Soil or Coco?

So I just finished my first grow in soil and turned out pretty well. got a bit over 1 oz per plant. I started growing my next guys in coco making sure to flush medium before i put the seeds in. they sprouted and seemed great but a week later died. here are some pics of them just before.



So I'm gonna be starting over but i'm now not so sure if i want to use Coco. Even now i'm not sure what happened if i over watered, under watered, gave too much light, etc.

The strains i'll be growing are auto Roadrunner, auto blueberry and auto white russian. Any help would be great, i don't wanna throw away anymore sprouts

what and how much were you feeding? lights? they looked nutrient burnt.

Without knowing too much about what's going on there, I'll throw out a guess. I think you should add something to the coco that will help the seedling get more air. prelite,pumice..... while the seedling is young it is easy to over water and coco holds a lot of water. There are many different grades of coco and the pith coco that is sold in blocks should be leetched well and add something rice hulls work too. test pH if you can and adjust. Good luck. and again it's just my guess, I don't use coco only. hope it helps.

OK here is what i do when using my coco.

I allow some water to sit out for 24hours with an airstone in it.

I soak my seeds for around 6hours.

During this time i then pre soak my coco in a weak nutrient solution of EC0.4 with a ph of 6.

Then after the seeds have soaked i plant them 1/16 of inch down into the coco and gently brush some coco over the top. I water it in with some of the 0.4 feed. Then i place a small humidity dome over the coco where the seed is and place it under a 24w T5 6400k flouro.

Then after around 2-3 days the seeds pop above ground. Now i take the humidity domes off once they are above ground. I then do not water until the top of the coco becomes dry and crumbley.

Then when i water i do it again using the 0.4EC feed allowing plenty of runoff out of the bottom.

Then do not water until the top is dry and crumbley again by doing this allows the seedling to send out its roots in search of more water thus creating a thriving root zone.

DUring the first 10-14days i dont give the seedlings anything higher in strength than the EC0.4. Once the first few nodes are out i up the strength to an EC of 0.7. Then i judge how much to increase it depending upon how much foliage there is. The more foliage the plant is developing the more nutes they will need to keep up with the new growth.

Now when you use coco you do not use it the same as soil. WIth soil you should generally be doing WATER WATER FEED WATER WATER FEED. When you water COCO you should always feed the plants and never have any water only days until you flush preharvest.

Your seedlings to be honest look a little N deficient due to the lack of any nutrients in the coco.

Always pre soak your coco with a very weak solution of feed or look for something specific to seedlings. SEAWEED and KELP are usually pretty good for seedlings but still remain with weak mixing.


Hope this has helped a little for you to understand how to feed the plants when using coco.


One last point is that i feed everything even plain water during the pre harvest flush at pH6.


Good luck and keep us posted.


J

kevin said:

what and how much were you feeding? lights? they looked nutrient burnt.

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no nutes at all. just water ph'd around 6 maybe a bit less. for watering i would just let the medium get dry then water. at first i was using two 2foot t5's, and 4 6400k cfl bulbs. then thought might be too much so just put on the t5's. still died tho :\

jondamon said:

OK here is what i do when using my coco.

I allow some water to sit out for 24hours with an airstone in it.

I soak my seeds for around 6hours.

During this time i then pre soak my coco in a weak nutrient solution of EC0.4 with a ph of 6.

Then after the seeds have soaked i plant them 1/16 of inch down into the coco and gently brush some coco over the top. I water it in with some of the 0.4 feed. Then i place a small humidity dome over the coco where the seed is and place it under a 24w T5 6400k flouro.

Then after around 2-3 days the seeds pop above ground. Now i take the humidity domes off once they are above ground. I then do not water until the top of the coco becomes dry and crumbley.

Then when i water i do it again using the 0.4EC feed allowing plenty of runoff out of the bottom.

Then do not water until the top is dry and crumbley again by doing this allows the seedling to send out its roots in search of more water thus creating a thriving root zone.

DUring the first 10-14days i dont give the seedlings anything higher in strength than the EC0.4. Once the first few nodes are out i up the strength to an EC of 0.7. Then i judge how much to increase it depending upon how much foliage there is. The more foliage the plant is developing the more nutes they will need to keep up with the new growth.

Now when you use coco you do not use it the same as soil. WIth soil you should generally be doing WATER WATER FEED WATER WATER FEED. When you water COCO you should always feed the plants and never have any water only days until you flush preharvest.

Your seedlings to be honest look a little N deficient due to the lack of any nutrients in the coco.

Always pre soak your coco with a very weak solution of feed or look for something specific to seedlings. SEAWEED and KELP are usually pretty good for seedlings but still remain with weak mixing.


Hope this has helped a little for you to understand how to feed the plants when using coco.


One last point is that i feed everything even plain water during the pre harvest flush at pH6.


Good luck and keep us posted.


J

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awsome info man +rep indeed! ohh so coco you need to start off with nutes. makes sense since they say soil has a bit in it but coco doesn't. for nutes i have are Canna Coco A, Canna Coco B and Molasses. so i should just use 2/5 of the A solution?

How often did you find you had to water them? I noticed my coco got dry pretty quick. almost daily.

cazador said:

Without knowing too much about what's going on there, I throw out a guess. I think you should add something to the coco that will help the seedling get more air. prelite,pumice..... while the seedling is young it is easy to over water and coco holds a lot of water. There are many different grades of coco and the pith coco that is sold in blocks should be leetched well and add something rice hulls work too. test pH if you can and adjust. Good luck. and again it's just my guess. hope it helps.

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not needed. the beauty of coco is that you can water the shit out of it and it still aerates very well. it holds water very well and lets what it doesnt need run off. its kinda hard to over water in coco, but that doesnt mean it cant be done

With coco you do not want to let the medium get dry at that stage of their life. Coco has excellent drainage properties, and as such it is near impossible to overwater. Just keep an eye on it and keep it moist and damp

tip top toker said:

With coco you do not want to let the medium get dry at that stage of their life. Coco has excellent drainage properties, and as such it is near impossible to overwater. Just keep an eye on it and keep it moist and damp

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i got ya, and you agree with J, should always be using a low mix of nutes in the water?

100% on Jondamon's take and recommendations. Excellent advice. I use ROOT66 as a fert which has kelp and other goodies in it. I use 1 teaspoon/liter mix and soak the coco in it for an hr or so. I than sow and place tray on a heating pad with a dome. Works well with all types of crops.

Also, do you guys think something like Cal-Mag is needed if only using Coco, and the Canna A+B and Molasses? I heard somewhere that coco can make the plant deficient in calcium and magnesium

punkgrower420 said:

i got ya, and you agree with J, should always be using a low mix of nutes in the water?

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I germinated a seed in some old coco just last week to turn into a mother, i simply watered the coco, bunged the seed in, and let it do it's thing. It's now about 6 inches and still hasn't needed any nutrients yet. I've never fed seedlings and never had issue as a result.

punkgrower420 said:

Also, do you guys think something like Cal-Mag is needed if only using Coco, and the Canna A+B and Molasses? I heard somewhere that coco can make the plant deficient in calcium and magnesium

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if you are using the canna line you dont need to add cal/mag they already compensate, them and the house and garden coco line are the only ones i believe that have the added cal/mag

I'm a super newb, but I LOVE COCO. The shizz is so easy, the best of both (soil and hydro) worlds; the only issue I've ever had is under-watering my seedlings but that didn't seem to affect my girls:


I've got Lemon Haze, the Church, Sharks Breath and Cole Train in that shot.

nickfury510 said:

not needed. the beauty of coco is that you can water the shit out of it and it still aerates very well. it holds water very well and lets what it doesnt need run off. its kinda hard to over water in coco, but that doesnt mean it cant be done

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Thanks. I don't use coco only I mix it with other things. I know i'ts impossible to over water later on but I thought that some coco held water so well that early on it was easier to over water. I stand corrected. Always learning.

You shouldent be giving seedlings any nutes wherher clay or not. for example you only soak rockwool for 24 hours in ph 5.5 water to remove the bad stuff then plant the seeds in damp rock wool one 25w cfl is enough at this stage and continue misting the dome a few times a day and keep the temp at 25 and the humidity to 80%, as the plant hasnt developed roots at this stage it feeds through the leafs in the humid enviroment so there are no roots to take in the nutes therefor the leafs are burning with nutes and too much light IMO.

Coco requires nutrients from the start to establish it's CEC with the plant. CEC is important because it involves the electrical equilibrium of the roots and the media. When the media is too electrically negative (too many nitrates and phosphates) the plant responds by losing positive cations (potassium, magnesium, calcium) to create a balance between the two. Coco has a very unique microscopic structure that it developed to deal with high salt content sea water. This structure is what allows coco to create a nutrient buffer and remain aerated while still saturated. This is one reason why you don't want the coco to dry out completely.

Imagine you have two electrodes in salt water connected to a battery. The electrical current flows from one electrode to another because they are in solution. If you allow the solution to dry up you wind up with salts dried up on your electrodes and no conductivity because the water solution is no longer present. Apply this kind of common sense thinking to your root zone and media and you'll start to understand why it is important to keep the media at least somewhat moist.

I start my young plants off on about 1-2ml per gallon of Canna Coco A+B in conjunction with a rooting supplement like Rhizotonic and calcium and magnesium supplements. I run 1/2 strength on the calcium supplement and about 1/4 strength on the magnesium. Around week 3 or so is when I dial back the calcium and start running the magnesium supplement at full strength. I begin watering my plants with about 1-2 ounces of solution every other day for the first week. Young plants don't need much water, and most of the moisture is lost to evaporation really. When I notice the media getting drier early is when I increase the frequency of my waterings not the volume! Sometime during 14 to 21 days old is when I begin increasing the volume of my waterings so that I can do just one per day and keep the media moist. When the roots are set and several nodes are present (5-6) I will then begin to water to complete saturation, this is usually about 1L of solution per gallon of media to get a very small amount of run off but it can vary GREATLY depending on the size of the plant and the heat/humidity.

I think you could totally cut out the molasses. That stuff is good for a biological system, but you don't have biologicals in coco like you do in soil. I use a molasses-esque supplement in my quasi-organic coco setup beginning around week 6 of flowering, increasing to a very high level during the last week when I've cut out nutrients.

I've had my troubles as well but I have stuck with the coco through it all. I compare soil and coco to skiing and snowboarding. It's easier to stand up on ski's make the "wedge" and weave your way down the mountain. The learning curve is gradual with a subtle increase in skill with every day. Snowboarding is hit or miss, you're either a natural or you spend all day on your ass. The learning curve is in steps, with stagnant skills that improve in jumps with sudden insights. Both methods will get you to the bottom of the hill. It really doesn't matter which you choose, it is just a personal preference, but after 14 years of snowboarding and 9 years of skiing I can surely say that I can make it to the bottom faster and in more style on a snowboard. Just like how I can grow larger plants in coco in the same time frame versus soil.

I've never seen young plants burned up like that. It has to be grower error on your behalf (not being mean, just stating the facts) and I think the next time around could go a lot better. Just make sure you have clean high quality coco, a good coco nutrient system, and if you're going to do anything resembling biologicals and organics steer clean of Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus. It contains EDTA as a chelating agent which will destroy anything beneficial in your media. I see many grows that just tank during flowering with this stuff for really no good reason leaving growers scratching their heads and tossing out suggestions from nutrient burn, to pH imbalances, to cal-mag deficiencies. Your mistake may have been as simple as failing to fully flush and wash the salts from poor quality coco peat so just stick to the fundamentals and I think the next time around will be fine

If you get a cal-mag supplement for coco I suggest Organicare Calplex (calcium), Huvega (magnesium plus micro), and Humega (humic nutrient chelation for uptake), with Seaplex (extracts to keep the internode distances short) or Humboldt Nutrients' Sea Cal (calcium plus micro with extracts) and Sea Mag (magnesium plus micro with extracts) with FlavorFul (fulvic nutrient chelation for uptake).