Simply Can't Get Coco to Work!

[Chen]

I've been trying to use Coco/Perlite for a couple months now and it simply does not work.

The plants won't die, but they also don't grow. They simply stay in statis, zombies.

I've tried:

Watering every 3 days.
Watering every 2 days.
Watering every day.
Watering twice a day for 15 minutes.
Watering twice a day for 30 minutes (with run-off)

I use pH 5.8 water with the recommended amount of Dutch Pro nutes.

I don't get the run-off thing anyway. For run-off, the pot has to be basically full of water (not quite, but close - a regular 'soil' watering). Now, coco/perlite definitely drains and dries quicker than soil, but not THAT quick. Not quick enough to be watered every day, let alone twice a day without over-watering.

Everyone seems to think that coco/perlite is some magical medium that water just goes through like hydroton, but in reality, it's closer to soil.


Honestly, I could tell this was never going to work from the start.

If there was ZERO growth while watering every single day, it was just not possible.

I am going back to soil ASAP but until then I have a batch of plants I am counting on and I need to at least get something out of them.

Is there anything I can do to take them from their cactus-like existence?

 

[The Poet]

Chen,


I can't get cocoa to work either!
I use 'Empire Builder' soil and Dynagrow nutes.


Luck...


The Poet...♪

 

[Chen]

Chen,


I can't get cocoa to work either!
I use 'Empire Builder' soil and Dynagrow nutes.


Luck...


The Poet...♪

But it seems like we're in the tiny minority.

Practically everyone seems to have great luck with coco.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I am with you 2--I also cannot get it to work. I use it as an additive only and I stil have it a chink of it that I have not hydrated.

 

[Chen]

I am with you 2--I also cannot get it to work. I use it as an additive only and I stil have it a chink of it that I have not hydrated.

Wow, coming from you I feel like my personal ordeal has a lot more credibility.

Though, it seems on every other forums people are praising it as a magic miracle.

Reminds me of when I first started to clone and just couldn't get it to work.

Then I tried again a few months later with essentially the same design and wallah - 90% success rate.

Coupled with growing larger plants, I really have too many now.

 

[orangesunshine]

have you all inoculated the coco with mycorrhizae

 

[zem]

ahem... well, the most tricky part in coco is to allow the roots to really pick up by letting it dry, coco holds a lot of water but also makes great roots, and once they pick up, they will suck all the water and you will be able to water more frequently. watering tiny plants every day 2 or even 3 in sizeable coco pots will keep it too wet for too long taking forever for the roots to build up. place them in small seed trays or small cups that dry fast and they will grow fast. Another common issue with coco is that it is very often contaminated with sea salt and other contaminants even pests, i soak it in h2o2 and flush flush then flush again.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I agree with ZEM's comments, although I haven't had to do much in the way of flushing with the GH coco coir 1kg blocks that I buy. I have used the GH 1kg coco blocks for several years without issue. I use coco coir and have used it very successfully for many years( in hydro), but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. It is by no means a "miracle soil". It has its really good attributes and bad attributes. It can be very tricky to work with if you don't fully understand it. Coco is especially challenging to use in soilless applications. I have tried it in soilless and couldn't get it to work the way I wanted.

There are set rules to using coco that must be followed for success. If you want to use it as soilless, you will need to use certain nute brands that work best with it, OR go to organic nutrients with it as organics seems to work well with the coco coir for a friend of mine. He mixes in some organic amendments to the coco when starting, along with some beneficial microbe inoculants, then feeds with organic nutrient tea and has very solid success.

I personally recommend using coco coir or coco croutons in hydro rather than in soilless, this is because while coco does drain well (especially when mixed with pearlite to keep it from compacting), it also holds moisture and nutrients well. I also recommend that you keep the medium container to the size of the plants. Don't put small plants in 1-3gal pots of coco. 2 reasons for this... 1 is that the coco MUST be presoaked with either a calmag additive or Epsom salt solution, to prevent the coco from locking up available magnesium. 2 is that it is very challenging to keep the moisture level correct. It is also challenging to maintain proper pH in any soilless medium when used in soilless methods (ironically enough).

I suggest that you make up your watering solution in larger containers and then aerate it with fish tank air pump and air stones. Then after 24hrs, check and adjust the pH to 5.8-6.0, allow it a couple hours of aeration then use. Be sure to thoroughly soak the medium until you get runoff. I also suggest that you keep drain pans under plants to catch the runoff. Allow the plants to sit in this runoff for no more than 1 hour before removing it. This will assure that the medium has no dry spots that will kill roots. But then allow the medium to get mostly dry before watering again.

Aerating the nute solution will help the roots not drown while the medium is soaked, and give enough time for the medium to naturally aerate itself.

I also recommend that you get a pH meter (if you stay with coco in soilless or hydro) so that you can periodically check the pH of the runoff water so that you know the pH isn't way off as it will get off over time due to buildup in the medium. If the pH is out of acceptable range and adjusting the water/solution going in doesn't correct this, then you will need to flush the medium with 3x the volume of the pots with straight water. allow the runoff to drain away when doing this. when done, have a new, well aerated and pH adjusted solution ready and water with the standard amount. you will see that same amount of water come out in runoff, drain that away. then allow them to dry out to almost dry before watering again.

 

[Hushpuppy]

remember that coco is inert medium that will lock up a certain amount of magnesium (and calcium). I begin with cups of coco, and I add a calmag additive from the very beginning. But when using coco or other inert soilless mediums, the nutrient needs of the plant are completely on you, and it may take some experimenting on your part to get the right combinations to make the plants happy. But once you get the method down, coco will serve you well.

 

[zem]

Hushpuppy, I agree with you, my coco is the bulk type that comes in big 1meter long slabs for mass agriculture and for sake of cost effectiveness they just pack it and send it and farmers deal with contaminants on a big scale using calcium nitrate to precipitate the salt and flushing. I am certain that there are many good brands of coco that sell a higher priced well treated coco

 

[Hushpuppy]

I do find pebbles in my coco quite often but not many. I have never flushed my coco but it could be that my hydro system flushes it for me as I usually will drain and replace my rez water about every 10 days. That salt could be why I couldn't get it to do right in soilless the couple times I tried it.

 

[zem]

it is common knowledge in the tomato and vegetable soilless farming, they soak coco in CaNO3 I think they use 2 gram/Liter ratio for that, it precipitates sea salt, then they flush it out. I got the same effect on a small scale by letting them sit in water for a day then flushing then soaking for other day then flushing, 2-3 times with H2O2 the first or second time, i was surprised at how well the roots picked up in clean coco, it seems that the salt was a main problem

 

[AluminumMonster]

When I first started at the dispensary they were using coco. The plants had purple stems, yellow leaves, and zero growth. We flushed a bag and tested the runoff. It came out @870 ppm using zero ppm R/O water. I convinced the owner to switch mediums after that. The amount of flushing required to keep up with my job was unacceptable. Overhead would have sky rocketed. Coco may work for some, however I personally don't see the point of using a medium that is toxic without a lot of extra leg work.

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[Hushpuppy]

I have talked to several people who have switched to using the coco croutons. They say that the croutons don't require the flushing like the coir does, and it gives better aeration and root growth. I find it so curious that I have not had the level of issues from salt like others as I have used a significant amount of it over the past 5-6 years. The only thing I can figure to account for it is either the General Hydroponics brand coco that I use has less salt or my hydro system works well enough at actually flushing the salts out... I don't know.

 

[AluminumMonster]

We tried Mother Earth, Botanicare, and Atami brands. All of them had extremely high salt levels. We're now using ProMix HP/CC and getting expected results.

Here is a Gorilla Glue #4 @49 days.

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[Hushpuppy]

Very nice indeed

 

[AluminumMonster]

Very nice indeed

Thank you Hushpuppy.

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[bwanabud]

I switched 2 of my rooms over to coco a month ago, working great and far more stable platform than Promix. I decided to use Canna Coco Pro, which is a very nice processed coco that's pre-washed and a low nute base of 150ppm...it's working great with a Blumat system, always damp & never dry.

 

[Hushpuppy]

Very cool dude. Glad to hear the coco is working for you.

 

[SMOKINGRANPA]

I am looking for other coco growers,
I have used coco in hempy buckets for my last 4 grows, started with 5gal, used 31/2 gal and used 1gal pots all with coco palms and perlite res.
Used lucas formula with GH micro, bloom, and some cal/mag.
Only difference I find is yield seems to correlate to size.
I will document my next grow in a 3'x3' tent and 2 5gal hempy buckets.
Going with 1CK and 1 blue dream clones.
I love Hempy and Lucas, I love easy