Coco vs Soil

Debudman

Debudman

New Member
Hello folks...

I have primarly been doing outdoor soil grows, but have considered doing some indoor as well. I have been hearing individuals who have been using Coco as their grow medium. I was wondering what the difference is between them (Pros and Cons). I also have read that some say the coco produces higher yields.

Here are a couple things I read about Coco...
- It likes the PH a bit lower, like 5.6 or so.
- It doesn't retain water like soil (Good for hydroponic continuous drip)

Anything else?
 
Pros:
- Holds great air and water ratio
- Can use organic nutes
- Inexpensive, you get more coco out of 5kg block
- Cannot over water
- Pest free right out of the bag. Soil may have some and eggs/larva.
- Require frequent watering (if treating it like hydro) which is a daily exercise

Con:
- The non-stop craving for another coco block
 
I also have just a soilessgrow(botanticare ready-gro moisture mix) using ageold nutes and root pots. And am very impressed so far...might strayaway from hydro if this trend continues
 
Hey guys - newbie here. I have a few seedlings in amended soil and little 3x3 peat pots. When I transplant them can I plop them into coco instead of more soil, or does the medium really need to be the same even outside the peat? Also, I assume that I can leave the peat pots right on them and that the roots will grow through?

Thanks, and sorry to hijack the thread a little...
 
Hey SUD,

I would remove the peat pot a dip the soil/root ball in a bucket of PH water with super thrive. Gently work the soil out and then carefully plant in the coco medium.

I'm not a coco expert, but that makes sense to me. If anyone else has a better idea, please chime in.
 
Yo Budman! :)

I used to use Coco exclusively but I ran into some lower pot saturation issues with it indoors. Outdoors no problem at all cause you have a much higher evapotranspiration ratio at work because of the sun's energy.

One exception indoors is Air Pots, where Coco is probably the best overall medium to use for a tight pack, no leaking from the side holes, and no chance of souring due to saturation normally common in a conventional pot.

I used Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend as the brand. I am seriously considering going back to that next season for my outdoor grows using Air Pots.

Sent from my iPod touch using Forum Runner
 
Goldengoose7 said:
Yo Budman! :)

I used to use Coco exclusively but I ran into some lower pot saturation issues with it indoors. Outdoors no problem at all cause you have a much higher evapotranspiration ratio at work because of the sun's energy.

One exception indoors is Air Pots, where Coco is probably the best overall medium to use for a tight pack, no leaking from the side holes, and no chance of souring due to saturation normally common in a conventional pot.

I used Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend as the brand. I am seriously considering going back to that next season for my outdoor grows using Air Pots.

Sent from my iPod touch using Forum Runner
Click to expand...

Hey Goose, thanks for dropping in. :)

Interesting feedback indeed :hmmmm:
I always thought that "saturation" would not be a problem for coco indoors or out. In fact I figured it had a low absorbtion rate. I know some soils hold water like a sponge. Coco on the other hand I thought water just ran right through it say to speak. I read that for this purpose it was great for drip hydros cause they could just run a continous slow drip.

How is it for tranplanting from coco to coco?
Does it hold together at all like soil. I would think it would just break away
and then you would transplant similar to like I mentioned above for soil to coco.

I would like to try it though as well on my next outdoor grow.
 
That Black Gold looks awesome, but it also looks pretty similar to the soil mix I'm using (coir instead of vermiculite)... which probably means it'd be a great thing for me to transplant into! I just bought a few of these guys today, which the folks at AHLgrows.com talked up no end. Seems like they could work for the oversaturation issue too. They mentioned putting them on a rack to allow airflow underneath (couldn't help but envision the thing my mom used to put fresh baked cookies on when I was a kid). But enough about my sweet tooth - have any of you all used straight coir? I'm leaning toward sticking with soil at this point, but I'm still really curious.
 
Debudman said:
Hey Goose, thanks for dropping in. :)

Interesting feedback indeed :hmmmm:
I always thought that "saturation" would not be a problem for coco indoors or out. In fact I figured it had a low absorbtion rate. I know some soils hold water like a sponge. Coco on the other hand I thought water just ran right through it say to speak. I read that for this purpose it was great for drip hydros cause they could just run a continous slow drip.

How is it for tranplanting from coco to coco?
Does it hold together at all like soil. I would think it would just break away
and then you would transplant similar to like I mentioned above for soil to coco.

I would like to try it though as well on my next outdoor grow.
Click to expand...

Yo Budman!

I always though that water HOLDING was the primary appeal of Coco, not the other way around? At least my stuff certainly held it like a sponge! It was always weird to pour well over a gallon into a five gallon pot and if the Coco was dry, little or no runoff came out the bottom! Pick up the pot and MAN! The thing suddenly weighed three times as much as it did before watering.

Where did you read about it not having this property? Perhaps it was this brand I have been using. Perhaps there is something in it besides Coco? After all WATERHOLD is part of the product name, and it certainly lives up to that name in spades! :laughtwo:
 
ShutUpDonny said:
That Black Gold looks awesome, but it also looks pretty similar to the soil mix I'm using (coir instead of vermiculite)... which probably means it'd be a great thing for me to transplant into! I just bought a few of these guys today, which the folks at AHLgrows.com talked up no end. Seems like they could work for the oversaturation issue too. They mentioned putting them on a rack to allow airflow underneath (couldn't help but envision the thing my mom used to put fresh baked cookies on when I was a kid). But enough about my sweet tooth - have any of you all used straight coir? I'm leaning toward sticking with soil at this point, but I'm still really curious.
Click to expand...

Hey Donny!

I know a lot of my 420 mates are using Smart Pots. Either that or Air Pots. I'm not up on the difference between them, but from the description on that site you linked to, it sounds like they kind of accomplish the same thing in the end.

I feel I am missing something here... Is Coir not the same thing as Coco? Are we not talking about Coconut husk ground into a coarse powder? That is what the Blackgold stuff looks like. I always liked the look of it in the pot, and the way the green of the plant complimented the light brown even color tone of the Cocoblend. It just looked clean to me, and I found it to be very easy to work with.

Not sure if you have seen my Blue Cheese plant that came in second place in the July Plant of the Month contest, but that one was grown in 100% Cocoblend from seedling to harvest. It did great and actually gave me little in the way of problems with feedings and such. I just found that I couldn't water as often and had to plan out my feeding schedule because once it was in flower, the pot stayed pretty wet the entire time. I could let the plant easily go for 4-5 days without watering and it would still feel damp just below the surface.

The stuff is absolutely GREAT for transplanting! :thumb:

I always kept a small bucket of Black Gold Cocoblend on my work bench as I was transplanting clones out of my Turbo Klone into pots. I would dip the roots of the clone in Liquinox Start B1 and Growmore Organic Kelp Extract and then sprinkle Cocoblend all over the root spikes before putting the clone into the hole I dug in the middle of the pot. I felt that this gave the roots a little bit of a safety blanket as I then spooned more Coco around the root ball as I held the plant in space in the center of the hole, eventually filling it in and cementing the plant securely into its new home! :thumb:
 
Goldengoose7 said:
Hey Donny!

I know a lot of my 420 mates are using Smart Pots. Either that or Air Pots. I'm not up on the difference between them, but from the description on that site you linked to, it sounds like they kind of accomplish the same thing in the end.

I feel I am missing something here... Is Coir not the same thing as Coco? Are we not talking about Coconut husk ground into a coarse powder? That is what the Blackgold stuff looks like. I always liked the look of it in the pot, and the way the green of the plant complimented the light brown even color tone of the Cocoblend. It just looked clean to me, and I found it to be very easy to work with.

Not sure if you have seen my Blue Cheese plant that came in second place in the July Plant of the Month contest, but that one was grown in 100% Cocoblend from seedling to harvest. It did great and actually gave me little in the way of problems with feedings and such. I just found that I couldn't water as often and had to plan out my feeding schedule because once it was in flower, the pot stayed pretty wet the entire time. I could let the plant easily go for 4-5 days without watering and it would still feel damp just below the surface.

The stuff is absolutely GREAT for transplanting! :thumb:

I always kept a small bucket of Black Gold Cocoblend on my work bench as I was transplanting clones out of my Turbo Klone into pots. I would dip the roots of the clone in Liquinox Start B1 and Growmore Organic Kelp Extract and then sprinkle Cocoblend all over the root spikes before putting the clone into the hole I dug in the middle of the pot. I felt that this gave the roots a little bit of a safety blanket as I then spooned more Coco around the root ball as I held the plant in space in the center of the hole, eventually filling it in and cementing the plant securely into its new home! :thumb:
Click to expand...

Hey Goose,

Yeah I read that coir is made from the brown coconut husk.
You are correct, it apparantly hold up to 3 times its weight in water.
I guess my head was screwed on backwards thinking it was the opposite.
But I have not tried it yet so it is all new territory for me.
I'm not sure how many different compositions are made from the coconut.
But I will certainly give it a try next summer to see the results.

Congrats on your July Blue Cheese Plant of the Month... :bravo:

You mentioned that your plant felt wet after 4-5 days..
I'm experiencing that now too with my containers. I'm using a good organic soil with other additives. I have one smaller clone that can go about 10 days.
I look at that though as a blessing. I had to run out every day or two with my outdoor grow to water.. Would much rather go 4-5 days and get a break. :)
But in growing in containers no matter what type of soil you are using, the bigger the plant the more water/nutes it will drink . I have another one in the same size container with the same soil, it is twice as big, and it needs water in half the time. I was happy with the retention of water in containers vs growing in the ground.

You swear by that Liquinox Start B1, I use another blend myself, but
will have to check that out when mine runs dry. SuperThrive I believe serves the same purpose as well.




One thing they say about coir is that it doesn't drain well. But most of use use perlite to solve those problems anyway.
 
Dude, that Blue Cheese is SICK! And aptly titled, I'm sure...

Wow, guess I'm confused too (surprise, surprise)! When I googled Black Gold it took me to a pic which apparently has a bunch of stuff besides straight coco in it. With the perlite and castings and such it looked like my soil mix, kinda chunky as opposed to powdery. Dunno if my problem lay in trusting my eyes or the interwebs - both risky propositions. Anyway, having read around on the subject of coco I somehow also got the notion that it was a fast drainer. Probably the references to it being a good hydro medium and me just extrapolating from there. But going back and reading the top of this thread I can see that I never should have gotten as far as that assumption. If you do well to mix a given soil/medium with perlite then it probably means that medium doesn't drain too quickly by itself, huh?

So, I'm sorry for passing along my confusion - in this post as well : ( - and thank you all very much for helping me correct it. All this info I've gotten on coco in the meantime may not have meant what I thought it did, but I'll probably try it in a mix soon since it sounds like it could replace vermiculite, and all without the scary dust/lung disease warnings on the packaging!
 
Debudman said:
Hey Goose,

Yeah I read that coir is made from the brown coconut husk.
You are correct, it apparantly hold up to 3 times its weight in water.
I guess my head was screwed on backwards thinking it was the opposite.
But I have not tried it yet so it is all new territory for me.
I'm not sure how many different compositions are made from the coconut.
But I will certainly give it a try next summer to see the results.

Congrats on your July Blue Cheese Plant of the Month... :bravo:

You mentioned that your plant felt wet after 4-5 days..
I'm experiencing that now too with my containers. I'm using a good organic soil with other additives. I have one smaller clone that can go about 10 days.
I look at that though as a blessing. I had to run out every day or two with my outdoor grow to water.. Would much rather go 4-5 days and get a break. :)
But in growing in containers no matter what type of soil you are using, the bigger the plant the more water/nutes it will drink . I have another one in the same size container with the same soil, it is twice as big, and it needs water in half the time. I was happy with the retention of water in containers vs growing in the ground.

You swear by that Liquinox Start B1, I use another blend myself, but
will have to check that out when mine runs dry. SuperThrive I believe serves the same purpose as well.

One thing they say about coir is that it doesn't drain well. But most of use use perlite to solve those problems anyway.
Click to expand...

Hey Budman!


Yeah... The Cocoblend definitely lives up to its reputation as a water retention superstar! ;) If you go ahead and pick up those Air Pots for next season you should at least try going 100% Coco in some of them. You wouldn't want any of those blends that use Perlite or similar because that would defeat the purpose of having a finely ground material that can pack well into the Air Pot's nooks and crannys.

The more I think about it, the more I am leaning in that direction myself. Since I have grown in 100% Cocoblend before and that Blue Cheese plant was the result, we know it can rear an impressive plant! The only risk is with the saturation issues, which would be negated if we use Air Pots.

Having already worked with it as much as I have, I already know that it is going to pack into those Air Pots better than any of the traditional mixes like Happy Frog etc. Even the Hyponex I keep around as a good mixer with higher end soils has a lot of twigs and large pieces of biomatter in it, so it too could clog those air holes. Cocoblend has the consistency of sawdust or peat, so it will pack well into those holes but won't present any obstacles to the roots finding their way into those holes and the air pruning that would result! :thumb:

As for the Liquinox Start... I had been using a more expensive B1 brand, but when I ran out I decided to give START a try. The stuff is dirt cheap for one thing. (under 4 bucks a bottle) and since you only use 2 TBSP per gallon, it goes a long way. I've always used B1 as the very first nute I give to seedlings, and of course I soak my clone's roots in that and Kelp Extract for about 20 minutes before I pot them up, and then water the pot with the same solution.

I NEVER see any sign of transplant shock and with seedlings, it gives them a little boost of nutrition but is as gentle as plain water on young roots, both for seedlings and for clones fresh out of the cloner!

I'm sure you will be a believer when you pick up a bottle when you run out of your current B1. Other nice thing about it...Most grocery stores sell it in their nursery section, so it is very easy to find around town! Even our markets up here stock it, which is saying something! ;)
 
ShutUpDonny said:
Dude, that Blue Cheese is SICK! And aptly titled, I'm sure...

Wow, guess I'm confused too (surprise, surprise)! When I googled Black Gold it took me to a pic which apparently has a bunch of stuff besides straight coco in it. With the perlite and castings and such it looked like my soil mix, kinda chunky as opposed to powdery. Dunno if my problem lay in trusting my eyes or the interwebs - both risky propositions. Anyway, having read around on the subject of coco I somehow also got the notion that it was a fast drainer. Probably the references to it being a good hydro medium and me just extrapolating from there. But going back and reading the top of this thread I can see that I never should have gotten as far as that assumption. If you do well to mix a given soil/medium with perlite then it probably means that medium doesn't drain too quickly by itself, huh?

So, I'm sorry for passing along my confusion - in this post as well : ( - and thank you all very much for helping me correct it. All this info I've gotten on coco in the meantime may not have meant what I thought it did, but I'll probably try it in a mix soon since it sounds like it could replace vermiculite, and all without the scary dust/lung disease warnings on the packaging!
Click to expand...


Hey Donny!

Thanks for the compliments on the BC! It was and IS an awesome plant! I managed to get ONE clone off her just before she went back into flower outside in July, so hopefully I will get a fully vegged clone out of the deal. As for the original...She is out back pumping out another batch of those "teal" colored frosty buds of hers! Much smaller this time since I pruned the heck out of it when I was planning on keeping it around as a mother. That was before she went back into flower 2 weeks earlier than all the other plants back there. Caught me totally off guard and this is why I was only able to get one clone out of the 18 cuttings I originally put in my Turbo Klone.

No worries about getting it wrong about what Coco does. Easy mistake if you have never used it before.

When you pick up some Cocoblend, make sure it is 100% and doesn't come mixed with pearlite or some other coarser materials. You can always mix that stuff in yourself, but the beauty of the stuff is the fine texture that can pack well into specialty pots like the Air Pots a lot of us here have recently started using.

Heck! Just look for the Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend that I used for the Blue Cheese plant. We already know it is 100% and is high quality. I get it up here for about $12.00 a 2.5 cu ft bag, which compared to Happy Frog and Fox Farm Ocean Forest is several dollars cheaper! :thumb:
 
I use the cocogrow bricks. They are compressed coco coir bricks and make about 9 liters of coir. They cost about $2.50 each. They take up very little space on your supply shelf and are easy to use. I hydrate them with a 50% nutrient solution to preload them with some nutrients. I add abut 30% perlite to the mix to add some aeration, but would give the 100% coco a shot in a smart-pot set up (per GG7's rec).

I use it in my hempy buckets, with the bottom of the buckets being 100% perlite for the res portion. Seems to be working fine as far as I can tell. The coco drains well, but also holds moisture (if that makes sense). I only need to water them every 3 days at the most, but they don't get "soggy" like soil can. In the hempy buckets I feed them until I get a little run off and then call it good for the next 3 days.
 
Great pointers, folks - thanks for all the advice! I will definitely play around with coco when it gets to transplant time. With prices like that it would be silly not to.
 

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