A Beginner's Guide to Coco

also, what does this mean? why take subject of a post out of the post and put it somewhere else. if you don't want me in your thread that's fine, but be preparedd for some other coco growers to comment.....

 

you're right watcher, about the roots. i keep forgetting it's a beginners thread, and a good one.

 

The guy is on a personal crusade against me because I suggested to a person that they needed to rinse their media. And rinsing, to me, is getting abundant runoff for a short period of time. This is where the "30% runoff" statistic TheWatcher took out of context came from.

Misinformation regarding coco is a touchy subject. Due to the versatility of the media, and the variation between the nutrient profile of one coco-specific system versus another one, there is never going to be a universal rule to coco growing. Especially given the hardiness of the plant in question. Some people water twice a day and get fantastic results. Some water once every 3 days with similar results...

Ultimately, what the beginner Coco grower needs to understand is that every indoor grow room, and the tender of the grow room, has different limitations to navigate and skills to utilize. There are basic tenants to indoor growing and outdoor growing which are universal but we all must decide for ourselves what makes sense when it comes to growing in coco and the AskEd Coco Guide provides an ample amount of knowledge necessary to make many of these choices. Like amending, nutrient choices, watering schedules, and proper volumes. Threads like these are best used to present a member's methods for consideration, rather than to offer universal truths, or promises.

There is simply too much versatility in this great media to pin it down in any one way.

Regarding Runoff:
In my own garden, when running a hydroponic nutrient solution, I employ 20% runoff to 30% runoff, typically right at 25%. I find that my #3 SmartPots with 10L of coco that using 3 to 4 liters of solution often results in about 1L of runoff, but usually a little less. I do not find this amount of runoff to be difficult to manage. A person using 4L of solution and getting 10% runoff (400ml) versus 20% runoff (800ml) isn't really getting a tremendous amount less volume, just a few ounces is the difference.

When running an organic coco mixture in my own garden I do not collect as much runoff on a regular basis. Typical levels are 4 to 6 Liters in with 500ml to 1 liter of runoff due to more media, or about 10% to 15%. At times I will employ 20-30% runoff every few weeks, usually during phase shifts after a period of nutrient feedings to remove the chance of residual buildup. Nothing crazy, just a few hundred extra ml for a few days, then back to business as usual. I prefer to use Organic Coco mixes and have been using the 10% to 15% runoff in these mixes with good results. Excess amounts of runoff are only required if the media is mistreated and moving into organics makes treating the media right easy to do.

Just so we are clear. I use Root's Organics Soilless Coco Mix with General Organics nutrient program and typically get between 10% and 20% runoff, usually 15% but at times as much as 30%.

I find that coco has a specific tendency to retain some elements better than media's like rockwool, hydroton, or peat moss. The ability for coco to reach outrageous EC levels, learned with a slurry test leaving the EC meter blinking in disbelief, is what really encourages almost all coco-specific hydroponic nutrient programs to be designed for runoff. Regardless, Drain-To-Waste nutrient programs require some form of runoff and the suggested amount is somewhere in excess of 10% volume. Maintaining 20% has proven to be a good amount although at times I like to collect a small additional volume of runoff to ensure a balanced media. Erring on the side of caution causes no damage to the plant while missing the right amount of runoff can result in buildup.

Regarding Knowledge and Interpretation:
One thing that I feel strongly about is the importance for any grower, in any media, to keep track of as much information as they can gather in a journal or grow diary. Not an online one. The best tool to improve skills from one grow to the next is a pad of paper and the Office software on our computers. I am one of these growers that has been supporting this tactic because of the insight it gave me. I am a thinker, a reader, and I am not easily confused or confounded. Where other people see complexity I see simplicity, so my methods are not everyone's methods. I respect this, very much, and I have always encouraged growers to find their own paths. I offer this path to those individuals who have the brain power to comprehend it and apply it usefully in their own way.

Most growers do not read the runoff of their media as the additional information doesn't offer them, for whatever reason, any more insight than they can glean from looking at the leaves. To this style of grower, anything beyond a cursory visual inspection is just busy work. There is no problem with this method and it works well for some. I have always been a believer in "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" as well as "if you can't duct it, fuck it."

Few growers do read the runoff of their media, I will not contend this. I picked up the method from Canna Nutrients, at Home | CANNA Gardening USA in their info paper on coco and in the CANNAtalk Issue 4 on coco and have employed it for just a few harvests. Canna suggests doing a slurry test to get the most accuracy in the readings of both pH and EC on a regular basis. I use the runoff levels as a relational tool but this does not preclude me from doing the occasional slurry test to give insight into the media, if only for educational purposes.

I use my word processor to plan the grow and record notes regarding plants' appearances as well as additional information about the environment and nutrient solution applied as it progresses. The "plan" could be as simple as the nutrient guidelines from the labels or online calculator broken down into weekly "recipes." It is a good idea to define a path and to collect as much information as you can especially when deviating from the outline if the plant says so. Having a standardized program provides a center-point for us to make changes from, rather than a willy nilly, fly by the seat of your pants, approach. The plants' needs compared to a plan helps builds a conceptual model over time and is not intended for immediate "knee-jerk" reactions mid-grow. All nutrient systems come with a plan, it is just a matter of taking a few minutes and writing it down and looking it over to understand it. Once applied, twice improved, thrice perfected.

I use the spreadsheet part of my office software to build a simple nutrient calculator so that I can see how much of element X is in use at the particular feed level. This baseline allows me to review the amount of element X and the impact it had on the plant health after the grow is completed. From the baseline I can then decide to alter this level in some way to improve the performance of a particular phenotype from one grow to the next.

Spreadsheets are also used by myself to graph these calculations along with additional data that can be provided in the runoff. What we must recognize is that the numbers here are not accurate, they are a relational (conceptual) device. I use them as a tool to build a model that can provide insight over time when put into context with the observations of the health of the plant. After three or four grows of collecting data, and processing and interpreting the data against plant performance, a grower can better tune their nutrient programs to minimize the need for excess runoff while maintaining optimal plant health.

By analyzing the data after the grow a gardener could see the steady increase of runoff EC versus input EC. If, or when, the runoff EC is increasing at a more rapid rate (than desired) the gardener can then use that knowledge to reduce the EC of their solution the next time around at that particular stage. Or, if the gardener sees a rapid decrease in the rate of deviance between the runoff EC and solution EC then they can react to this in the next grow by increasing the EC of the solution to maintain an even rate of deviance between in&out and provide the boost of nutrition the plant is looking for at the right time. By using the runoff EC and the input EC levels a gardener can further interpret the data by looking at which elements have been calculated, dialing in the system.

What I have found in my own gardens is that when I am using a quality hydroponic nutrient program with a 20% minimum runoff volume and the Runoff EC is 30% greater than Solution EC that I have been over feeding the system. I find that this simple tactic has completely removed any lockout related issues I used to have when feeding "by the book" and not watching the runoff. It was this little "breakthrough" in my own garden that has caused a dramatic improvement in the production from my plants.

The runoff EC in hydroponic coco is the very first indicator that the plants' may become unhealthy. Often times the damage on the leaf is days in the making, and the reaction we apply to an already sick plant must be appropriate or it will further impede growth and reduce the harvest. Watching the runoff EC helps me, personally, prevent plants from becoming unhealthy and having to react after the fact.

To each their own. If you don't like the method, you don't understand it, then that's fine. But please, I really think most people in coco follow the same basic tenants regarding choosing a quality nutrient program and running it as best they can. My voice here is for the encouragement of the individual grower not to sell themselves short and to gather as much information as they can with the tools they have at their disposal. Even a beginner grower can collect information and this physical hindsight will help them improve with every grow. I very much encourage the use of Coco in organics but recognize the differences in both methods and that the knowledge which can be collected must be interpreted in a way that accommodates these differences.

Regarding Solution temperature:
Simply Hydroponics - Nutrient Temp

This link contains pretty much everything I have to say on the matter. I have found the ideal solution temperature to be at 68f/20c and I try not to use a solution that is more than 70f/21.1c. With an indoor grow space the grower should set themselves up to control the environment to maintain as minimal a deviation in temperature as possible. Anything more than a 15f/8.3c swing in temperature from day to night can slow growth. My suggestion to most growers (no CO2) is to try to stay between 75.6f and 76.5f (24c to 25c) all day every day. This will reduce stress on the plant and maintain a very healthy rate of respiration, resulting in a constant rate of growth. The steady temperatures also make using a cool nutrient solution important as the temperature of the solution remaining in the container will have likely risen due to ambient room temperature. Keeping root zone temperatures under 75f/24c helps to keep pythium at bay, which is why I use a 68f/20c solution or a smidge cooler every time. Maintaining a healthy room temperature with minimal temperature swings is a factor to consider. Not all of us can live in the beautiful climate I have access to, God I love me some California.

tldr; Get some Botanicare CocoGro, some CNS17 Coco/Soil Grow, Bloom, and Ripe. Follow the directions and maintain the indoor environment. Keep good records. <-- Simple

 

Heading towards winter where i am now. What kind of heater would you recommend? gets down under 0 degrees celcius outside here at night. Economy is important, not gonna throw a 2kw heater at it lol

 

why do we need another "coco guide"?

isnt the first sticky in the coco section "ask Ed's coco GUIDE"?

this is pretty much all the info any new "coco grower" would need

http://www.igrowhydro.com/InfoSheets/InfoSheet-CocoGrowingMedia.pdf

 

Good read tot....Probably the most important piece of info a beginner or, experienced grower would need to grow in coco....

 

Winter in May?.....Must be from the south pole....

As for heat I use a small electric heater when needed outside the grow room, set very low, near the fresh air intake.
Most important is to not set your pots directly on the floor....

 

New Zealand man so close enough haha. Its actually autumn here now but come june its winter. Toying with the idea of running two rooms, one day and one at night to help maintain a steady temp

 

Stop getting so much solution on your leaves. Direct all your solution to the media.

Stop feeding on a schedule. They can barely handle these daily saturations, and it's only because they are in coco they have had a chance. Allow for a longer dry-out period to increase oxygen levels in the media and encourage root growth and health. I think that those plants, in that much media, should need a saturation every 3 days or so... depending on heat/humidity.

The lighting is questionable. I'm not sure if 4" is the right distance, or that removing the T5 was the right call, but try to keep the lighting as close as possible to the plants. You can determine how close by using the back of your hand to test the "bubble of heat" from the bulbs. Place the top of your plants just outside of this bubble. I would guess it is about an inch closer than you have them now (and that inch could make a big enough difference).

All in all they aren't bad. As long as they aren't completely mistreated they will pull through fine. Many growers who apply daily waterings to very young plants because they believe "coco cannot be overwatered" deal with stunted seedling growth. With young plants, and immature root systems in an amount of media they have yet to fill, it is important to allow for a more soil-esque period of wet and dry. Once the roots are mature and healthy and the plant is kicking ass and filling the container with roots, then you can water daily, or hell, twice a day if you like. There are many people who use so much coco they can last several days between waterings even deep into flowering. At this point though, you have got to cut back on the frequency or you might wind up drowning your babies in the lake out back, Shutter Island style.