Coco question

[growsince79]

I'm currently using cocoloco and it works great. You water the same as you would soil. I was thinking about using pure coco for the next run. They say coco coir should be fergitated once or twice a day and never dry. How do you keep the gnats and root aphids away?

 

[fatconeskills]

yes, water daily, gnats with IPM regiment, or simple yellow sticky traps, nematodes. Keeping the medium aerobic, environment clean and ventilated.

 

[growsince79]

yes, water daily, gnats with IPM regiment, or simple yellow sticky traps, nematodes. Keeping the medium aerobic, environment clean and ventilated.

What is IPM - thanks

 

[Matour420]

I use 90/10 and I have been watering daily as well feeding slightly from first week. I use Cal mag for the first week as well nutrition from second week of veg stage of course. Happy growing

 

[BurnzYzBudZz]

I'm currently using cocoloco and it works great. You water the same as you would soil. I was thinking about using pure coco for the next run. They say coco coir should be fergitated once or twice a day and never dry. How do you keep the gnats and root aphids away?

Do you feed nutrients right away in cocoloco or wait to feed like the other fox farm ocean forest soil? Thanks.

 

[fatconeskills]

Do you feed nutrients right away in cocoloco or wait to feed like the other fox farm ocean forest soil? Thanks.

right away, coco needs buffers, it is essentially a black slate, you provide everything. Mot likely week 1 will be just watering, but after you will need to feed every watering

 

[growsince79]

Do you feed nutrients right away in cocoloco or wait to feed like the other fox farm ocean forest soil? Thanks.

its kinda like FOFF loaded with organic amendments. I water about every 3 days. I dont feed anything untill start of flowering. Then start at half strength for bottles- or just top dress with dry amendments every 3 weeks.

 

[fatconeskills]

What is IPM - thanks

Integrated Pest management, just a short way of saying pest control regiment

 

[fatconeskills]

its kinda like FOFF loaded with organic amendments. I water about every 3 days. I dont feed anything untill start of flowering. Then start at half strength for bottles- or just top dress with dry amendments every 3 weeks.

oh so is it like preamnded coco ?

 

[growsince79]

right away, coco needs buffers, it is essentially a black slate, you provide everything. Mot likely week 1 will be just watering, but after you will need to feed every watering

oh so is it like preamnded coco ?

yes if you feed it right away the plant will die just like FFOF

 

[fatconeskills]

its kinda like FOFF loaded with organic amendments. I water about every 3 days. I dont feed anything untill start of flowering. Then start at half strength for bottles- or just top dress with dry amendments every 3 weeks.

I would like to retract my comment my sir. I assumed it was plane coco, Amended coco will be like soil. Coco perlite will need constant feed

 

[fatconeskills]

in this case to answer OP, keeping the medium aerobic, coco wets easily so it won't make your soil have dry patches. Adding microbes will be something you should be looking into, maybe a top dressing of mycorrhiza would help.

 

[growsince79]

I would like to retract my comment my sir. I assumed it was plane coco, Amended coco will be like soil. Coco perlite will need constant feed

I keep hearing about people making that mistake. Treating it like coco will not work and there's not enough sticky traps on earth to get rid of the gnats. The only reason I am even thinking about switching to pure coco is the cocoloco has a bit more N then I like. Gnats love the organics. Maybe pure coco is not so bad? IDK

 

[fatconeskills]

I keep hearing about people making that mistake. Treating it like coco will not work and there's not enough sticky traps on earth to get rid of the gnats. The only reason I am even thinking about switching to pure coco is the cocoloco has a bit more N then I like. Gnats love the organics. Maybe pure coco is not so bad? IDK

honestly I run coco perlite at 50:50 ratio, superb. Super easy to fix and issues, and roots are always happy. I have gnats, other than nematodes and sticky traps I wouldn't really bother much, gnats are just more of an annoyance than anything. Treating cocoloco like regular coco with deplete the nutrients super fast, and will probably wash away with runo off and not absorbed at root zone. They only thing is Im romantic in a sense I like to hand water the ladies, so it gets a bit time consuming with the daily watering.

 

[BurnzYzBudZz]

Adding 25%-30% more perlite to the cocoloco wouldn’t hurt I suppose.

 

[fatconeskills]

Adding 25%-30% more perlite to the cocoloco wouldn’t hurt I suppose.

the more the better, This round I have 30-70 coco perlite.

 

[Anthem]

the more the better, This round I have 30-70 coco perlite.

Why not just go full hydro?

 

[fatconeskills]

Why not just go full hydro?

I know right ? I still get regular electric outages, DWC would fail so hard. It's the closest I can go without the gear.

 

[fatconeskills]

also though of one way to get the gnats. A layer of sand maybe 1 " or some perlite or pebbles.

 

[Anthem]

Fungal gnats do not like this stuff and it does not affect the flower quality. I usually use a 3 part method if found.

Mosquito Bits®

Mosquito Bits are little pieces of a highly effective biopesticide that works in standing water to kill mosquito larvae and in soil or growing media to kill fungus gnat larvae. When applied to water, it will release Bacillus thuringiensis sp israelensis ( Bti ), a naturally occurring...

www.arbico-organics.com

#1. Yellow Sticky traps
#2. mematodes
#3. BTI