Post your coco pics!

What a cool thing having a coco section here in Grasscity! Just want to say High to all the blades using this great medium, I was hooked my first run with this stuff and I've tried to help turn on as many people as I can to it.

If you're growing with coco or thinking about it, please say hi here and maybe we can have a good list of growers to turn to for help and ideas, and of course post a pic or two if you got em! Let's see what you're doing with coco!



I'll start.... this is my flower space (AKA the "Coconut Grove"), about 6 diff strains in there.



Here's a freshly trimmed White Widow that was thrown into 12/12 with no veg time, stayed in a 6" pot the whole time in a coco/perlite mix. Yield was a sticky 30 grams.

Edited by AskEd, 19 June 2010 - 08:10 AM.

Let me take a shot at maintaining scale with your photo. Here is a picture with some coco in it.

I'm entirely too lazy to resize my pictures but I am game. Heres some pictures from the last grow and some of the current one.

I LOVE coco. I tell everyone I can about it. I spend hours researching CEC and the science behind how and why coco is so great. Took my harvest up 75%.

My advice to other coco growers moving from another media is not to underestimate the magnesium requirements. Coco needs and holds a lot of calcium, the high calcium levels and quick growth require an increased availability of magnesium and iron. Cal-Mag plus is a great coco supplement, but recently I've been using Calplex, Huvega and Humega to fine tune the balance of Calcium to Magnesium.

In my pictures we've got some Blue Mystic and Lemon skunk together, a Kandy Kush clone under CFLs straight to flowering, and some OG18 with some home grown in a tent. The Blue Mystic and Lemon Skunk are growing currently so we'll just need to stay tuned on that one. I'll put together the diary when it's all harvested. Personally I hate diaries in progress.

This is my monster cropped LSD clone which would not root in the cloner but finally got with the program when rooted in coco. This is at her transplant getting ready for the ScrOG.

These are my Coco Coir Veggers I am running right now. 6 are clones from Cali the other 2 are from seed. I use Bontanicare Coco Coir, the huge block. I have been sucessful with Coco thanks to Ed's extensive knowledge that he has shared. This is the best medium I have ever used by far and the growth rate is outstanding. I wouldnt touch dirt ever again, way to many pest problems.

Edited by ShaggyGT, 19 June 2010 - 08:39 PM.
spelling error......

Hey Shaggy, just some quick questions. Are you bottom feeding in that tray? I prefer to bottom feed my coco because I've had an issue before with some mildew growing on the upper layer. I don't have the problem now when top feeding, but if given the option I know I'd choose to soak them and let the coco wick up.

Also, it might just be the photo but it looks like some of those babies could benefit from a little more Zn/Mn and maybe a touch more N. I dunno though, they are your plants and I'm sure you know what you're doing with them. I find my own plants need a pretty decent amount of micro-nutrients. Namely Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Sulfur, Silicon, Zinc, and Manganese.

I got most of my experience with coco from ICMags forum, there is a much larger following over there (they are a year or more ahead of GC) and a whole bunch of advice. Hundreds of growers using coco has been a great source of info for myself.

The other place I get some really great info from is Canna Talk. You can find the magazine online for free at the Canna-US website if you sign up as a "member." These articles have some really great science, people with PhD's writing them, and I find Canna to be the one company that really gets the coco movement.

It really is too bad there are only a handful of growers around here who use the media. I have my own views on how to use a treat coco, not all that coincide with the "Ed's." But I also only have two grows in the stuff so I need a bit more experience before I start speaking out of turn.

Nope I top feed, but I let em soak in their own run off. I use hydrotron in the bottom of my pots and grow bags for drainage. Works really well and I know exactly when I need to feed them.

As for the deficiencies, yes they are showing a need for some Cal-Mag on some of the older leafs. I just increased the dosage a little and it has eliminated the problem. Cant fix the old leafs though.

Hey Snow! I gotta tell ya man, I've read ICmag's forums, Canna's, TONS of agg extension sites, test studies, white papers by professors a with PHds, you name it. I don't claim to be an expert or anything like that (just sharing my experience), but I have learned a few things in the process:

1 - There is a lot of conflicting and incorrect info out there on coco, especially documents written before the industry as a whole got their act together about 5-7 years ago.

2 - The IC crowd is not nearly as cool as the blades here on GC It was such a turnoff to see simple posts met with such arrogance and hostility, I've stayed here in hopes of a friendly coco forum. Not every one there is like that, don't get me wrong, but just my opinion is all.

3 - Coco is not as complicated as people think, a few simple adjustments makes for great plants and harvests. This goes for any grow system though.

4 - Vegetable seeds are cheap! They are an endless supply of lab rats and experience is priceless. Thanks to my endless experimenting, I don't even use nutes or CalMag anymore, except for the stubborn ones LOL

5 - Coco is so forgiving in many ways that it helps to support a lot of different views. For example, I can (and have) grow a plant using a ph of 5.2 and one at 6.2, and both will be almost identical. This would support arguments saying that 5.2 is correct, or 6.2 is correct, and everything in between. Now apply that to watering, humidity, feeding, grow systems, organics...

Hey Ed, (I have an XBox buddy goes by the name Ask Ed Bloom) I totally agree about the atmosphere here versus ICmag. I don't really like it over there, and there is a lot of hostility... A LOT! I'm glad to hear that you and I are similar in our desire to know as much as possible about this media.

Funny that after all that research there really isn't much too it. It'd be like spending months researching how to make chocolate chip cookies. Eggs, butter, flower, sugar, leavening, and chocolate. BAM! There are a few ways to go about it and in the end it's almost always delicious.

I tell people that if they can make instant pancakes then they have all the skills required for coco. I'm currently trying to find repeatable results that I can put together for a little "Coco: How to." Not that there is one way, but just an inexpensive method to get the community on board. I guess to do for coco what the Lucas formula did for DWC.

I'm doing basil, peppers and cat nip in coco right now as well, just for fun and because I had the space.

I think the only place we differ in advice would be the watering habits. I find my coco grow shows fewer deficiency related issues when watered daily. I attribute this to the high CEC of the media.

I have done the every 3 days thing but I've found magnesium is in high demand when feeding like that for my plants. I'll be the first to admit that my method isn't other's methods, I've done flood and top feed with and without run off. The only real constant I found was that when I could manage to keep the coco moist with a couple hundred ML per day then they were happier than having the dry out. I find the drying out not to be as important in coco as it is in soil and haven't had any overwatering issues even with daily waterings of a filled out root system. Of course this really only applies to mature plants. Young plants, or fresh transplants need to do a little filling out to get to the daily watering stages for me.

Still though, just different strokes, and it shows the malleability of the media. Just for the record I use:

Canna Coco A & B
Canna Rhizotonic (Veg only)
CannaZym (Flowering only)
Canna PK 13/14 (End of stretch)
BioCanna BioBoost (Flowering)
Organicare Calplex
Organicare Huvega
Organicare Humega
Organicare Seaplex

Laying around I have Fox Farms Grow Big and Tiger Bloom. Earth Juice Bloom and Micro. AN Sensi Bloom A&B, Botanicare Cal-Mag plus and Liquid Karma, Humboldt Nutrients Potassium supp (forget the name), and a few others. When growing peppers I find that the iron needs are extremely high, and the Cal-Mag plus is GREAT for my veggies. I'm digging the organicare line now though, Huvega has effing EVERYTHING in it, and a little humic acid never hurts

I knew nothing about coco a year ago and all I want to do is help people find their way to this superior method. I mean, FFOF is alright and all, but it isn't coco. With the ability to cut the media and go organic... There just isn't a good reason not to try it out.

PS. I'm super glad the coco forum got moved into Hydro and out of indoor. My dream is to put together an outdoor grow with this some day. I'd need a backyard though...

Right on, coco rocks with organics for sure. It's solid in just about any application.

I think we need more pictures here! Here's a young single tomato plant in 5 gallon bucket of reused coco & perlite from some previous weed harvests. This grew about a foot a week once transplanted to the 5 gallon bucket and produces a bowl full of cherry tomatoes daily. Also needs to be watered about twice a day currently!

Edited by AskEd, 20 June 2010 - 10:46 PM.

Here is another pic of my veggers freshly transplanted into fresh Coco coir from Botanicare. You can see the coco medium much easier in this pic. Gave them a light feeding of Cal-Mag Plus and Liquid Karma to help with transplant shock. The hydrotron is very impressive. Had some good air pruning going on with the roots. Was very cool to see, wish I had the camera handy to take a picture of it. I will next transplant for sure.

Sweet Shag! Hot you liking that T5? Does it get very hot?

The T5 rocks. I wont veg under MH, its either Fluro or HPS. I usually use both. I give em full veg under the T5 and then atleast 1 week of veg under the HPS.

The T5 runs very very cool.

I hear ya man, I love my T5's too, I get fantastic vegging under them as well as CFL's, I can't say enough good things about them.

i may actually get a journal going if there isnt anyone else doin a outdoor coco grow i know mine have been outside since day 1 started in soil but bein tranplanted into coco then into either grow bags or hempy buckets in the great outdoors

i may actually get a journal going if there isnt anyone else doin a outdoor coco grow i know mine have been outside since day 1 started in soil but bein tranplanted into coco then into either grow bags or hempy buckets in the great outdoors

Would love to see what the coco can do for a good mj outdoor grow. Please do start a journal!

http://forum.grassci...-coir-grow.html

here be a link to my journal kinda lame right now we will see if i can get some pics to throw in later

Hey everyone, imma keep on tryin to post almost daily updates on my babies... They are really kickin off now. The double gums two main colas are really plumpin up. I think I have untill the end of July to harvest. I read that the double gum takes an extra week or so for a total of 9 weeks flower... I'm not sure which day of flowering the babies are into but they are prob about 3/4 of the way done or a lil bit more...

I gave the babies an extra drink of nutes, just to see how they would react to it. Hopefully they take the nutes fine, I would hate it if they started to look bad.. Im gunna flush here in a day or two just for good measure Good advice via AskED

I also followed up the feeding with a full glass of some distilled alaskan tap water.... So far all I have done for the ph was add a lil bit of PH Down to each feed and It always seems to be good.... there is some slight burning of the tips of the leaves from ph but hopefully my flush will help clear that up somewhat. I'm really happy that these babies are doin as good as they have been. This is only my second time growing and its soooooooo much easier this way its unbelievable. The coco is so forgiving that my plants can show a change for the good or worse within hours... My grow box does get up into the 100's at times... But so far the plants have pulled through without any problems.... I figure thats why the budz aren't as big as they should be is because they've been under stress.... I had them Lst'd for the first 2-3 weeks of flowering as well, I heard that can stunt the growth of the budz.. vs as havin them grow stress free with bigger main colas

Well, GC will only let me upload one pic at a time. :/ But here goes the Kalichakra growing in coco coir Ill do another post or two with some more pics... somewhat of a post jack but i want you guys to see my babies

Here's a few pics from my 1st coco grow in gallon pots:

Sometime about mid-flower:



Harvest day:






These two plants were flushed for ten days. The other two were only flushed for 1 day and as AskEd inferred the difference is negligible as far as taste- though I think these two didn't need any more nutes.

The other two seemed to be of a slightly different phenotype even though they were from the same bag. They fooled me by acting like they needed more time, but promptly threw out their nanners after another week. Bitches...

But I have to say the ladies all turned out lovely when it was all said and done.

The second was a solo: humidity was kept much lower. She was lean and out-grew her little pot poor thing...

Looking sweet everyone! Saaz are you brewing your own beer too? Very impressive stuff everyone. Petey (and anyone else) feel free to highjack all you want if you have the pics to do it with LOL