One day maybe he'll learn how to use the edit button. All these double and triple posts are only to increase his post count.
Post count? Are you serious? Maybe you're too wrapped up in all this message board bullshit. It seems like it. What the number of posts means to me couldn't be seen under a microscope. It should be that way for everyone, but unfortunately a lot of people judge people based on post count. The thinking behind that isn't thinking at all.
I want to say this, and not to bump up my post count.... Please review my posts and apply your own logic to what I say. I have not abused or insulted anyone and am being persecuted by a few posters who can't take a challenge to their methods. We should all be free to express our thoughts without this kind of thing happening.
look at him go go go ...... post post post. probably nothing of any significance mind you keep on posting your bullshit this is all i see....... "This message is hidden because TheWatcher is on your ignore list."
Anyone who understands irony will have a good laugh at that. And anyone with a jar of sense will know that's not all you see, know what I'm saying
I use 100% coco and feed everyday...sometimes twice a day. I think alot depends on the texture of the coco..I've found that with a more fibrous coco I don't need to lighten it with perlite or worry about over watering. The few runs that I've watered less, I've gotten lower yields. I've run 5 gallons of coco before but I prefer to use a smartpot over a bucket or solid container when running that much medium.
I use the cocotek (red) mixed bricks, never the green. Occasionally I use the bigger white botanicare(?) bricks, but they're a little finer and not quite as consistent as the smaller red bricks. I've been starting to add some cropcircle coco in as well...it's got bigger chunks. I think there's 3 grades of coco...pith, fiber and coarse (or something like that) the cocotek bricks are - green (pith), red (fiber), purple (coarse) ...but I can't get the purple here. * sorry I skipped over alot of the banter. just throwin in what's worked for me
right on. i used the botanicare white 5kg bricks for quite awhile i use Cyco coco now. it has a cleaner smell to it than the botanicare. most likely less salt
I think what helps with the smart pots, in addition to the porosity of the fabric, is that they are often more wide than tall. A taller planter, like a bucket, will have a larger phreatic zone. This is the bottom most part of the planter where the pressure from the saturated media above it makes an area that has every pore filled with solution. Like squeezing out all the air to make room for the non-compressive water. A larger phreatic zone, due to excess media, can be difficult for the typical indoor plant to preform to its maximum potential because the roots are sitting with soggy feet. It is important to have the amount of coco and the size of the plant in the proper proportions when growing indoors. When using greater volumes of pure coco my theory is to use a planter that is at least equally wide (if not more wide) than it is tall. This will reduce the height of the phreatic zone and result in better aeration of the media when saturated. A healthy root system that fills the volume of coco will manage the phreatic zone much easier than a root system that does not fill the entire volume of coco but resides on the bottom of the container. I also wonder if the transplanting process has some impact. I have not had the chance to experiment on my own but I have done transplants where the root ball from the 1 gallon planter is as tall as my 3 gallon planter (just more coco on the "sides"). Having the root ball already at the base of the planter would expose a freshly transplanted root system to the phreatic zone with every watering. By contrast, a plant that has been transplanted to a taller container, with the root system elevated above the phreatic zone would need to grow into that area. One of these methods could offer better growth rates, but I am unsure which is superior because I make make an equally compelling theoretical argument for and against each. Until the results of each method are quantified it is impossible to say if either transplanting method is superior to the other. The use of wide planters can be seen among many growers, especially outdoors, who use large volumes of media. I know that personally I have gotten better results since switching to width>height. (not my picture included)
Can we talk? Without arguing? What you say is interesting. I remember some people debating this a while back when talking about width vs height of pots and it's effect on root mass. At that point it revolved around what's called the perched water table, ie the point at which the wicking effect of the medium equals the pressure of gravity pulling it out, and how high in the pot the water sits. When you talk about the phreatic zone, at what point would you guess it would impact the roots of the plant to the point they were unable to function to the best of their ability? Personally I think we'd be talking a hell of a lot of coco, and in a very narrow and unusually shaped planter. Most containers are about as wide as they are tall, which is what gives them their cubic volume in the first place, so I don't see, on the face of it, how the phreatic zone would ever pose a problem.
Cyco is a BEAUTIFUL coco medium, and is all I use and will use, excellent horticultural grade IMO. Clean, consistent, 5.5-6.0 PH range, what more could you ask? As far as respecting dirt, well hell yeah I do, but at the same time I calculate the SHIT out of the nutrient ratios I feed my girls as well. Do not get me wrong, I feed my girls a solid balanced meal, but i make sure to ALWAYS add beneficial microbes to EVERY watering weather it be a heavy feed or light feed. Mainly my heavy feed is to give them a good meal (usually around 100-80-220-80/60 depending on time in flowering cycle) and then a few days, I give them the same amount of water (usually 2.5gal per 5 gal smartpot) but do what I call a light "flush" feeding where I supply ONLY beneficial microbes, and plenty of them, along with humic and fulvic acids, yucca extract, and silica clay. All of that helps with the left overs, and aids in all of the lovely health of my roots, "dirt" aka coco, and over plant and bud development. It is all a balance, we are all growers, so lets not single ourselves out by our different growing styles. unite, share, help, and learn.
You're right, I have thrown plenty of dirt away, loaded with foxfarms, worms, guano's dolomite's and perlite, it was only a year or so ago...
I do. I garden, flowers veg, fruit, herbs. I used to make my own organic potting mix which was easy and quite enjoyable at the time. It's so easy to get results. Coco is just much less indoor work. I think one of the main advantages of getting out in the garden and working with other plants that this, is you don't become so tunnel visioned on just the one plant, which has massive advantages. I suppose what I've learned over time influences my approach to these things and probably why I ruffle a few feathers. I don't mind that at all and I won't make any apologies. What I say is all about the herb and if I make a challenge, it's about the plant, not about anyone personally. When you pop hundreds of seeds, plant out hundreds of plants, you get a much better general feel for the plant itself, how hardy it is, how easy/difficult to maintain, how similar the processes, and how little or big the variation between them based on factors we also apply to cannabis. When you get to see the germination process played out by the tray full, when you see plants, albeit hardy perennials, which sit in a pot of cold lifeless water for nearly a year, through frost and cat piss and a few kicks upside down, come back and flourish the following spring/summer, you get a better appreciation for the plants. There's no nutrient regime which rivals that available to cannabis. None. There's no scientific procedure outlined on the web which rivals that put around for growing MJ. It's an underground market and for that reason we get underground information. Nowhere else would people get away with what the nute companies are doing. When you look at all the products you see they're trying to recreate nature in a bottle based on things which occur naturally in the wild, yet doing so with a massive $ sign on each bottle and advertising that it will "explode" (how many times do you see superlatives like that) your grow. The fact is, all this fussing and messing will, even with the most dialed regime, give you the most microscopic, if any increase in quality and productivity at all. I respect dirt, I respect the ground, I respect nature, because it just works. We don't even understand it yet, let alone know how to recreate it, never mind stick it in some bottle. There are very simple ways and means of going about growing this herb and if people respected what a hardy plant it was, and fully accepted what a basic nutrient profile keeps it entirely happy, and learned the basics of plant feeding and health from outside the canna world and not from the bullshit copy and paste merchants at advanced nutrients (something I wish I'd done when I started) we would see less than 1% of the problems we do now.