Update: The Coco Kids
Auto Amnesia Haze (left) Auto Blueberry (right)
I’ve never grown in Coco before. So, true to my form I have been trawling this site for info and guidance, and a little on the general web as well. Osmosis is my preferred way to learn. I immerse myself in something and then take stock of what I’ve imbibed. When searching for info on lighting or High Brix and organic growing the helpful breadcrumbs are nearly always from Graytail or Conradino
When chasing the skinny on Coco growing, the breadcrumbs I followed were from
@Pennywise. Thanks to Penny I came accross a mountain of helpful posts and conversations about coco coir growing and I’m going to attempt to give an overview of what I’ve learned.
My main sources, in the end, were these 3:
Cultivators Coco guide and feed schedule (I’m not using the feed shecdule but I learnt
a lot reading this thread and am super grateful to
@Cultivator for it).
Barney86 recently started
an Everything You Need to Know thread which is also full of very helpful info.
I also referenced the
fertigation section of this website. I don’t know what it’s credentials are but it seemed to give a good overview of some concepts.
I’m not following any one specific method or set of recommendations. I am adapting elements of them to my situation so the info I’ve collected is, of course, what’s most relevant to my set up. So I’m not making any recommendations, necessarily, just observations.
- First and foremost, Coco is passive hydro. While it looks and feels a bit like soil or SPM, the similarities end right there. There’s nothing resembling growing in soil here.
- We don’t water or irrigate or fertilise, we fertigate
- right from the start (no plain water).
- Aim to keep the same level and balance of nutrient solution in the medium at all times.
- Start low (at 1/4 strength nutrients) and go slow, only increasing when the plant shows a need for more and then, only increase by 50% strength at a time
- Frequency of fertigation should be at least once a day, and can be up to 4-5 times a day. It should never be less than once a day and I read in a few places that fertigaitng too often is also not desirable. About 4 times a day is probably good, I’m aiming for twice, once at lights on and a second, slightly smaller amount about 10hrs later. I expect this will increase as they get bigger.
- Run-off practices vary widely among Coco growers, from those who insist that 30-50% runoff is necessary to those, like Cultivator, who say no runoff is required. I’m varying between no runoff and about 10% runoff.
- Don’t use amended coco, but make sure it’s washed and buffered coco can be a good idea. (I read some great material on Calcium buffering in coco and why it works and why ‘unbuffered’ coco encourages/leads to the CalMag deficiencies often seen in coco, and I canna find it again to reference - bad Amy! Hopefully one day I will and will share it here).
- Perlite or no perlite? This also varies so I’d say it comes down to preference. Barney86 says it’s totally necessary to mix perlite in and Culitivator says it’s a bad idea. They both grow great plants. Cult gives good reasoning for it too, which I can’t remember exactly, except that it convinced me :laugh2, and seeing as I don’t like perlite very much, I’ll happily go on without it.
Those were the most important general points I discovered and I’m using them to develop my own technique for this setup, using these nutes I have; BioVega and BioFlores by Canna.
There were/are of course all sorts of guides and schedules for nutes and ppm and ph up and down etc, which I am completely ignoring at this point
. I have no interest in needing to monitor such things and am simply following the basic Canna BioVega guide for using their product. I started at 1/4 strength and am now at about 1/2 strength. Canna instruct
not to PH adjust this particular product so I won’t be doing that!
At first, getting the right volume of water to use was tricky. Seedlings don’t need much but I still wanted to wet the entire medium, because elements in the nutes will change as the medium dries out. In any case, I started with way too much and was getting massive, over 50%, runoff, which is totally impractical for me for me to have to deal with (physically). Then I read Cultivator’s repeated cry that feeding to run-off isn’t necessary
at all, so I experimented until I found the volume of water that currently gives me almost no runoff, which is 200ml.
I am feeding by hand using a giant 100ml syringe and I feel confident I’m getting an even application with this method. I do 200ml at lights on and then about 10-12hrs later I check for runoff, which is anywhere between none and about 50ml, clear that and give another 100ml each.
I have made a batch of Calcium supplement from eggshells (the vinegar
method Emilya documents here) but will only use it if it looks necessary. And even then, I’ll be going very carefully as it’s strength will be completely unknown, and I’ve not used it before.
So there, that’s all for the record. Let’s get on with it shall I!?
Auto Blueberry - day 21
Always looks a bit droopy like this at lights on (usually perks up a bit throughout the ‘day’)
Some nice side branching is getting going and stigmas are showing clearly at the nodes (nothing in the tops yet).
I’m yet to sort out any decent lighting for indoor photography. That will come, but
man it’s a thing when you can see the potential for images that you can’t really make shine. This one below really reminds me of one of those “butterfly” paintings we used to do as kids, where you slpoodge paint on paper and then fold the paper in half and sploodge it flat... with better lighting it would be, well, even better
I’m keeping a close eye on this Blueberry for signs it needs stronger nutes or signs of Cal and/or Mag demand. Currently it gets 8drops of BioVega in 200ml warm water. I am contemplating carefully introducing the DIY supplement now, as it transitions into flower. I’ll definitely up the nutes a little soon as I suspect the cotyledons are starting to fade and that’s one cue to up the nutes.
Auto Amnesia Haze - day 22
Interestingly this Auto Amnesia is shorter and stockier than the Blueberry, although the branching is definitely more vigorous and lanky so we will see if it’s sativa heritage shows through in some more height once it’s in flowering stretch mode. The stigmas are quite a bit more spectacular as well! This Amnesia showed some
very slightly burnt tips after I upped the nutes so have backed them off by 25%. It now gets 6 drops of BioVega in 200ml.
I’m looking forward to making a dosing oil out of some of this one. I currently love the G13 Haze alongside my CBD during the day. Excellent pain relief without any sedation and great clear minded focus. I’m hoping this AH will be similarly great
This morning I took another snap of them together, which shows the height difference well. Amnesia came up first but Blueberry has sprinted past in the vertical growth dept. I suppose the difference is in the branching so they actually have about the same rate of growth, just in different areas.
That’s where my adventures in coco are at right now. At this stage I know 2 things: I won’t be using coco for the early season semi-outdoor grows, because it’s wet all the time it’s actually quite heavy and even these 2.5gal pots are too much for me to be moving around regularly, and; next time I grow in coco it will be 4-5 plants (probably autos) all at the same time, and no other methods crossing over (except maybe some early DBHBB veg right at the end, because they need no grower action whatsoever) - KISS.
This grow, all the autos take second priority to the photo-periods and I’ll shuffle things around as needed. They’ll get what they get in terms of light, and whatever I get from them in terms of buds will be a nice bonus to the variety in the jars while also giving me half an idea about the personality of the cultivar - to grow and to consume.
With the coco kids tucked back into the gaps and corners, the tent looked like this a few hours before lights-off this morning:
Happy days to all
oops 
wrong thread excuse me
but I did get a lot!)...
gotta try these things, right?
op:
