Warning (lol): Somewhat lengthy and rambling
Canna coco is already buffered and alot easier to manage. No major flushing or buffering needed. If you can get it, try it.
I've seen mention of Canna products for a while. I confess that I haven't done more than glance at their website before now, because this product line is not available locally; I do try to support locally-owned businesses (and ones that employ people from my community) whenever feasible, and one local nursery sells "generic" coco bricks. Due to the unknown... pedigree(?) of it and my inclination to shop locally, I confess I have been thinking more about the proper pretreatment of generic coco than which companies sell ready-to-use products. I do recall that Canna's website had some general information about the (long) history of coco products, which I thought was interesting.
I'll have to take a closer look at Canna's website.
No need for Epsom salts if you use cal/mag. It's already a balanced mix
I believe that people who use Epsom salt are doing so because they feel that there is sufficient calcium already present (in their water supply) that they do not
need a "Calcium / Magnesium" product. Remember that there is a
ratio between these two elements when they are in proper balance... Having enough calcium to throw this balance out of kilter can lead to symptoms which cause the grower to suspect a magnesium deficiency when, technically, there is enough magnesium present. Or so I have read (and observed). In short, if one's plants are receiving enough magnesium... and a Ca/Mg product is added to increase calcium... one might still see issues.
G,Day Annabanana, I have recently been reading some of Harley Smiths tutorials, the one on tap water was interesting,he and others i have read state that the Calcium and Magnesium in most tap water is of a " large Molecule " variety and is not available for use by plants because the pores on the roots of plants are too small to accommodate them ! I for one always thought the cal/mag in tap water WAS usable by my plants. The is also some very interesting reading on CoCo there to....
Hmm... That
is interesting. This seems to make sense. Especially in regards to those of us who do not feed the microbial life in the root zone and depend on said life processing nutrients into a form that our plants can use but, instead, choose to feed our plants directly.
However... This does go against some of the things that I have read in the past. I used to use General Hydroponics three-part Flora series of nutrients for the majority of my cannabis-growing needs (and still have some around here, somewhere). I mostly used the regular set of nutrients. But they also have a FloraMicro
Hardwater component, which is meant to replace their regular (Flora)Micro one. According to GH, "Use FloraMicro Hard water if your tap water is over 200 ppm (or contains Calcium above 70 ppm)." It was my understanding (possibly flawed, of course
) that GH didn't just start selling this product in order to have another product to sell, lol; instead, it was in response to people who were using the original Flora Micro under hard water conditions and were seeing issues.
I used the hard water Micro component a couple of times. It was some years ago, but I seem to remember that things went... smoother... when I was using it (with "gritty" ( :rolleyes3 ) water), in that I could then also use their Ca/Mg supplement without throwing the balance off. I stopped using the hard water Micro because I stopped seeing it around here. I do have a vague recollection of looking at both labels side-by-side and reading that the one had less calcium content than the other (which makes sense, I suppose) but that they were the same, otherwise.
Recently, I have been using tap water exclusively. I do not own an automobile, lol, and this saves me the expense - and hassle (and the hit to my stealth) - of hauling multiple three-gallon jugs back and forth on a bus. Things were going smoothly... and then they weren't. Hmm... Looks like a magnesium deficiency. Add a Ca/Mg product? Don't have one. Let's see... Oh, I have an entire sack of Epsom salt! So I started adding that. AfaIK, there is NO CALCIUM in that, just magnesium sulfate.
Surprise, plants became healthy again, lol.
The above seems to contradict the statements that the calcium in municipal water being in a form that plants cannot use. And, while I have always been a big fan of "science over opinion," this isn't a subjective observation such as "tastes better" which could turn out to mean nothing. Unhealthy plants + tap water + Epsom salt = healthy plants.
This could be because I have...
special tap water. I tend to discount that since my area isn't known for anything "special" with its water supply other than causing people to become unhealthy :rolleyes3 . It might be that there is some kind of chemical reaction between the contents of that water and my nutrients. I cannot discount that without analysis, and that is not an option. I cannot realistically even guess at the likelihood of that one. A third possibility is that at least
some of the calcium content is in a form that can be used. I am leaning towards that one (but this is only my
opinion at this point).
While having nothing to do with cannabis, or fancy nutrients, lol, Mom has been watering her house plants for decades with tap water and has occasionally added Epsom salt to that water. I very seriously doubt that she has ever even picked up a "calcium/magnesium" supplement, let alone bought and used one. Her houseplants are nothing special - but every time I visit and go near one, she gets antsy, lol, because she has had some of them for
years. This has always mildly surprised me, because it seems like she waters the poor things with a frequency (and amount) based on the rainfall amounts in the Namib and the Kalahari
.
Might there be a thriving microbial biosphere at my plants' rootzones, one that is capable of breaking down large-molecules that contain calcium? Well...
Thriving, lol? I very seriously doubt that, but it is possible that there is some kind of microbial life down there. It'd have to be tough and capable of surviving on the RtU nutrients that I feed the plants - but it is
possible. IDK.
[BtW, General Hydroponics has been purchased by
Monsanto(an entity whose crimes against humanity are legion at this point) since the last time I bought any - therefore, I most likely will not be purchasing any more, and I recommend that no one else buy it, either.
]
Another brand that I have seen mentioned is CocoTek. I was looking for unrelated information and stumbled onto a thread about coco discussion at some other cannabis-related forum (via a search engine). IIRC, there was a person who'd used Canna products and who then tried CocoTek. He stated that it was only "pennies" cheaper, so cost was not a factor - but that he ended up liking the brand much better than Canna after using it. That could be subjective, of course, but there were others in the thread who spoke highly of CocoTek (along with those who did the same for Canna). I have never tried either, so have no knowledge one way or the other, but it might be worth looking at the brand.
Right now, I am growing in soil. I keep meaning to set up some coco/perlite "hempy" style containers, but I just haven't gotten motivated enough, yet. I've always been more comfortable with hydroponics than I have with soil, and the ability to treat such a thing like hand-watered hydroponics (because it is) has a high level of appeal to me. I need to do
something, lol. I have two Serious Seeds Kali Mist clones that are about 32", 36" tall, somewhere in that neighborhood, perhaps nine months old... that have spent their entire lives in (separate) 6-ounce Styrofoam coffee cups that are (whoops)
mostly full of a 75%:25% mixture of Fox Farms Happy Frog and perlite. And a couple months back, I gave a
Sensi Seeds (I use bold green text to denote a forum sponsor, as a courtesy to those who pay the forum's bills for us) Jack Herer clone to someone, and realized that it was my last one. So I snipped off a thin 7"(+/-) branch, looked around, saw an empty water bottle in the trash can and some Happy Frog / perlite on the table, cut the top of the water bottle, filled it with the mix, melted a small hole in the bottom edge of the bottle, and stuck the cutting into it. All I did was water it (said water ran out as fast as I poured it in because the soil was so dry, so I taped the hole shut and tried again, let it set for a few minutes to hydrate the soil, then removed the tape). I then stuck the clone into the dimmest corner of the grow room and proceeded to ignore it until it wilted, at which point I'd water it again. Err... The usual lazy man's 99.995% effective cloning method
. So now it's, IDK, a couple feet tall or so, roots everywhere in the water bottle, and it would like to get repotted Real Soon Now, too, please. I think I might stick them into (green, of course, as it seems to help prevent algal growth, and I'd rather not spray paint the bottles black and then white) two-liter pop bottles. That'd be a great use of coco/perlite, I think. I once followed a journal written by someone who'd done that with straight perlite and a mixture who stated a mixture was better.
Come to think of it, I never did figure out if the Kali Mist and Jack Herer seeds had gotten, err, switched at birth. There seems to be some variance (phenotypes) in each strain, and a phenotype of one might almost look like a phenotype of the other, so... Flip a coin, lol. I also have a plant going from a seed that did not come from a seedbank, that I was told was Huckleberry (I have no real information on this strain, but it does appear to be commercially available), and a very poor (insufficient light!) seedling that is supposed to be White Widow x Blueberry. Or maybe that's Blueberry x White Widow - IDK which was the male and which was the female parent. I'm tempted to just quietly toss that one, but may attempt to bring it back to health (or at least prop it up
). I may take a cutting from the Huckleberry and throw that one into a two-liter bottle, too.
I do have a concern about the (somewhat) lengthy flowering time of the Kali Mist, along with the moderate flowering time of the Jack Herer. I seem to remember Kali Mist taking up to 14 weeks to complete flowering back in the day, and suppose that whatever version is currently being sold might be the same? The Jack Herer might take up to 12 weeks. I've only seen eight- to ten-week (mostly indica) strains being flowered this way. The restricted root space might help me keep these clones smaller - which would be a great big PLUS right now... or it might just cause issues for me.
Now... The Canna website... I am doing some reading there now. I do see some mention of issues that can be caused by overly hard water (including having a portion of one's nutrients precipitate out of solution). They suggest, in such situations, using nitric acid - instead of phosphoric acid - to decrease pH. I have rarely seen discussion of nitric acid vs. phospheric acid, but it makes sense, especially when the medium to be used is a coco-based one... There is likely to
already be phosphorous (and sodium :rolleyes3 ) in coco coir and related substrates.
I just saw a page that discusses steam-sterlized vs. non- in regards to coco. Canna does not use steam-sterlization, it turns out. That's supposed to enable them to ensure that their brand of coco retains the beneficial Trichoderma. And they have a picture of a sample of each (preparation process). Oddly enough, to my eye it looks like there is evidence of a greater amount of microbial life - the fuzzy white surface stuff - in the one that
was steam-sterilized. Hmm...?
I just read (on that same page) that Holland's leading grocer sells fruits/vegetables grown exclusively in Canna coco products. That strikes me as a good recommendation, lol.
From another page on Canna's website:
Coco substrate can act as a buffer, storing water and nutrients for the plant. Buffering can work in several ways. There are water buffers, pH buffers, nutrient buffers and the coco buffer. What are the differences? Here you can see one example. Discover the other differences by watching our video!
Nutrient buffer
Peat/mineral soil: nutrients bind to the fibres or particles using charged sites know as Cation Exchange Sites. Nutrients are then released into the solution around fibres in the soil (slow release/equilibrium).
Coco: fibres are already filled with potassium
and sodium
(Emphasis, mine.) Hmm, again.
I see (on a different page) discussion about their coco brick. I do like that the package apparently is a bag suitable for carrying the expanded coco after it has been hydrated, and that said bag has handles. What I can buy around here, they just hand you a big brick (more like a cinder block than a brick, lol). I think it costs around six or eight dollars. IDK how that compares to the Canna brick. I suppose, if it is truly a better product, that $20/brick would be acceptable (and I am not wealthy!). If I could simply walk into a store and buy it - as opposed to having to order it via the Internet and have it shipped - I would be happy to try Canna brand. But I cannot procure it locally. I am assuming that the local product is unbuffered and minimally rinsed. I might be incorrect, but... It is probably safer to assume the worst than to assume the best.
I see that their top-shelf coco substrate products are under the COGr brand name:
Besides CANNA COCO, CANNA developed a COCO substrate especially for the more experienced grower: CANNA COGr. CANNA COGr is compressed COCO and consists of a sophisticated mix of COCO fibers, COCO peat and COCO husks. Thanks to the coarse COCO structure, COGr has the unique property of absorbing large amounts of direct available water and nutrients. At the same time the open structure ensures enough air is available for the roots.
COGr is both pressed and dried, which makes transport and storage very comfortable. In order to prepare them for use, they are soaked and buffered with a special solution: COGr buffer Agent. After adding Buffer Agent the boards will increase in volume from 3 to 17 liters.
(Again, empasis, mine.) They sell a
buffering agent. One that is meant to be used with their own top-shelf coco substrates. For "expert growers," presumably ones who demand the best performance. So... Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances, lol.
Me... I have a (generic) coco brick, that I picked up for next to nothing. I also have a six-pound (IIRC) sack of calcium nitrate, that I also picked up for next to nothing (under ten bucks, IIRC). Six pounds of Ca(NO₃)₂ is enough to pretreat a
LOT of coco, lol. It also has other uses. I put a little bit around Mom's three tomato plants and scratched it in, hoping that it will help prevent blossom end rot. IDK whether it will or not, just hoping. Anyway, I will probably hydrate the coco, rinse it a few(+) times, and do the Ca(NO₃)₂ thing. Either this coming Sunday... or some day
. Whenever I get around to it....
