Is it possible to oven bake coco with perlite in it to sterilize? I have pots that have more roots then medium. I just harvested and would love to reuse this stuff. Only used it for one grow. Also I have heard there is a controversy over this method. I know all about beneficial bacteria being killed by doing it this way, I don't care. I have most of the roots out, I just want the remaining roots some how killed and destroyed and out of the coco as much as possible and I want this stuff sterilized and ready as easy as possible. It seems that the oven method is best. Please someone confirm this. Finally what is the best oven method to use? I have heard of so many oven methods I'm scared to dedicate to myself to wasting time trying them all. Any one aware of the best method out there?
Why? I have used coco for a long time now and reuse on a regular basis. If you are using coco you are essentially using a hydroponics method as it is Soilless, and the bacteria, in my mind, isn't an isssue. If you have a nasty mold or gnats use something like SM90 to deal with that- and yellow stick traps. Coco reuses easily. I have never tried streilizing, but then I don't mess around with adding perlite to it. I have done a few side by side comparisons of coco , coco/perlite at differet ratios and perlite alone. The coco out does everytine for me. The only draw back is that the old roots do reduce the amount of coco and therefore the amount of water that is held in the pots. I find it always needs a little more frequent watering if it is used as opposed to new. Also you can add straight coco to a garden and it blends in great, perlite looks like liter.
This pretty much. You dont need perlite and you can reuse coco up to about 3 times, then it starts to break down and decay which will mess with your nutes. I just pick out all the roots I can and go from there, I even leave in tons of little hair roots that are to tedious to pick out and its a non issue. Fungus gnats have always been an issue though, and with dead roots in my reused soil I worry about them even more, so I always keep some gnatrol on hand. Another couple of benefits to reusing coco is that its pre Mg treated and its full of beneficial bacteria you may have added from the last grow.