I Swear To Cheech And Chong, If I Have To Hear Another........

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EventHorizan

EventHorizan

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Im telling you if i have to read one more person give someone advice on this site to give straight water to coco, im gonna take votes to have you transferred to 420 magazine.com where they spread bullshit and where you prob learned that shit in the first place... Its one thing while helping somebody to maybe misrepresent a ticicity, its a completely difrent to give 100% false info.. First time i read it i thought they were a cop trying to wreck members grows..... Even if its just a 100 ppm of calimag! As long is its not just water... The coco will actually feed the water, instead of the water feeding the coco...




The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many growers have discovered the cation exchange capacity (CEC) phenomenon in coco media.

Growers are observing deficiencies and trying to correct those deficiencies with calcium and magnesium supplements. This article explores why these deficiencies happen and how adjusting the cation exchange capacity, or buffering, the media corrects this problem.

Coco growing media has changed a lot in the last decade or so. Previously, the majority of coco products were washed to an EC of 1 or 1.6, and few products on the market were buffered. Today, the higher-quality coco products are washed multiple times and will have an EC of 0.5 or lower. They will also be buffered in some way or another.

Coco Coir's Cation Exchange Capacity
Soil particles and organic matter have negative charges on their surfaces that attract cations. The total of these negative charges are collectively referred to as the CEC.

The CEC is significant in growing media because it is a measure of the quantity of nutrients the media is able to hold on to before nutrients start leaching out. Plants are able to access the cations attached to the cation exchange capacity.

Coco often has a CEC in the range of 90-100 meq/100 g of media. The CEC of coco is naturally loaded with potassium (K) and sodium (Na), with little or no calcium (Ca) or magnesium (Mg). These are the four cations that are most important when buffering coco.

The goal is to significantly lower the percentage of CEC sites that have K and Na on them and increase the percentage of CEC sites that have Ca and Mg attached. Potassium can be attached to up to around 40% of the sites and sodium can be attached to up to around 15% of the sites.

This is significant because if 40% of the exchange of un-buffered coco is holding potassium, then that equals 40 meq/100 g of media of the single-charge K molecule.

The 100 g of weight in the above equation is the dry weight of the coco, not the weight of the coco straight out of a bag when it is moist. Hydrated coco should make 12-15 L (3-4 gal.) of coco growing media per kilogram of dry coco and of course 100 g is one-tenth of a kilogram.

This does not sound like much, but would be as much as 1.56 g of potassium per 100 g of media. This is a lot of potassium, most of which will be slowly released into the aqueous solution around a plant’s roots. Compare this 1.56 g to 0.22 g of potassium per liter of nutrient solution (which is feeding potassium at 220 ppm, the amount that one would have in a well-balanced feed).

If you have a 4-gal. pot and give it 1 gal. of feed per day, you would be feeding about 0.9 g of potassium and the CEC may be holding 15.6 g of potassium.

Sodium may be present in up to 0.35 g per 100 g of media. With these numbers, an unbalanced nutrient solution will quickly result, as I explain in more detail below.

What Is Coco Buffering?
Buffering coco media is accomplished by exposing the cation exchange to a solution of water with a high concentration of the cations that are desired on the exchange sites—in this case, calcium or calcium and magnesium.

Because the cations on the exchange sites are held reasonably tight, washing coco does little to change the makeup of the cations on the exchange sites. The washing will change the EC but not the CEC. CEC sites have a preference for some cations over others.

If the cations of Ca, Mg, Na and K are all present in the solution at the same concentration, they will be adsorbed at different levels, with calcium and magnesium being adsorbed at double the rate as they both have a double-positive charge, while potassium and sodium have a single-positive charge (Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+).

For example, many coco product manufacturers buffer their coco with 8 kg of calcium nitrate per cubic meter of coco. Calcium nitrate has a value of 19% calcium, which equals 1,520 g of Ca with almost no Mg, K or Na if the water is clean.

As the process commences, a high concentration of Ca molecules attaches to the media—as each Ca++ molecule is adsorbed, two molecules of K+ or Na+ are released because the Ca has a double-plus charge and K and Na are single-plus charges.


In the beginning, the exchange goes very quickly, but as the exchange continues, the concentration of the K and Na molecules released into the solution slows the exchange down and it will eventually come into equilibrium. The buffering process can be done in 10-15 minutes—the point at which the exchange slows down enough that the greater exchange is not worth the wait.

Some coco products have been buffered with a higher treatment of Ca and Mg concentration. This creates a lower K and Na percentage on the exchange and adds the benefit of Mg to the CEC. These more advanced buffering processes involve a much greater amount of time, but result in much lower K and Na levels on the exchange.

This essentially creates a better coco product from day one, ensuring all of a nutrient mix goes straight to the plant versus amending the coco’s CEC.

What Does This All Mean for Growers?
As a grower, your goal is to create and use a well-balanced nutrient solution. If you are using an un-buffered coco product, a well-balanced nutrient solution goes into the coco and starts to buffer the coco as well as feed the plants, instead of all of the nutrients going directly to plants. So, the CEC in the coco is exchanging some of the K and Na for Ca and Mg.

This exchange is now unbalancing your nutrient solution, increasing the K and Na while decreasing the Ca and Mg. How much unbalancing, you ask?

Earlier, I mentioned the coco could have as much as 1.56 g of K and 0.35 g of Na per 100 g of coco. Your nutrient mix is not highly concentrated with Ca and Mg, but it is enough to get some of the K and Na released from the CEC.

About 15 years ago, I was growing roses in coco and we did a weekly chemical analysis of our feed and drain water. The first time we used coco, we noticed the Ca in our drain water was less than 40 ppm (we would have normally expected the Ca to read 100-150 ppm in the drain water), and we were feeding Ca at a rate of about 200 ppm.

For the next two weeks, we had the same result, so we doubled our Ca to 400 ppm. The analysis of our drain water went up to about 50 ppm of Ca. We watched that for about three weeks and then started feeding Ca at about 500 ppm and still had very little change in the Ca ppm in our drain water. It took about four months for our drain water Ca analysis to read about 100 ppm.

The loss of the Ca and Mg is one thing, but you also get an increase of K and Na. High levels of K will hinder the uptake of Mg by plants. Sodium can negatively impact plant health even at low levels and is toxic to some plants starting at 50 ppm.

The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many have experienced the CEC phenomenon in coco that I am talking about here.

The deficiencies are observed and can be corrected to a certain extent with calcium and magnesium supplements, but there are also coco products out there buffered to a higher level, which don’t need the calcium and magnesium supplements.

A Coco-Buffering Glossary
  • Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) – The degree to which a growing media can adsorb and exchange cations. The value of a cation exchange capacity is normally expressed as meq/100 g.
  • Cation – A positively charged ion, such as Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+, NH4+, H+, Al+++.
  • Milli-equivalent (meq) – A measurement often used in quantifying a cation exchange capacity (meq/100 g = milli-equivalent per 100g of dry media). The milli-equivalent is based on the value of an equivalent. An equivalent is the weight in grams of a molecule divided by its molecular weight multiplied by its charge. For example, hydrogen (H+) has a molecular weight of 1 and a single positive charge, so 1 g of hydrogen is one equivalent. Calcium (Ca++) has a molecular weight of 40 g and a double-positive charge, so 40 g of calcium is two equivalents. I seriously hopes this will stop the spread of mis-info!




 
EventHorizan

EventHorizan

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Shit, seems like coco is just as fawked as Hydro?
Well i find it easier than replacing the screen in my Galaxy 7 and flashing new roms to it and using aftermarket roms to unlock and reprogram,,, So i guess, you got to ask yourself, was you just lazy in school, the class clown, or the truly ignorant one to come from Apple Valley High......
 
jumpincactus

jumpincactus

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I'm with you on this for sure. Never use plain water in coco, unless you need to flush for some reason. Steady regular feeding with every drop of water.

Here is a great post I am in total agreement with, with the exception of using hydroton or anything as a drainage layer in the bottom of the pots. So here is the link to why drainage media of any sort is a myth and not really understood by many. Called the "perched water table". Excellent read!!! To be clear there will be a quiz later on. LOL



This is the thread I talked about initially.From a brother from another mutha here is the link if you guys want to peep a little deeper. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=241341
Quote from Chomsy's thread

Ok let me chime in with what I've learned about coco. The majority of my growing life was spent growing with organic soil, I used bio bizz nutes with compost teas and it was great, I grew in 12Ltr pots and watered every 2 days, wet-dry cycles..... Now I was happy growing like that but then I started to grow in coco with drippers on strict orders from my very good friend and grow guru Bush Dr, instantly I was hooked, I seen, explosive growth rates, thick white root mass, and most importantly my yields went up 20-25%, etc.

Coco is different from soil and it should not be treated like soil, coco is a hydroponic medium (soilless medium), some like to call it 'semi-hydroponic' because it is more forgiving than full hydro. The thing is, you can water coco like you water soil, every day or 2 and you will get soil results but if you water coco a few times per day you will really reap the rewards of hydroponic results in a more stable medium. When dialing the watering schedule it's important to take into consideration the size of pot that your using and the size of your root mass, for example if you pot up some freshly rooted clones into 6.5Ltr pots and start watering them 3x per day you will run into some problems. People like to say that you can't overwater in coco, I agree with them to a certain extent but you can overwater if you give them too much when they don't have a well developed root system, that's why it's important to harden off the roots and let 'em go hunting for nutrients at the beginning, this will help to build the root system. When I pot up a freshly rooted cut I let it have wet-dry cycles for a few days then I slowly up my watering, at the end of week one I'm watering once per day, I aim to be watering 3x per day by the end of week 2. Once the root system is developed it is very very hard to overwater, they will take all you can throw at 'em and ask for more.

I also think it's important to mention that coco doesn't require the same size of a pot compared to soil, I have grown plants at 9.25oz in a 6.5Ltr pot. Less is more, unless your looking trees, don't go over 6.5Ltrs, there really is no need plus if you have a pot that's too big you could run into overwatering problems and possibly root rot. I like to add hydroton at the base of my pots, this assists in drainage, I also add layer of hydroton at the top of the coco to help slow down evaporation. I'd highly advise you to do them 2 things. Stopping evaporation is very important, the process of evaporation removes water from the coco and leaves behind salts which will cause both PH and toxicity problems, macro and micro nutrients will get locked out with the excess salts in the coco. You want to keep coco WET so all excess salts are constantly being soaked and flushed out of the medium.

Once you water 3x per day your plants will start to grow super fast, FAT stalks, branching growing like crazy, it really is fun seeing the explosive growth rate. I feed 3 x per day right up until flower stretch is over then I bang up the waterings to 5x per day, just as the buds switch into swelling mode, the plants react great. You see, when you feed a plant you aren't just giving it fresh nutrients, you are also giving fresh oxygen to the roots, the nutrient solution saturates the medium and pushes out the stale O2, as the solution works its way down the medium it draws in fresh oxygen from the top, this is one of the reasons why I think multi feeding works so well with coco. Your giving your plants access to more fresh oxygen.

Now one of the huge advantages to growing with coco DTW is the fact that you are watering to you get a little run off each time, which goes to a waste tray/rez to be dumped later. That little bit of run off ensures that each and every time you water your plants (3-5x per day) you're also washing away excess salts, salt build up can be a problem in coco and you often have to flush it out to get rid of all the excess salts. Once you get that little bit of waste run-off from each watering you are effectively flushing it out every time you water, this means that you don't have to do a manual flush until the end of flower when you do the 'final flush'. If you don't already use it then I can highly recommend you check out a product from House & Garden called, Drip Clean, I'll not go into the science behind it because all that information is easily accessed on the internet but this product will ensure that excess salts are washed away, Drip Clean attracts salts and other build up, it helps to purge them from your medium, and it also does a great job keeping your drippers clear.

Another thing that I've noticed about growing in Coco DTW with multi feeds per day is that it's much better to feed 'little but often' just like how a bodybuilder or an athlete breaks their daily caloric intake into 6-8 meals a day to keep their metabolism in peak working order. Well from my experience the same applies to plants grown in coco, instead of watering your plants at a high EC/ppm once every few days, break it up into 3-5 smaller strength feeds each day and watch how your plants react but remember to have a developed root system before you use the multi-feeding. Once I start the multi-feeding I like to keep the EC at 1.3/650ppm (that's including 0.4EC tap water), I let the run-off tell me if the plants require more or less feed. If the waste EC rises by a point or 2 then I know they are getting too much so I adjust my EC accordingly and vice versa.

OK I've been babbling too much but if your growing in soil and want to experience something new and IMHO better, then give Coco DTW a whirl, everyone that I've helped convert has never looked back infact their gardens are thriving and they are getting the best yields that they have ever experienced. If you would like any advise post here so we all can share information.
 
Last edited:
EventHorizan

EventHorizan

15,707
438
I'm with you on this for sure. Never use plain water in coco, unless you need to flush for some reason. Steady regular feeding with every drop of water.

Here is a great post I am in total agreement with, with the exception of using hydroton or anything as a drainage layer in the bottom of the pots. So here is the link to why drainage media of any sort is a myth and not really understood by many. Called the "perched water table". Excellent read!!! To be clear there will be a quiz later on. LOL



This is the thread I talked about initially.From a brother from another mutha here is the link if you guys want to peep a little deeper. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=241341

Ok let me chime in with what I've learned about coco. The majority of my growing life was spent growing with organic soil, I used bio bizz nutes with compost teas and it was great, I grew in 12Ltr pots and watered every 2 days, wet-dry cycles..... Now I was happy growing like that but then I started to grow in coco with drippers on strict orders from my very good friend and grow guru Bush Dr, instantly I was hooked, I seen, explosive growth rates, thick white root mass, and most importantly my yields went up 20-25%, etc.

Coco is different from soil and it should not be treated like soil, coco is a hydroponic medium (soilless medium), some like to call it 'semi-hydroponic' because it is more forgiving than full hydro. The thing is, you can water coco like you water soil, every day or 2 and you will get soil results but if you water coco a few times per day you will really reap the rewards of hydroponic results in a more stable medium. When dialing the watering schedule it's important to take into consideration the size of pot that your using and the size of your root mass, for example if you pot up some freshly rooted clones into 6.5Ltr pots and start watering them 3x per day you will run into some problems. People like to say that you can't overwater in coco, I agree with them to a certain extent but you can overwater if you give them too much when they don't have a well developed root system, that's why it's important to harden off the roots and let 'em go hunting for nutrients at the beginning, this will help to build the root system. When I pot up a freshly rooted cut I let it have wet-dry cycles for a few days then I slowly up my watering, at the end of week one I'm watering once per day, I aim to be watering 3x per day by the end of week 2. Once the root system is developed it is very very hard to overwater, they will take all you can throw at 'em and ask for more.

I also think it's important to mention that coco doesn't require the same size of a pot compared to soil, I have grown plants at 9.25oz in a 6.5Ltr pot. Less is more, unless your looking trees, don't go over 6.5Ltrs, there really is no need plus if you have a pot that's too big you could run into overwatering problems and possibly root rot. I like to add hydroton at the base of my pots, this assists in drainage, I also add layer of hydroton at the top of the coco to help slow down evaporation. I'd highly advise you to do them 2 things. Stopping evaporation is very important, the process of evaporation removes water from the coco and leaves behind salts which will cause both PH and toxicity problems, macro and micro nutrients will get locked out with the excess salts in the coco. You want to keep coco WET so all excess salts are constantly being soaked and flushed out of the medium.

Once you water 3x per day your plants will start to grow super fast, FAT stalks, branching growing like crazy, it really is fun seeing the explosive growth rate. I feed 3 x per day right up until flower stretch is over then I bang up the waterings to 5x per day, just as the buds switch into swelling mode, the plants react great. You see, when you feed a plant you aren't just giving it fresh nutrients, you are also giving fresh oxygen to the roots, the nutrient solution saturates the medium and pushes out the stale O2, as the solution works its way down the medium it draws in fresh oxygen from the top, this is one of the reasons why I think multi feeding works so well with coco. Your giving your plants access to more fresh oxygen.

Now one of the huge advantages to growing with coco DTW is the fact that you are watering to you get a little run off each time, which goes to a waste tray/rez to be dumped later. That little bit of run off ensures that each and every time you water your plants (3-5x per day) you're also washing away excess salts, salt build up can be a problem in coco and you often have to flush it out to get rid of all the excess salts. Once you get that little bit of waste run-off from each watering you are effectively flushing it out every time you water, this means that you don't have to do a manual flush until the end of flower when you do the 'final flush'. If you don't already use it then I can highly recommend you check out a product from House & Garden called, Drip Clean, I'll not go into the science behind it because all that information is easily accessed on the internet but this product will ensure that excess salts are washed away, Drip Clean attracts salts and other build up, it helps to purge them from your medium, and it also does a great job keeping your drippers clear.

Another thing that I've noticed about growing in Coco DTW with multi feeds per day is that it's much better to feed 'little but often' just like how a bodybuilder or an athlete breaks their daily caloric intake into 6-8 meals a day to keep their metabolism in peak working order. Well from my experience the same applies to plants grown in coco, instead of watering your plants at a high EC/ppm once every few days, break it up into 3-5 smaller strength feeds each day and watch how your plants react but remember to have a developed root system before you use the multi-feeding. Once I start the multi-feeding I like to keep the EC at 1.3/650ppm (that's including 0.4EC tap water), I let the run-off tell me if the plants require more or less feed. If the waste EC rises by a point or 2 then I know they are getting too much so I adjust my EC accordingly and vice versa.

OK I've been babbling too much but if your growing in soil and want to experience something new and IMHO better, then give Coco DTW a whirl, everyone that I've helped convert has never looked back infact their gardens are thriving and they are getting the best yields that they have ever experienced. If you would like any advise post here so we all can share information.
Well at least you gave me notice for the quiz! Tonight i give my first tea feeding in hydro... Like i popped my cherry! OGbiowar ... I almost feel like thius is christmas for me! Ive never got to experiance growth with bennies,, I feel like this might take me to the next level... Plus my next grow adding c02 to match with my autopilot and adding a cmh630... so im looking forward to the next level, and im not to shabby now! So we will see what the future holds with them upgrades..
 
EventHorizan

EventHorizan

15,707
438
Im telling you if i have to read one more person give someone advice on this site to give straight water to coco, im gonna take votes to have you transferred to 420 magazine.com where they spread bullshit and where you prob learned that shit in the first place... Its one thing while helping somebody to maybe misrepresent a ticicity, its a completely difrent to give 100% false info.. First time i read it i thought they were a cop trying to wreck members grows..... Even if its just a 100 ppm of calimag! As long is its not just water... The coco will actually feed the water, instead of the water feeding the coco...




The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many growers have discovered the cation exchange capacity (CEC) phenomenon in coco media.

Growers are observing deficiencies and trying to correct those deficiencies with calcium and magnesium supplements. This article explores why these deficiencies happen and how adjusting the cation exchange capacity, or buffering, the media corrects this problem.

Coco growing media has changed a lot in the last decade or so. Previously, the majority of coco products were washed to an EC of 1 or 1.6, and few products on the market were buffered. Today, the higher-quality coco products are washed multiple times and will have an EC of 0.5 or lower. They will also be buffered in some way or another.

Coco Coir's Cation Exchange Capacity
Soil particles and organic matter have negative charges on their surfaces that attract cations. The total of these negative charges are collectively referred to as the CEC.

The CEC is significant in growing media because it is a measure of the quantity of nutrients the media is able to hold on to before nutrients start leaching out. Plants are able to access the cations attached to the cation exchange capacity.

Coco often has a CEC in the range of 90-100 meq/100 g of media. The CEC of coco is naturally loaded with potassium (K) and sodium (Na), with little or no calcium (Ca) or magnesium (Mg). These are the four cations that are most important when buffering coco.

The goal is to significantly lower the percentage of CEC sites that have K and Na on them and increase the percentage of CEC sites that have Ca and Mg attached. Potassium can be attached to up to around 40% of the sites and sodium can be attached to up to around 15% of the sites.

This is significant because if 40% of the exchange of un-buffered coco is holding potassium, then that equals 40 meq/100 g of media of the single-charge K molecule.

The 100 g of weight in the above equation is the dry weight of the coco, not the weight of the coco straight out of a bag when it is moist. Hydrated coco should make 12-15 L (3-4 gal.) of coco growing media per kilogram of dry coco and of course 100 g is one-tenth of a kilogram.

This does not sound like much, but would be as much as 1.56 g of potassium per 100 g of media. This is a lot of potassium, most of which will be slowly released into the aqueous solution around a plant’s roots. Compare this 1.56 g to 0.22 g of potassium per liter of nutrient solution (which is feeding potassium at 220 ppm, the amount that one would have in a well-balanced feed).

If you have a 4-gal. pot and give it 1 gal. of feed per day, you would be feeding about 0.9 g of potassium and the CEC may be holding 15.6 g of potassium.

Sodium may be present in up to 0.35 g per 100 g of media. With these numbers, an unbalanced nutrient solution will quickly result, as I explain in more detail below.

What Is Coco Buffering?
Buffering coco media is accomplished by exposing the cation exchange to a solution of water with a high concentration of the cations that are desired on the exchange sites—in this case, calcium or calcium and magnesium.

Because the cations on the exchange sites are held reasonably tight, washing coco does little to change the makeup of the cations on the exchange sites. The washing will change the EC but not the CEC. CEC sites have a preference for some cations over others.

If the cations of Ca, Mg, Na and K are all present in the solution at the same concentration, they will be adsorbed at different levels, with calcium and magnesium being adsorbed at double the rate as they both have a double-positive charge, while potassium and sodium have a single-positive charge (Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+).

For example, many coco product manufacturers buffer their coco with 8 kg of calcium nitrate per cubic meter of coco. Calcium nitrate has a value of 19% calcium, which equals 1,520 g of Ca with almost no Mg, K or Na if the water is clean.

As the process commences, a high concentration of Ca molecules attaches to the media—as each Ca++ molecule is adsorbed, two molecules of K+ or Na+ are released because the Ca has a double-plus charge and K and Na are single-plus charges.


In the beginning, the exchange goes very quickly, but as the exchange continues, the concentration of the K and Na molecules released into the solution slows the exchange down and it will eventually come into equilibrium. The buffering process can be done in 10-15 minutes—the point at which the exchange slows down enough that the greater exchange is not worth the wait.

Some coco products have been buffered with a higher treatment of Ca and Mg concentration. This creates a lower K and Na percentage on the exchange and adds the benefit of Mg to the CEC. These more advanced buffering processes involve a much greater amount of time, but result in much lower K and Na levels on the exchange.

This essentially creates a better coco product from day one, ensuring all of a nutrient mix goes straight to the plant versus amending the coco’s CEC.

What Does This All Mean for Growers?
As a grower, your goal is to create and use a well-balanced nutrient solution. If you are using an un-buffered coco product, a well-balanced nutrient solution goes into the coco and starts to buffer the coco as well as feed the plants, instead of all of the nutrients going directly to plants. So, the CEC in the coco is exchanging some of the K and Na for Ca and Mg.

This exchange is now unbalancing your nutrient solution, increasing the K and Na while decreasing the Ca and Mg. How much unbalancing, you ask?

Earlier, I mentioned the coco could have as much as 1.56 g of K and 0.35 g of Na per 100 g of coco. Your nutrient mix is not highly concentrated with Ca and Mg, but it is enough to get some of the K and Na released from the CEC.

About 15 years ago, I was growing roses in coco and we did a weekly chemical analysis of our feed and drain water. The first time we used coco, we noticed the Ca in our drain water was less than 40 ppm (we would have normally expected the Ca to read 100-150 ppm in the drain water), and we were feeding Ca at a rate of about 200 ppm.

For the next two weeks, we had the same result, so we doubled our Ca to 400 ppm. The analysis of our drain water went up to about 50 ppm of Ca. We watched that for about three weeks and then started feeding Ca at about 500 ppm and still had very little change in the Ca ppm in our drain water. It took about four months for our drain water Ca analysis to read about 100 ppm.

The loss of the Ca and Mg is one thing, but you also get an increase of K and Na. High levels of K will hinder the uptake of Mg by plants. Sodium can negatively impact plant health even at low levels and is toxic to some plants starting at 50 ppm.

The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many have experienced the CEC phenomenon in coco that I am talking about here.

The deficiencies are observed and can be corrected to a certain extent with calcium and magnesium supplements, but there are also coco products out there buffered to a higher level, which don’t need the calcium and magnesium supplements.

A Coco-Buffering Glossary
  • Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) – The degree to which a growing media can adsorb and exchange cations. The value of a cation exchange capacity is normally expressed as meq/100 g.
  • Cation – A positively charged ion, such as Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+, NH4+, H+, Al+++.
  • Milli-equivalent (meq) – A measurement often used in quantifying a cation exchange capacity (meq/100 g = milli-equivalent per 100g of dry media). The milli-equivalent is based on the value of an equivalent. An equivalent is the weight in grams of a molecule divided by its molecular weight multiplied by its charge. For example, hydrogen (H+) has a molecular weight of 1 and a single positive charge, so 1 g of hydrogen is one equivalent. Calcium (Ca++) has a molecular weight of 40 g and a double-positive charge, so 40 g of calcium is two equivalents. I seriously hopes this will stop the spread of mis-info!



@Newbie987
 
Eyegethi420

Eyegethi420

397
143
Im telling you if i have to read one more person give someone advice on this site to give straight water to coco, im gonna take votes to have you transferred to 420 magazine.com where they spread bullshit and where you prob learned that shit in the first place... Its one thing while helping somebody to maybe misrepresent a ticicity, its a completely difrent to give 100% false info.. First time i read it i thought they were a cop trying to wreck members grows..... Even if its just a 100 ppm of calimag! As long is its not just water... The coco will actually feed the water, instead of the water feeding the coco...




The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many growers have discovered the cation exchange capacity (CEC) phenomenon in coco media.

Growers are observing deficiencies and trying to correct those deficiencies with calcium and magnesium supplements. This article explores why these deficiencies happen and how adjusting the cation exchange capacity, or buffering, the media corrects this problem.

Coco growing media has changed a lot in the last decade or so. Previously, the majority of coco products were washed to an EC of 1 or 1.6, and few products on the market were buffered. Today, the higher-quality coco products are washed multiple times and will have an EC of 0.5 or lower. They will also be buffered in some way or another.

Coco Coir's Cation Exchange Capacity
Soil particles and organic matter have negative charges on their surfaces that attract cations. The total of these negative charges are collectively referred to as the CEC.

The CEC is significant in growing media because it is a measure of the quantity of nutrients the media is able to hold on to before nutrients start leaching out. Plants are able to access the cations attached to the cation exchange capacity.

Coco often has a CEC in the range of 90-100 meq/100 g of media. The CEC of coco is naturally loaded with potassium (K) and sodium (Na), with little or no calcium (Ca) or magnesium (Mg). These are the four cations that are most important when buffering coco.

The goal is to significantly lower the percentage of CEC sites that have K and Na on them and increase the percentage of CEC sites that have Ca and Mg attached. Potassium can be attached to up to around 40% of the sites and sodium can be attached to up to around 15% of the sites.

This is significant because if 40% of the exchange of un-buffered coco is holding potassium, then that equals 40 meq/100 g of media of the single-charge K molecule.

The 100 g of weight in the above equation is the dry weight of the coco, not the weight of the coco straight out of a bag when it is moist. Hydrated coco should make 12-15 L (3-4 gal.) of coco growing media per kilogram of dry coco and of course 100 g is one-tenth of a kilogram.

This does not sound like much, but would be as much as 1.56 g of potassium per 100 g of media. This is a lot of potassium, most of which will be slowly released into the aqueous solution around a plant’s roots. Compare this 1.56 g to 0.22 g of potassium per liter of nutrient solution (which is feeding potassium at 220 ppm, the amount that one would have in a well-balanced feed).

If you have a 4-gal. pot and give it 1 gal. of feed per day, you would be feeding about 0.9 g of potassium and the CEC may be holding 15.6 g of potassium.

Sodium may be present in up to 0.35 g per 100 g of media. With these numbers, an unbalanced nutrient solution will quickly result, as I explain in more detail below.

What Is Coco Buffering?
Buffering coco media is accomplished by exposing the cation exchange to a solution of water with a high concentration of the cations that are desired on the exchange sites—in this case, calcium or calcium and magnesium.

Because the cations on the exchange sites are held reasonably tight, washing coco does little to change the makeup of the cations on the exchange sites. The washing will change the EC but not the CEC. CEC sites have a preference for some cations over others.

If the cations of Ca, Mg, Na and K are all present in the solution at the same concentration, they will be adsorbed at different levels, with calcium and magnesium being adsorbed at double the rate as they both have a double-positive charge, while potassium and sodium have a single-positive charge (Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+).

For example, many coco product manufacturers buffer their coco with 8 kg of calcium nitrate per cubic meter of coco. Calcium nitrate has a value of 19% calcium, which equals 1,520 g of Ca with almost no Mg, K or Na if the water is clean.

As the process commences, a high concentration of Ca molecules attaches to the media—as each Ca++ molecule is adsorbed, two molecules of K+ or Na+ are released because the Ca has a double-plus charge and K and Na are single-plus charges.


In the beginning, the exchange goes very quickly, but as the exchange continues, the concentration of the K and Na molecules released into the solution slows the exchange down and it will eventually come into equilibrium. The buffering process can be done in 10-15 minutes—the point at which the exchange slows down enough that the greater exchange is not worth the wait.

Some coco products have been buffered with a higher treatment of Ca and Mg concentration. This creates a lower K and Na percentage on the exchange and adds the benefit of Mg to the CEC. These more advanced buffering processes involve a much greater amount of time, but result in much lower K and Na levels on the exchange.

This essentially creates a better coco product from day one, ensuring all of a nutrient mix goes straight to the plant versus amending the coco’s CEC.

What Does This All Mean for Growers?
As a grower, your goal is to create and use a well-balanced nutrient solution. If you are using an un-buffered coco product, a well-balanced nutrient solution goes into the coco and starts to buffer the coco as well as feed the plants, instead of all of the nutrients going directly to plants. So, the CEC in the coco is exchanging some of the K and Na for Ca and Mg.

This exchange is now unbalancing your nutrient solution, increasing the K and Na while decreasing the Ca and Mg. How much unbalancing, you ask?

Earlier, I mentioned the coco could have as much as 1.56 g of K and 0.35 g of Na per 100 g of coco. Your nutrient mix is not highly concentrated with Ca and Mg, but it is enough to get some of the K and Na released from the CEC.

About 15 years ago, I was growing roses in coco and we did a weekly chemical analysis of our feed and drain water. The first time we used coco, we noticed the Ca in our drain water was less than 40 ppm (we would have normally expected the Ca to read 100-150 ppm in the drain water), and we were feeding Ca at a rate of about 200 ppm.

For the next two weeks, we had the same result, so we doubled our Ca to 400 ppm. The analysis of our drain water went up to about 50 ppm of Ca. We watched that for about three weeks and then started feeding Ca at about 500 ppm and still had very little change in the Ca ppm in our drain water. It took about four months for our drain water Ca analysis to read about 100 ppm.

The loss of the Ca and Mg is one thing, but you also get an increase of K and Na. High levels of K will hinder the uptake of Mg by plants. Sodium can negatively impact plant health even at low levels and is toxic to some plants starting at 50 ppm.

The widespread use of calcium and magnesium supplements in the indoor gardening industry is an indication that many have experienced the CEC phenomenon in coco that I am talking about here.

The deficiencies are observed and can be corrected to a certain extent with calcium and magnesium supplements, but there are also coco products out there buffered to a higher level, which don’t need the calcium and magnesium supplements.

A Coco-Buffering Glossary
  • Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) – The degree to which a growing media can adsorb and exchange cations. The value of a cation exchange capacity is normally expressed as meq/100 g.
  • Cation – A positively charged ion, such as Ca++, Mg++, K+, Na+, NH4+, H+, Al+++.
  • Milli-equivalent (meq) – A measurement often used in quantifying a cation exchange capacity (meq/100 g = milli-equivalent per 100g of dry media). The milli-equivalent is based on the value of an equivalent. An equivalent is the weight in grams of a molecule divided by its molecular weight multiplied by its charge. For example, hydrogen (H+) has a molecular weight of 1 and a single positive charge, so 1 g of hydrogen is one equivalent. Calcium (Ca++) has a molecular weight of 40 g and a double-positive charge, so 40 g of calcium is two equivalents. I seriously hopes this will stop the spread of mis-info!



This is exactly why I believe I will stay with ffof soil haha...nice thread tho broham a lot of info
 
EventHorizan

EventHorizan

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ya rmol grt this shit figured out for paw paw zan lol... tks brother!
and rmol can you go uo there and correct the spelling on toxicity plz.. its driving me nuts.. I get to typing to quick and my fingers get lost with my brain thought,,, :)
 
EventHorizan

EventHorizan

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I'm with you on this for sure. Never use plain water in coco, unless you need to flush for some reason. Steady regular feeding with every drop of water.

Here is a great post I am in total agreement with, with the exception of using hydroton or anything as a drainage layer in the bottom of the pots. So here is the link to why drainage media of any sort is a myth and not really understood by many. Called the "perched water table". Excellent read!!! To be clear there will be a quiz later on. LOL



This is the thread I talked about initially.From a brother from another mutha here is the link if you guys want to peep a little deeper. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=241341
Quote from Chomsy's thread

Ok let me chime in with what I've learned about coco. The majority of my growing life was spent growing with organic soil, I used bio bizz nutes with compost teas and it was great, I grew in 12Ltr pots and watered every 2 days, wet-dry cycles..... Now I was happy growing like that but then I started to grow in coco with drippers on strict orders from my very good friend and grow guru Bush Dr, instantly I was hooked, I seen, explosive growth rates, thick white root mass, and most importantly my yields went up 20-25%, etc.

Coco is different from soil and it should not be treated like soil, coco is a hydroponic medium (soilless medium), some like to call it 'semi-hydroponic' because it is more forgiving than full hydro. The thing is, you can water coco like you water soil, every day or 2 and you will get soil results but if you water coco a few times per day you will really reap the rewards of hydroponic results in a more stable medium. When dialing the watering schedule it's important to take into consideration the size of pot that your using and the size of your root mass, for example if you pot up some freshly rooted clones into 6.5Ltr pots and start watering them 3x per day you will run into some problems. People like to say that you can't overwater in coco, I agree with them to a certain extent but you can overwater if you give them too much when they don't have a well developed root system, that's why it's important to harden off the roots and let 'em go hunting for nutrients at the beginning, this will help to build the root system. When I pot up a freshly rooted cut I let it have wet-dry cycles for a few days then I slowly up my watering, at the end of week one I'm watering once per day, I aim to be watering 3x per day by the end of week 2. Once the root system is developed it is very very hard to overwater, they will take all you can throw at 'em and ask for more.

I also think it's important to mention that coco doesn't require the same size of a pot compared to soil, I have grown plants at 9.25oz in a 6.5Ltr pot. Less is more, unless your looking trees, don't go over 6.5Ltrs, there really is no need plus if you have a pot that's too big you could run into overwatering problems and possibly root rot. I like to add hydroton at the base of my pots, this assists in drainage, I also add layer of hydroton at the top of the coco to help slow down evaporation. I'd highly advise you to do them 2 things. Stopping evaporation is very important, the process of evaporation removes water from the coco and leaves behind salts which will cause both PH and toxicity problems, macro and micro nutrients will get locked out with the excess salts in the coco. You want to keep coco WET so all excess salts are constantly being soaked and flushed out of the medium.

Once you water 3x per day your plants will start to grow super fast, FAT stalks, branching growing like crazy, it really is fun seeing the explosive growth rate. I feed 3 x per day right up until flower stretch is over then I bang up the waterings to 5x per day, just as the buds switch into swelling mode, the plants react great. You see, when you feed a plant you aren't just giving it fresh nutrients, you are also giving fresh oxygen to the roots, the nutrient solution saturates the medium and pushes out the stale O2, as the solution works its way down the medium it draws in fresh oxygen from the top, this is one of the reasons why I think multi feeding works so well with coco. Your giving your plants access to more fresh oxygen.

Now one of the huge advantages to growing with coco DTW is the fact that you are watering to you get a little run off each time, which goes to a waste tray/rez to be dumped later. That little bit of run off ensures that each and every time you water your plants (3-5x per day) you're also washing away excess salts, salt build up can be a problem in coco and you often have to flush it out to get rid of all the excess salts. Once you get that little bit of waste run-off from each watering you are effectively flushing it out every time you water, this means that you don't have to do a manual flush until the end of flower when you do the 'final flush'. If you don't already use it then I can highly recommend you check out a product from House & Garden called, Drip Clean, I'll not go into the science behind it because all that information is easily accessed on the internet but this product will ensure that excess salts are washed away, Drip Clean attracts salts and other build up, it helps to purge them from your medium, and it also does a great job keeping your drippers clear.

Another thing that I've noticed about growing in Coco DTW with multi feeds per day is that it's much better to feed 'little but often' just like how a bodybuilder or an athlete breaks their daily caloric intake into 6-8 meals a day to keep their metabolism in peak working order. Well from my experience the same applies to plants grown in coco, instead of watering your plants at a high EC/ppm once every few days, break it up into 3-5 smaller strength feeds each day and watch how your plants react but remember to have a developed root system before you use the multi-feeding. Once I start the multi-feeding I like to keep the EC at 1.3/650ppm (that's including 0.4EC tap water), I let the run-off tell me if the plants require more or less feed. If the waste EC rises by a point or 2 then I know they are getting too much so I adjust my EC accordingly and vice versa.

OK I've been babbling too much but if your growing in soil and want to experience something new and IMHO better, then give Coco DTW a whirl, everyone that I've helped convert has never looked back infact their gardens are thriving and they are getting the best yields that they have ever experienced. If you would like any advise post here so we all can share information.
I took the time to read that and it was a very good post! Very informative! Awesome addition to this thread!

If coco isnt understood by this point, well there is always the dispensary.....
 
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