First Coco Grow Going Downhill

What type of medium; soil or hydro? HYDRO
What brand and type of soil? CANNA COCO IN POTS
Indoors or outdoors? INDOORS
What strain? ED ROSENTHAL SUPERBUD, PINEAPPLE PUNCH, PSYCHEDELIA DELICIOSA
How old are the plants? ALMOST 1 MONTH
What type of lights and how many watts? 1 WHITE 400W AND 1 ORANGE 400W
How far from the lights? ABOUT 2 FEET
What, how much and when was it fed? NPK? CANNA COCO A+B, VARYING CONCENTRATION FROM 0.4 TO 1.0 EC. RECENTLY ADDED RHIZOTONIC AND CANNAZYM, WHICH DO NOT AFFECT THE EC.
What is the medium/runoff pH? NOT SURE (SEE BELOW)
What are the temps and humidity in the room? AROUND 70F AND 55-60%
What size pots? 3 GALLON
Any bugs? Look real close. NO
Any other pertinent info?


These plants were started in peat moss jiffy pods and transplanted to potted coco with 5% nutes in the 6.5 pH range. They grew slow and had floppy leaves, which I attributed to overwatering. I have since then tried everything from 50% to 100% of the Canna-recommended 1.0 EC, but the are looking pretty rough.

Some sources say that coco is impossibly to overwater with. Other people say to water once or twice a week. Others say everything in between. pH levels are the same story. Source A says 6 to 7, source B says 5 to 6. ???

Are these plant being overwatered or over-nuted? They have so many signs of different deficiencies and toxicities that I'm at this point: Any help would be greatly appreciated!

*The pictures need to be viewed full-size to see chlorosis, leaf curling, leaf drooping, deformed leaves, etc...

Edited by smoka420, 01 January 2009 - 02:49 PM.

a 6.5 ph isn't what I'd go for for hydro with coco. Even though the plants are in pot and appear very similar to a soil grow, you want a lower ph then with soil. Some say to go 5.8 like hydro but more often I've seenan in-between ph of bout 6.0-6.2 Im not a huge hydro guy so maybe someoneelse will back me up or give a first hand opinion.

As far as watering, long as you let the medium dry out a good amount between watering/feedings the plants should be content. Hope yoy get the prob settled and your babies spurt up some nice new growth.

I've been giving them 5.0 - 5.5 for the last week or so. Nothing has improved,

Do you water yours until it drains out the bottom every time? How often do you water, and do you mix your coco with something like perlite? I put mine just coco, and I now regret it because it retains too much water.

How do you measure the pH of the coco? I don't know if it's too high or too low, so I just keep giving it what I want it to be (5.5ish).

Do the pictures look like maybe there's just not enough nute and all the leaf curling is from over watering, or vice versa?

Edited by smoka420, 03 January 2009 - 01:23 AM.

Not familiar with those nutes but it looks like it needs more of them.

The room has a ceiling fan and 2 humidifiers, which blow indirectly on the plants. The ambient air in the room is between 60 and 80 degrees, and the temp at the top of the plants is 70 to 85 degrees by measurement of IR thermometer. The humidity stays around 50 to 60%. Either I can't get it over 62%, or my hygrometer doesn't read right. It doesn't feel more humid than 60% in the room.

Are the curled leaf tips not a sign of too much nute? I don't know how to tell the difference between overwatered, drooping leaves and over nuted, curling leaves until it starts to either look like a claw or a willow tree.

What do the taco-curled upper leaves on the bigger plants mean? Light burn? Too low humidity?

Edited by smoka420, 03 January 2009 - 10:42 PM.

temperature COULD be the issue

you need to make sure that coco gets flushed really well. It's pretty much impossible to overwater coco.

Keep the PH around 5.8-5.9 or so... feed with your nutes and flush regularly.

what are the NPK values of the nutes that you use?

what sort of lighting do you use?

Edited by Norma Stits, 04 January 2009 - 12:29 AM.

Last picture plant up front on the right shows heat stress as well.

So the curling of the leaf edges like that is heat stress? I wonder how cold I need to keep it, or how far away I need to move the lights... I'll raise the lights tonight and see if that helps.

The nutes are 4:4:3.

I'm starting to see some rust colored spots on the fan leaves. Is that nutrient burn?

you need to make sure that coco gets flushed really well. It's pretty much impossible to overwater coco.

By "overwatering" I mean watering too frequently, when the coco is still wet, not pouring too much water at a time when the plant actually needs water. If I water more than about twice a week, the leaves all droop and wrinkle and growth seems to stop. Is that overwatering, or are those other signs of heat stress?

prob not just heat stress but if possible I'd try and keep the temps 80 or below. You get better results in general.

The temps are now 72 ambient and about 77 on the leaves. The lights are about 30 inches above the plants. They have been this way for about 14 hours.

I flushed all the plants yesterday with 1.0 EC 5.8 pH nutes. They continue to yellow, and there are more brown spots on leaves. The leaves are curling and sagging like they've been overwatered.

Some guy from the Netherlands who runs growside.nl says the formula for coco nute is:
EC of the new nutrient solution = 2 x [1.7 – (½ EC drain water)]. Here the EC drain water is the EC of the old drain water left behind after previous watering(s).

I guess I'll try that on a couple of plants. I'm assuming that I'm wrong and everybody else is right about the overwatering.

Excuse me, I must stand up and kick myself in the ass a few more times for trying coco.

Which Canna Coco are you using? A lot of manufacturers don't tel you that Coco absorbs Calcium from the plant food and you need to supplement your grow with a Calcium addon like ProCal/Magical/Cal-Mag/etc...

If you don't you'll see strange yellowing and eventually it'll be unrecoverable.

The curling is probably from heat stress or not enough humidity.

Here's an update on the plants. They're making a nice canopy and the buds are starting to form.

How developed should the buds be when I start to add the pk 13/14?

dayumm, they made a nice recovery and are lookin great! You can probli add some of the nutes a week in or so. Wait till they start to tell you they need it then give em a dose.

just pics

Please see my new thread at http://forum.grassci...anna-nutes.html if you are knowledgeable about Canna nutes.

nice lil forest you got goin there dude, if i could pack you a bowl and toke it wit ya i would right now. keep it up

These are the best cocoa plants I done ever seen.

Thanks! Here are some more pics. I would appreciate estimates as to how much time is left between now and harvest. I put the elec. guitar in 1 pic as a size reference.

Edited by smoka420, 22 February 2009 - 02:47 PM.

Um a combination of a while and we can't tell over internet pics. The best way to know when ready is to look under a microscope. The second best way is a smoke test, the third way is by hair color. Hair color is unreliable because strains like white widow don't change hair color much.