chow mix vs. sunshine #4

[Capulator]

Sunshine #4 amended heavily with perlite and EWC:

Chow mix (50/50 botanicare coco and hydroton, amended with EWC)

Same nutes. Same room. Enough said.

 

[rvd]

I will take the #4 please

 

[green punk]

Thanks for showing this.. I'm sure the coco folk will claim "I use Bcuzz blah bah or Canna blah" or similar. In my experience the Botanicare varied per batch in salt content. Some times it would run off test 200 and other times in the off scale reading range.

The dark stalks/ stems are tell tale.

 

[Camdawg]

@Capulator care to enlighten us on how heavily amended with perlite and ewc

 

[manicgrower]

Wow, this says a lot. Not what Ive seen in my own garden. Ill have to do a side by side and see how it goes. Are you going to document all the way through the end of flowering? What issues have you had with the chow mix?

 

[Confuten1]

Sunshine #4 amended heavily with perlite and EWC:
View attachment 350375

Chow mix (50/50 botanicare coco and hydroton, amended with EWC)

View attachment 350376


Same nutes. Same room. Enough said.

Thanks for doing the side by side, I've been wantin to do so for sometime but haven't got to it mostly because of fear of setbacks/learning curve.(dont have room for failure).

I've read a lot of studies that showed peat did better than coco but some of those studies were done before people new how important flushing and prechargeing were. Never really read anything where they took into account the runoff of coco prior to use-which brings me to my point, I'm tired of the inconsistencies I'm getting g in different batches of coco even "rinsed" high end coco(not blocks) . I've had many healthy plants transplanted into new coco only to stall and look like...ur pictures.

Can u talk to us a little about ur runoff in said coco and ur percharge method.

Confu

 

[Shamus]

i use #4 n enjoy it. however they have some new lil funguys thas been chilen in the bales. a yellow fungus of sorts.
ill take a pic of the lil guys that have been poppin up. it doesnt bother me and doesnt seem to have any negative effects at this point

 

[GR33NL3AF]

Thanks for doing the side by side, I've been wantin to do so for sometime but haven't got to it mostly because of fear of setbacks/learning curve.(dont have room for failure).

I've read a lot of studies that showed peat did better than coco but some of those studies were done before people new how important flushing and prechargeing were. Never really read anything where they took into account the runoff of coco prior to use-which brings me to my point, I'm tired of the inconsistencies I'm getting g in different batches of coco even "rinsed" high end coco(not blocks) . I've had many healthy plants transplanted into new coco only to stall and look like...ur pictures.

Can u talk to us a little about ur runoff in said coco and ur percharge method.

Confu

Have you read MidWestDensity's grow log? He ran beds of coco and a bed of Peat. As you mentioned, the peat out-vegged the coco, hands down, but the end results weren't close with the coco crushing the peat in production.

Excited to see your results Cap, thanks for broadcasting the experiment..

 

[Capulator]

Have you read MidWestDensity's grow log? He ran beds of coco and a bed of Peat. As you mentioned, the peat out-vegged the coco, hands down, but the end results weren't close with the coco crushing the peat in production.

Excited to see your results Cap, thanks for broadcasting the experiment..

I Havent seen it I don't think.

I did not precharge the coco other than add the EWC and water with nutes to runoff as usual. I did not check runoff. I don't usually ever check that. I just feed like I normally feed. For 2 reservoirs full they get food and then they get a res full of just water. Res lasts around 3-4 days usually.

These are different though as I have never grown in 28 gallon trashcans. Perhaps the coco will catch up this week... who knows. It's interesting to see. I am not sure how a plant that could out veg another would lose in the flowering department...

Obviously, every medium has it's own tricks to master. I plan on mastering them all. :)

@Capulator care to enlighten us on how heavily amended with perlite and ewc

50% sunshine, 25% EWC, 25% perlite #3.

Wow, this says a lot. Not what Ive seen in my own garden. Ill have to do a side by side and see how it goes. Are you going to document all the way through the end of flowering? What issues have you had with the chow mix?

Manic I have not had any issues with chow. I just wanted to try something new. My chow plants always do great. Here is a pic of some plants in chow:

For the moment, the peat is winning. That is all. I'll keep it updated, but it may get moved in to the honeycomb thread.

 

[Camdawg]

Question for coco defense: are you implying that peat has a more vigorous veg but coco blows up after flip?

I'm running straight bm6 peat/perlite(22%) this run next cycle is gonna have more dolomite ewc and perlite

 

[Chronic Monster]

great side by side

 

[GR33NL3AF]

Question for coco defense: are you implying that peat has a more vigorous veg but coco blows up after flip?

I'm running straight bm6 peat/perlite(22%) this run next cycle is gonna have more dolomite ewc and perlite

Look into MidwestDensity's grow log.... just referring to his observation..

 

[CelticEBE]

So....after doing a LOT of research I'm pretty sure I found out why SS#4 out performs coco in Veg. There is a lot of material in SS#4 that breaks down into available nitrogen. The problem with that though is you wind up getting more stretch during flower and wind up with less budsites that are getting adequate light. Hence why I think MWD wound up doing better in Coco.

I did some side by sides after I read MWD's Harem. My actual best results were with a blend of SS#4, Canna Coco and perlite. I have since switched back to Coco, but I could definitely see running the SS#4 on some of my stockier and slower vegging varieties.

 

[Capulator]

So....after doing a LOT of research I'm pretty sure I found out why SS#4 out performs coco in Veg. There is a lot of material in SS#4 that breaks down into available nitrogen. The problem with that though is you wind up getting more stretch during flower and wind up with less budsites that are getting adequate light. Hence why I think MWD wound up doing better in Coco.

I did some side by sides after I read MWD's Harem. My actual best results were with a blend of SS#4, Canna Coco and perlite. I have since switched back to Coco, but I could definitely see running the SS#4 on some of my stockier and slower vegging varieties.

What in sunshine breaks down in to N?

 

[We Solidarity]

yo cap - no surprise the more aerated medium is crushin it :p

forreal though, shitty coco (most coco on the market is pretty shitty) can take a while to catch up to peat but once it does peat doesn't stand a chance. even adding all that perlite to counter the peat media's compaction is shaving some big area out of usable root zone which will def come into play later in flower...

 

[CelticEBE]

What in sunshine breaks down in to N?

I can't find the video anymore. Maybe this is bad information as well. It was a comparison between Promix and SS#4 and it seemed to come from a grow shop. Anyway the guy went into how the SS#4 usually had bigger chunks of stems and that over time they would break down and become available as N. I also remember talking to the guys at GreenCoast about this and they told me that SS#4 had a really healthy precharge to it.

 

[Capulator]

yo cap - no surprise the more aerated medium is crushin it :p

forreal though, shitty coco (most coco on the market is pretty shitty) can take a while to catch up to peat but once it does peat doesn't stand a chance. even adding all that perlite to counter the peat media's compaction is shaving some big area out of usable root zone which will def come into play later in flower...

I don't see how 50/50 coco/hydroton would offer more root space than sunshine #4 with extra perlite...

What I like about peat is the higher CEC> More forgiving. No need to "charge" anything. I don't think I will run out of root space in a 28 gallon container. If I did that would be dope as fuck. I am getting 2#/ with 12 gallon containers as it is.

Oh yeah this was botanicare "0 ppm" coco... Is that considered shitty?

 

[We Solidarity]

I don't see how 50/50 coco/hydroton would offer more root space than sunshine #4 with extra perlite...

What I like about peat is the higher CEC> More forgiving. No need to "charge" anything. I don't think I will run out of root space in a 28 gallon container. If I did that would be dope as fuck. I am getting 2#/ with 12 gallon containers as it is.

Oh yeah this was botanicare "0 ppm" coco... Is that considered shitty?

dunno how i missed the part about the hydroton...my b :rolleyes:

and ya, I haven't had very good results with botanicare's coco, even running botanicare. The nicest coco I've used was hort-sourced and I think it came from Mexico and was processed/washed in the states...almost everything coming from Sri-Lanka/India is being processed and washed in nasty rivers downstream of industrial centers, and the increase in demand for coco is causing for significant corners to be cut.

Peat is definitely insanely forgiving, especially with perlite in it...it will grow the shit out of some plants, but when it comes to the nuggets, the ones in coco always pull ahead.

 

[manicgrower]

Ive actually had the best results with Botanicare bagged coco. Everyone's grow is different though. Ive seen folks blow it up using certain methods. Then, using those same methods, Ive gotten poor results. I tend to go with personal experience. Tends to work out better for me.

 

[Confuten1]

Oh yeah this was botanicare "0 ppm" coco... Is that considered shitty?

I've ran ALOT of coco(although not botanicare) and never had "0 ppm" wasn't aware that that was possible .
How do u test ur coco? I usually run 2-3 times the volume of water to coco and check. lowest I ever saw was 200-250 ppm. Canna coco and house and garden coco. I've seen as high as 3.5 ec in brick stuff.

Confu