to ensure that I could successfully produce some kind buds and be able to help other rookies like myself in soil...

I feel ya man, that is why I am trying to get more active about learning how to grow in soil. Same reason, so I could keep mothers.


I really appreciate the offer... :friday: Honestly I'm tentative about this next run as it has to be on point and no mistakes or learning curves cuz I need to get these meds done properly if you know what I mean. One reason why I want to go back to hydro in the next round, is to automate the feeding/watering with pumps and timers... I don't like having to water individual plants especially since I plan on upgrading. So the question is whether Smart Pots and Coco need to be watered with drip rings like LEBDOG's setup or if I can get away with flood and drain every other day or so... In Hydro, IMVHO, I'm very good with GH's 3 part, CalMag, Hydroplex or Hammerhead, and MOAB for aggressive bloom.

Coco in any pot, even a plastic pot with a few holes coco will wick up the water very easily. So smart part there in no question that it will do great in ebb n flow. Since I have done ebb n flow with coco and also top fed, although with short experience, i saw no difference in plant growth. The root structures were a bit different but that is expected as they are being fed from the opposite side.

That being said, I'm also comfortable with PBP Grow and Bloom, Bud Candy, and using beneficials such as Great White, as well as liquid composts for soil... I assume that this will be more along the lines with the idea that Coco although inert apparently allows for mycorrhizae to build their network and process organics...

I would like to run GH's 3 part in coco, unless the potential yield would benefit from the organics and mycorrhizae... think about it and we'll discuss this major decision tomorrow. :sleepy

Yah I forgot the very important point, which you brought up, that coco can very amazing in a sense that it is mostly an inert medium with excellent capability for bacteria to thrive in.

You will be happy to know that I have walked two people, who didn't even know what bloom and veg period was. Long story short I made a list for both patients, equipment/nutes. While I was at it, I though I should give them different base nutes, what the hell why not experiment through them. Guess what the two lines were, GH and PBP.

Here was the list of their nutes, I made them a full excel schedule.

1:
GH 2 part (modified lucas)
Roots
Liquid Karma
Silica
Hydroplex
Molasses

2:
PBP
Roots
Liquid Karma
Great White
Hydroplex
Molasses

Medium was Botanicare, CocoGro (loose) for both.

I am ashamed to admit but I was jealous of their product. As it was better than my round 1. Well they benefited from everything I learned during round one. Both grew grapefruit haze under 105watts of cfl. they yielded identical, 60 grams. Not bad at all for someone that didn't know shit about growing cannabis.

The smell/taste was sweeter for the PBP grow. The both flushed the same. Also PBP guy didn't any signs of nute burn at all where as during bloom GH guy started getting bit of burn, but not bad at all.

So this should tell you, if two noobs that grew excellent GFH for their first run they someone like you could easily adapt to coco and do very good. Also let me mention, these guys didn't go out and read a single word or watched a video about growing, I don't even think they know the existence of forums, all they did was what I told them. Also they both fucked up on the EC/pH/missing feeds/letting the pot too dry/fucking with the timer mid bloom, and they still did good. I was jealous but also very proud. None the less I was surprised by the results.

Ok so about the organics, I definitely think that if you have the option to go organic or organic based in coco then do it. GH doesn't really need bacteria to break it down, so mostly the beneficial bacteria is just gonna do good for root health, where as if you used organic based nutes, you could grow beautiful colonies of bacteria in your medium that will happily work for you in breaking down the nutes and providing all kinds of goodies to the plant. Even though, small experiment and many factors involved I reckon PBP base resulted with better tasting buds than GH, at least in coco.

For ebb n flow, it would be better if you didn't mix in the great white to the res, follow the instructions on the bottle to make an injection which you will just pour in the pots.

LOL, I have the GH guy on fox farm line atm. PBP guy is sticking to my plan forever, he doesn't wanna be part of my experiment anymore, which is fine.

GH patient was down for organic so I got him the ff solubles for his birthday. Lets see how that does.

So the moral of the story is that, you can use whatever the hell you want in coco, it will work, just some better than others.

Also if you want to water the coco more frequently then you can cut it with perlite.

The guy at the hydro shop has an ebb n flow tray running for display, i told him to experiment with coco, coconot/vermi, oceanforest. He was interested to see. I don't remember what he planted but a month later when I went there, I saw the coco plant looking big and healthy where as the soil and coconot/vermi were just looking smaller and not in top health like coco. Although this experiment was flawed as he treated all the mediums the same, 1.0 EC, 1 flood a day. I didn't want him to put the soil plant in the tray but he really wanted to try it. He also told me that when he looked at the roots, the coco roots looked very healthy where as the soil and coconot/vermi roots were wishing they were in coco as well.

Fooook man I should be a rep for coco. LOL coco companies really otta start paying me for pushing coco so hard.

I am sleepy again, lets try it one more time.

Dang my fingers are tired of typing.

 

[Shady]

Thx for the details on Coco HT! Yeah you sure you don't have stock options in Coco? :D I think you've convinced me to try it out... I've got figure out a few details and determine what brand I should buy. Also I think cutting it with perlite sounds good... Will chunky perlite work?

 

[HighTolerance]

Thx for the details on Coco HT! Yeah you sure you don't have stock options in Coco? :D I think you've convinced me to try it out... I've got figure out a few details and determine what brand I should buy. Also I think cutting it with perlite sounds good... Will chunky perlite work?

chunky perlite will be fine. I personally don't cut the coco with anything as that would just require more frequent watering. Since I hand water that can be too much a hassle.

I have used canna coco and botanicare coco, no difference at all. canna coco is more consistent from batch to batch, since it is washed with controlled amount of water where as botanicare coco is exposed to 3 seasons of rain. don't get anything other that canna or botanicare coco, as I haven't tried those and i cannot help much with others.

 

[Socachi]

HT you're oni it with the coco. While reading the one part of your story about the cat you helped that was messin up I thought you were talkin about me for a minute there LOL . If it weren't for the coco medium I'm in I think these plants would have died a long time ago.

I'm just glad I met the cat who gave me advice last year and all of you on this forum.

 

[justiceman]

Shady your harvest and the plants that are about to be harvested look wonderful. They are just oozing with resin. How is the Mystery Kush smelling?

Damn HT your certainly know you stuff when it comes to coco.

Shady I definitely would either go with Canna(I have two bags of Canna waiting for quest 3), or botanicare. I have also heard that Bcuzz is good. It is suppose to be a little bit chunkier so it holds more oxygen.

I basically have the same concerns with coco when it comes to watering requirements, and water frequency. So far I have come up with this.

If you plan to hand water no more then once a day stick with pure coco.

If you plan to do some type of ebb and flow or other regiment that requires more frequent watering I would probably cut the coco 50/50 with perlite.

I have also heard that if you let coco dry out completely in between watering it can cause nutrient lock out or burn plants because the EC levels soar upwards when the water is gone. Just things to consider.

I would always water with at least cal mag in the water never pure r/o unless of course you just water some in not to obtain run off, but just for hydration purposes if you already know their is tons of food present in the medium as HT stated above.

 

[metalf919]

nice setup and great selection. I can't wait to see the rest!

 

[HighTolerance]

Thanks guys, appreciate your kind words.

Justice Man is also right on. Cutting with perlite is fine for ebb n flow, but it is completely fine to do pure coco in ebb n flow, one would need to flood less often and thus the tank could be smaller. If I was to cut coco with anything then perlite would be my number 1 choice.

I am still not sure on this, but a buddy on the forums got less yield and the buts were less dense on his second run with 70/30 coco/perlite. As I said I am not sure about this since it could be his bulbs which weren't hortilux like run 1. Other then the bulbs and the medium everything was dead on. In fact he even added a co2 boost bucket for the second run.

Very interesting fact is that he lost 30% yield when on the run he cut his coco with 30% perlite. The jar that fit 10oz on the first run only fit 7oz on the second run. I thought about this a lot, if it isn't the bulbs, my guess is that it might have to do with bacterias being able to form better colonies in pure coco than perlite. Although some bacteria might do fine in perlite but others might thrive a lot more in coco.

Got dang we need a Botanist here to drop some knowledge.

Simply the best way to determine and learn how frequent to water coco.

Feed enough that you get 10-20 percent run-off, then lift up the pot and roughly remember how heavy it was.

The pot will be ready for feeding once its weight has gone down by about 50 percent, of course the bigger pot you use the longer it will be between waterings.

I have tested letting the pot dry up more, the won't really go to high if you determine what I mentioned earlier about determining how much nutes your plants need in one feed, for me that comes out to 1/4 or at max 1/2 dose. With the low dose the plants constantly get enough supply of nutes that they use up before you feed them next time.

If the plants are burning in coco once the pot dries, that means the nutes are too high in the dose and there are left over.

To figure out exactly what the plants will eat in one dose, would require tons of testing, I did a decent amount of testing measuring how much the plant ate by measuring the run off etc.. So my rough estimate was a 1/4 strength per dose. Most of the plants won't exhibit signs of def at this dose.

The reason I was very interested in this was because I don't have a lot of space and I hate having to water with run-off, which means a shit load of salts could build up in coco. Smaller doses, with a balanced concentration of nutrients in water would assure the plants take up the water and nutes at the same rate, leaving little to no nutes left for salt build up.

I would like to say, although I do a lot of my own testing a very large number of people on forums have contributed to my knowledge of coco, for which I am extremely humbled and thankful.

 

[Raiderfan420]

Hey Hey.. I think I know that guy that got less dense buds you are speaking of. lol I think it was mainly because the bulbs he used were shit and he didn't change them when he wass supposed to. I am not certain of that, but I have a good hunch that it was. I heard he is on week 3 of flower again with new bulbs and still 30 perent super chunk perlite..so we will have to see how this run turns out for him. :)
As for the watering thing in coco, I grow in 5 gal smart pots with 30% perlite and the ladies still areen't thirsty every day. I water every other day and they don't dry out between waterings. When I used straight coco it would be three days. I keep my room at 75 deg too with lots of air movement and ventilation. If you go with ebb/flo then I would absolutly add a chunkier medium in with the coco coir..even if it is the chunky coco. This is just my opinion ofcourse, but I think your coco would always be wet wet which is ok with coco, except for algae and fungas gnats. Just my two cents. But liek I said if the buds are lighter again I may blame it on the perlite, bud I don't think that is what it is.
Oh and by the way Shady my friend, you are on point with this grow..fuckin great buddy.

 

[HighTolerance]

Hey Hey.. I think I know that guy that got less dense buds you are speaking of. lol I think it was mainly because the bulbs he used were shit and he didn't change them when he wass supposed to. I am not certain of that, but I have a good hunch that it was. I heard he is on week 3 of flower again with new bulbs and still 30 perent super chunk perlite..so we will have to see how this run turns out for him. :)
As for the watering thing in coco, I grow in 5 gal smart pots with 30% perlite and the ladies still areen't thirsty every day. I water every other day and they don't dry out between waterings. When I used straight coco it would be three days. I keep my room at 75 deg too with lots of air movement and ventilation. If you go with ebb/flo then I would absolutly add a chunkier medium in with the coco coir..even if it is the chunky coco. This is just my opinion ofcourse, but I think your coco would always be wet wet which is ok with coco, except for algae and fungas gnats. Just my two cents. But liek I said if the buds are lighter again I may blame it on the perlite, bud I don't think that is what it is.
Oh and by the way Shady my friend, you are on point with this grow..fuckin great buddy.

LOL, great to see you bro. I came on to link you to this post so you could chime it. Cheers, you are already here.

Shady's grow is looking nuts ain't it.

Well I am glad my coco buddy Raider is here, I am very curious on the density issue. I mean 30% less density is a lot and I was thinking that the other bulbs you used couldn't be that shitty.

About the coco not drying, it is really a preference thing.

My input on the matter from my experience with coco and smart pot is that you can use a much smaller container without getting root bound and effecting the yield.

The reason the 5 gal smart pot was not drying with is because it is too big and the root density isn't high enough in there to absorb all the nutes.

The OG girl you guys know of that is in a 5 gallon smart pot. initially it would take about 3 days to dry. But I am at 3rd week of flowering now with a screen spread of x feet and the roots seem to have filled up the pot pretty good know. I feed here 2 gallons of water every day, and the bitch dries out.

I am not disagreeing with raider, he is one of my fav growers and has taught me a lot. Its just a matter of preference and my preference is to reduce the pot size to water more frequent and use pure coco versus bigger pot with coco and perlite to water more frequently.

I don't know how much smaller a pot with coco can be to grow the same size plant in a soil pot. From the looks of it I see people growing plants the size of the big OG in 15-20 gallon soil tubs.

 

[Raiderfan420]

That is a good point ya got there shady, I have noticed shorter plants in my 5 gal pots tho then I had in the 7 gal..which I like. As for the root development, that is right on the money. When I harvest I have a a full pot of roots, but maybe yours are getting a little more bound. In three gal pots like I think Shady is going to use, I am sure he would be fine with pure coco, I woudl however use perlite or some type of chunky medium mix so that I could water more often..atleast twice a day, but prefferably every 4 to 8 hours if he is recirculting the nutes without getting lazy roots.
I did talk with the "Bloom" developer about the possibility of the perlite making my buds less dense and he was sure it was the light or some other factor.
I would concede to HT's coco research over mine. I use the B'Cuzz and will not be changing, so I don't have any personal experience with any others. Damn, now Ht has me thinking of dropping to 3 gals and going back to straight coco coir. lol

 

[Socachi]

Hey guys I've been running Botanicare ReadyGro which has perlite in it. Haven't tried others yet to see if there's a difference but was thinking of trying Cana.

I'm currently running a test on a few plants took 4 clones transplanted into 1 gal pots. I soaked the pots at the beginning and have only fed 3 of them once so far and the other nothing. They all have similar growth, a few fans leaves were consumed but no wilting or death. It's been a month now.

At the end of this I'll pull them and see what their roots look like. But i'm guessing they'll all have a good root system because they're looking for water.

If they were in straight soil I think they would have died by now or at least extremely wilted.

 

[Socachi]

This buds for you. Shit I hope I don't owe Budweiser any residual LOL :beer

 

[HighTolerance]

Hey guys I've been running Botanicare ReadyGro which has perlite in it. Haven't tried others yet to see if there's a difference but was thinking of trying Cana.

I'm currently running a test on a few plants took 4 clones transplanted into 1 gal pots. I soaked the pots at the beginning and have only fed 3 of them once so far and the other nothing. They all have similar growth, a few fans leaves were consumed but no wilting or death. It's been a month now.

At the end of this I'll pull them and see what their roots look like. But i'm guessing they'll all have a good root system because they're looking for water.

If they were in straight soil I think they would have died by now or at least extremely wilted.

I would def go with canna coco. canna and botanicare coco are both excellent. Biobuzz is good too, but it come with a higher EC then canna and botanicare, so I am scared. But biobuzz coco ought to be great as well since raider is growing some fire dank in it.

 

[HighTolerance]

This is the plant I was talking about when discussing the pot size.

This OG lady is under the 600 and ~4 months old now. She is in 5 gal smart pot with pure coco. Since last week it started drinking drinks 1-2 gallons of water every day. during the 3rd month with 1 gal watering the pot would stay wet for 4 days, so even in the third month there weren't enough roots in the pot to drink up the nutes/water. Even though it is drinking heavy now, it could easily do 2 more months of flowering, without getting root bound.

 

[HighTolerance]

That is a good point ya got there shady, I have noticed shorter plants in my 5 gal pots tho then I had in the 7 gal..which I like. As for the root development, that is right on the money. When I harvest I have a a full pot of roots, but maybe yours are getting a little more bound. In three gal pots like I think Shady is going to use, I am sure he would be fine with pure coco, I woudl however use perlite or some type of chunky medium mix so that I could water more often..atleast twice a day, but prefferably every 4 to 8 hours if he is recirculting the nutes without getting lazy roots.
I did talk with the "Bloom" developer about the possibility of the perlite making my buds less dense and he was sure it was the light or some other factor.
I would concede to HT's coco research over mine. I use the B'Cuzz and will not be changing, so I don't have any personal experience with any others. Damn, now Ht has me thinking of dropping to 3 gals and going back to straight coco coir. lol

I am not sure if my knowledge in coco is superior, you sure as hell are stacking epic grows under your belt. I am your number 1 fan dog.

Glad you clarified the issue with the lights. Light meters aren't expensive, I am gonna pick one up soon, so we could check our bulbs, which could save money in the long run.


I definitely think you should at least try a 3 gallon smart pot with coco, just do a few pots next to the 5 gal pot with coco/per. I would veg in 1-2 gallon smart pot and then boom transplant to 3 gal at the flip. For some reason I don't see any transplant shock at all in coco. The transplant immediately gives a huge boost to the plant especially if the roots are packed before the transplant.

What are the rough dimensions of your plants.

Dang I forgot I was in Shady's thread, sorry for jacking mate.