What do YOU use to amend coco??

LexLuthor · Feb 7, 2013

Hey Farmers, I just wanted to start a thread about how you like to amend your coco. I'm gonna grow with coco for the 1st time in about a month with coco/perlite, somewhere between 70/30-50/50. I just want people to post what substrates they use with coco, whether its hydroton, perlite, peat moss, or even soil.

Just share your experience with how you amend your coco and what results you got so hopefully it will help others who are new to growing with coco. I hope to here some good mixes, thanks to all, peace.

jkbeing · Feb 7, 2013

I run my coco by itself so far, I would like to try adding hydroton in a few buckets next planting.

LexLuthor · Feb 7, 2013

what brand?? so plain coco, what nutes do you use and what pH??

midwestdensies · Feb 7, 2013

I love strait coco. Ive used it for the past 3-4 years now in every method possible beds being my favorite. I run beds production style so I cut plant out with rootball after harvest, then run cannazyme the 2x strength to break down roots, plant new ones in and top off with a bag or so in each bed. That easy. Coco is similar to rockwool but superior growth and allows trichoderma to form a relationship with your plants. The beds keep getting better as time goes, nothing to clean just go. Could go for 2 or more years on the same coco rose growers use their for 10 years Ive heard.

Chow rocks you can see the beast mode plants just form overnight with the added growth and more frequent feeds.Ive never personally done a chow bed but many plants in hempys and a 10 gallon plant.

Nutes Ive used HG with great results but am messing with cns and ces now. I feed at 5.4-5.6 unless the ppms tell other wise. Coco likes to rise naturally.

MW

jkbeing · Feb 7, 2013

For $12 I can get 14 2 gallon buckets full of GH cocotek. This run I am going to use just CNS17 grow and ripe, with each gallon costing me $30. When I had a pH meter, the CNS17 always put me around 6.1-6.5 . I haven't pH'd for almost 6 months, since I smashed my probe. When I run outta CNS and use what I got lying around, I've had a few issues. I might buy a bloom booster this run to use on half of the plants, once I get a pH pen.

LexLuthor · Feb 7, 2013

midwestdensies said:
I love strait coco. Ive used it for the past 3-4 years now in every method possible beds being my favorite. I run beds production style so I cut plant out with rootball after harvest, then run cannazyme the 2x strength to break down roots, plant new ones in and top off with a bag or so in each bed. That easy. Coco is similar to rockwool but superior growth and allows trichoderma to form a relationship with your plants. The beds keep getting better as time goes, nothing to clean just go. Could go for 2 or more years on the same coco rose growers use their for 10 years Ive heard.

Chow rocks you can see the beast mode plants just form overnight with the added growth and more frequent feeds.Ive never personally done a chow bed but many plants in hempys and a 10 gallon plant.

Nutes Ive used HG with great results but am messing with cns and ces now. I feed at 5.4-5.6 unless the ppms tell other wise. Coco likes to rise naturally.

MW

Sounds good, i was thinking of doing a 4x5 bed of coco/perlite but im not sure how to build the drainage system. I think it would be easier to use 3g pots on a raceway table for DTW. If you could explain how you built the raised bed with drainage i would greatly appreciate it. thanks in advance.

Also, perlite tends to have a high pH so i think it would be better to feed coco/perlite around 6.0 instead of 5.5, do you agree??

midwestdensies · Feb 7, 2013

lex0415 said:
Sounds good, i was thinking of doing a 4x5 bed of coco/perlite but im not sure how to build the drainage system. I think it would be easier to use 3g pots on a raceway table for DTW. If you could explain how you built the raised bed with drainage i would greatly appreciate it. thanks in advance.

Also, perlite tends to have a high pH so i think it would be better to feed coco/perlite around 6.0 instead of 5.5, do you agree??

For my beds I use tray liners by geopot due to the trellis system built into the top for easy applications. Their website geopot.com should show you what I mean. With beds there is more lateral root growth compared to pots which replicates nature and even more root space/travel as well as access to nutrients. I do prefer friendlier root systems aswell.

I put these liners into trays generally 3x3 or 4x4. Then I built a raised platform to allow the entire unit off the ground and a waste tray underneath. I have some pics possibly in my harem hideout log which is a completely new journal and just underway.

I dont agree with the higher feed i always feed around 5.4-5.6 because coco has a neutral ph of 7 and rises as it dries. It prefers 5.8 so my logic tells me its always rising so feed lower and my runoff is usually rather correct for my setup.

MW

midwestdensies · Feb 7, 2013

3x3. With a wand but irrigation will be installed in the future or it may not just depends. In the past all my beds had drip lines with no gph drippers on the ends, evenly spaced.

GR33NL3AF · Feb 7, 2013

midwestdensies said:
3x3. With a wand but irrigation will be installed in the future or it may not just depends. In the past all my beds had drip lines with no gph drippers on the ends, evenly spaced.

My bad you already answered it above...

How often do you water?

midwestdensies · Feb 7, 2013

I water everyday. Nature creates dew in the morning so I create the same but with nutrients lol obviously some days more feed is applied but off days stil a mist if Im around. Upon transplant there is some grow time and letting them find the outer limits for a few days but foliaring the fuck out of them helps transplant shock. in the beginning there isnt runoff until bud onset then its on. I keep low feeds for this reason until runoff occurs.

LexLuthor · Feb 7, 2013

@MWD- thanx for the info, i will try raised beds when i have the chance to build it...hopefully that will be my next run. If not then 3g pots will have to do for now.

anybody else have any exp they wanna share with there coco mixes, post it.

ReCway · Feb 7, 2013

midwestdensies said:
I love strait coco. Ive used it for the past 3-4 years now in every method possible beds being my favorite. I run beds production style so I cut plant out with rootball after harvest, then run cannazyme the 2x strength to break down roots, plant new ones in and top off with a bag or so in each bed. That easy. Coco is similar to rockwool but superior growth and allows trichoderma to form a relationship with your plants. The beds keep getting better as time goes, nothing to clean just go. Could go for 2 or more years on the same coco rose growers use their for 10 years Ive heard.

Chow rocks you can see the beast mode plants just form overnight with the added growth and more frequent feeds.Ive never personally done a chow bed but many plants in hempys and a 10 gallon plant.

Nutes Ive used HG with great results but am messing with cns and ces now. I feed at 5.4-5.6 unless the ppms tell other wise. Coco likes to rise naturally.

MW

Thats the exact same thing I do. I feed Jacks Pro DTW in COCO with Amazing Results so far. USed GH in the past along with almost every nute on the market. Gonna amend one of my coco beds with organics this round. see how it goes. CoCo beds for the win for sure. Yeilds and quality rocks in CoCO.

LexLuthor · Feb 7, 2013

ReCway said:
Thats the exact same thing I do. I feed Jacks Pro DTW in COCO with Amazing Results so far. USed GH in the past along with almost every nute on the market. Gonna amend one of my coco beds with organics this round. see how it goes. CoCo beds for the win for sure. Yeilds and quality rocks in CoCO.

so you use pure coco too with no amendments?? would i need a buffer like limstone or does the botanicare coco already come pH buffered??

ReCway · Feb 7, 2013

lex0415 said:
so you use pure coco too with no amendments?? would i need a buffer like limstone or does the botanicare coco already come pH buffered??

Yes Pure CoCo botanicare. Charge with 500 PPM of nutrient and drop in clones. Feed low PPM dtw daily and just monitor run off to make sure salts dont buildup. make sure yout get runoff

Confuten1 · Feb 7, 2013

I use growstones 50/50 with coco and add bout 1-2% volume of ancient forest aswell.
Confu.

Seamaiden · Feb 8, 2013

It's been a couple of years, but when I fire it back up it's going to be Botanicare coco cut with rice hulls (about 30%-40%), amended with some rock dusts, worm castings (about 10%), and possibly peat, I'm not sure about the peat yet because I haven't worked with it much. I want to do a fully organic, qualified organic coir grow, but I haven't decided how I'll address that.

KennyPowers · Feb 8, 2013

ive ran pure coco for a couple years. this round im trying a mix thats 3 parts canna coco, 2 parts promix, 1 part ewc, and 1 part perlite. i added in some frass and rock dust as well. borrowed this from walterwhitefire, he has a thread with a blumat feed schedule too.

LexLuthor · Feb 8, 2013

Seamaiden said:
It's been a couple of years, but when I fire it back up it's going to be Botanicare coco cut with rice hulls (about 30%-40%), amended with some rock dusts, worm castings (about 10%), and possibly peat, I'm not sure about the peat yet because I haven't worked with it much. I want to do a fully organic, qualified organic coir grow, but I haven't decided how I'll address that.

Hell yeah, 100% organic coco grow, I would like to see how coco stacks up against soil with organic amendments outdoors. I was thinking of doing an organic coco grow for this outdoor season coming up. Basically, I would make a super coco medium just like super soil, but without the 'soil'. I was thinking something like this.

For every 3 cu.ft. of coco, use:
2 cups blood meal
2 cup bone meal
2 cups kelp (powder)
10 cups worm castings
caps bennies (og bio war)
soft rock phosphate (not sure how much)
1 cup limestone (is limestone needed for coco??)

No perlite because I want to retain as much moisture as possible without drowning the roots. But if the medium drains too slow, then I would add 10-20% perlite max.

kushtrees · Feb 8, 2013

how you like the grow stones confuten? I am going to give those a shot in my chow next time since Im pretty sick of hydroton.

I would definitely add about 30% perlite to that mix lex. It wont do much for your drainage at that point, but it will really help keep the coco and organics from compacting

midwestdensies · Feb 8, 2013

growstones are the shit. Light weight, porous, and a couple sizes.

What do YOU use to amend coco??

What do YOU use to amend coco??

LexLuthor

jkbeing

LexLuthor

midwestdensies

jkbeing

LexLuthor

midwestdensies

midwestdensies

GR33NL3AF

midwestdensies

LexLuthor

ReCway

LexLuthor

ReCway

Confuten1

exploitin strengths - perfectin weaknessess

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

KennyPowers

LexLuthor

kushtrees

midwestdensies

What do YOU use to amend coco??

What do YOU use to amend coco??

LexLuthor

jkbeing

LexLuthor

midwestdensies

jkbeing

LexLuthor

midwestdensies

midwestdensies

GR33NL3AF

midwestdensies

LexLuthor

ReCway

LexLuthor

ReCway

Confuten1

exploitin strengths - perfectin weaknessess

Seamaiden

Living dead girl

KennyPowers

LexLuthor

kushtrees

midwestdensies

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