WTF is a 'coco scientist'? Load of bollocks if you ask me
but I did expect a disaster and I got it lol.
Your absolutely right and is in line with what the guy from canna said
Fair comment, respectHey guys, sorry for the long time reply.. single father duties and shopping day lol
First of all just wanted to say 013 that this post definitely was not directed at you brother. I'm grateful for all the help that I have had from you, skunksa,growings, Emilya. Bill etc Just been reading a lot of other people's journals and the advice they are given by a lot of others and I just thought I'd ask the canna team for their direct advice so I could bury a few myths for my own sake. I probably named the article a bit harshly but it was more so to attract attention. I Can almost always count on 013,skunksa,growings,Emilya for their genuine input and I you guys deserve the utmost respect for your relentless loyalty to the 420 magazine club.
Mainly my biggest concern was and always has been since I decided to have a go at coco growing is as follows.
In the beginning as you all saw I started autos off in 23L pots of straight coco for my very first attempt at it, being a new method of growing I knew that it surely would not run smoothly ...and i was right lol.
The thing that confused me the most was the whole nute build up problem and reading through the info that is around the place on multiple 420 websites not Just this one, and the general consensus is watering to runoff no matter what to avoid nutrient burn n salt buildup .
So in the beginning of my first coco Grow, roughly the first 12 days... was going good only feeding 1/4 strength nutes in small amounts to roughly where I thought the roots might be stretching to +10% of my estimation to allow the roots to grow outwards into wet medium. The amount was only small and I was doing multiple feeds a day at this very small volume.
They really powered hard and I was amazed at the speed that the seedlings reached vegetation stage. But I was caught in two minds and it was this.....how can I keep feeding these small amounts without getting any run off and knowing the roots wouldn't be filling the pots out until say day 30 atleast. So even though I had not seen any toxicity I had a panic attack(not really but I did panic lol) and decided I needed to do something about the nutes that would be building up from all my small feedings over the previous 12 days so I soaked the 23L pots with 1/4 strength feed and it just wouldn't dry out and lead to drooping and deficiency because of the lack of air in the straight coco mix.
So I basically gave up on them because it lost about 8 days after that trying to dry them out etc, complete disaster
So I thought I would try to rectify it with another attempt and starting them off in 1gal pots to be able to get runoff from seedlings hoping it would dry out faster and also use 50% perlite.
Same thing....stressing about nute build up and making sure feeding to runoff. Young seedlings without root balls and I could not get the medium to dry out lol. So I decided to contact canna for their advice about my concerns with nute build up and not feeding to runoff, as I could see not feeding to runoff being the only way to not overwater them.
They replied and basically said the only reason you would want to feed to runoff with seedlings is to guarantee the whole medium is wet , and not to flush "salts out" they also said that its perfectly ok to either feed small 1/4 strength doses regularly to avoid overwatering when young until root balls form nicely and that basically you can get through the first 30 days without having to worry about nute build up with small regular feedings.
Then by the time you hit 30 days the root balls are big enough to feed to runoff and your plants will drink it fast enough to not be overwatered.
They also said if the medium is still wet and it takes 3 or 4 days to dry out then it isn't necessary to let the medium reach 50% dry to increase root growth.
I ended up looking on other 420 forums around the place and found a guy who said after about 30 days that he had not had runoff once during the whole first 30days and his autoflower ended up being about twice the size of its estimated maximum height by the breeder.
So I'm eager to try this method next time around and as a little test I'm going to take one of my autos that I'm currently feeding to runoff in 1gals and cease to feed to runoff for as long as I can before I start to have either toxicity or lockout so i can gauge to myself what is the maximum size final pot I can start small babies in and be able to get to runoff without having the problems before the roots can handle their first runoff.
Hoping to sort this out once and for all and do a very clear and informative journal from start to finish ironing out all these problems that new growers in coco find themselves having.
Hope you guys enjoy the read
All good man just trying to get my head around this new to me method of growing. I repotted two plants from the 1gals into the 5gal pots today so hopefully have a successful uppotting. I'm also going to buy a set of good scales that can weigh heavy weights of up to say 50kg but also all the way down to about 1kg accurately so I can start to get a grasp on how fast and how regular the feedings need to be to reach the 50% dry target that is apparently optimal.
Bro please don't beat yourself down I honestly didn't have you on my mind when I posted this thread. Have nothing but respect for you man your intentions are good and your knowledge is pretty up there also. And your always one of the first to come to reassure me my plants could look a lot worse than they do at times, so please don't take heat for what I'm not directing at you brother your not in that category of completely false information. We all good bro I promise.
Just with the situation of me not actually confirming this method myself I wouldn't refer to this method for the time being until I can vouch for it, even though I am confident the guy from canna would be pretty spot on I don't want to say " this is fool proof " until I actually trial it and succeed with it myself and can 100% stand by it.
from me.Glad everything is on the up your get to love coco does speed things up some.
