water/feeding let it dry or not??

Discussion in 'Coco Coir' started by tealeaves, Apr 15, 2011.

  1. hi all

    i was under the impression that coco is watered exactly the same as soil...but the label on my canna coco a b says i need to feed a few times a day... is this right? i have been feeding ever cpl of days when the soil drys out will this affect yeild or does it not matter??
     
  2. If you are using coco you will benefit greatly by feedin/watering several times a day. I've done passive hydro feeding plants in coco once a day and hydro 5 times a day and the hydro gave me at least 30% more yield.
     
  3. okay cool,, so lets say i make up 10 litres of water a day add nutes and ph then feed my pots usually it takes 4 litres before it comes out the bottom when the coco is dry,,then feed and catch the feed below the pot and re use, i dont fancy having to make up 3 or 4 feeds a day its a bit of a pain to do it every 3 days at times will this be okay
     
  4. That'll be fine tealeaves.
     
  5. thanks mate...ill start from tomorrow

    im down to just one plant now tho because 2 of them were male,,i used regular seeds,,, so with 1 plant in coco and one in a dwc it wont be as much of a pain as i thought it might be
     
  6. can i feed my coco plants with a pump on a timer with a small hose going from the pump to the plant,,,with a bucket below to catch the run off and then cycle it back to the pot again,,,i will change the water every 3 days,,, can it work
     
  7. Here's what I do. During veg, and after a transplant, I treat coco more like soil. Never letting it get quite as dry, but close, and watering as required. During flowering I prefer to water somewhere between 2 and 6 times per day.

    I find that my 3 gallon planters and medium sized plants require between 1000ml to 1500ml per feeding to grab some runoff.

    I don't think you're going to be best off with a recirculating system in coco. Especially for just one plant. Yes, you "can" set up a pump and a hose and run that for a few days... I just don't think it's going to give you better results then hand watering.

    I mix up about 18L of nutrients and will use that to feed my plants with all day. What remains I will water down to the point of about 1/2 strength and use that solution the following day. On the last 1/2 strength watering of the day I will use up the rest of the solution and get a little extra runoff.

    With Canna I find that runoff is very important in flowering. 40% is about my minimum, which is hard not to do when feeding so frequently.
     
  8. #8 Wardrobe, Jul 17, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 17, 2011
    tealeaves, one important point - don't use your runoff for watering. Get rid of it. The whole point of watering to runoff is to wash out excess salts. By watering with the runoff, you're putting them back in.
    Second point, your runoff will have a far lower EC than the original feeding solution. Typically, when my feeding EC is 2.0, the runoff will be about 0.2 to 0.5. When it rises much higher, I flush.
    So the runoff will be low in balanced foods, but high in some excess elements.
    Hope this makes sense.

    I'm using Canna coco, nutes and additives too. Great stuff, you won't look back.
    Check out my first coco grow below. I got 7oz off the last plant. (Pic in avatar)

    And daily or twice daily watering is a MUST for best results. Just follow the Canna Grow Guide on their website.

    SCMC, I find that 10% - 20% runoff is adequate, as recommended by Canna. (10% with soft water, 20% if it's heavier)
     
  9. We are running VERY different gardens then.

    I have NEVER, never, never seen coco runoff at 0.2 to 0.5ec when using a 2.0ec solution. Conceptually that makes no sense. If you are getting runoff, some of the elements in your solution will not be absorbed by the media, namely ions like Phosphorus. If your coco is filtering salts out of your solution and producing a cleaner runoff then that would mean the coco has a higher than 2.0ec at feeding. Then the plant somehow manages to consume ALL of the salts that contribute to the 2.0ec so that none of them can wash out with the next feed???

    Sure dude... :cool:

    The way it works in the real world is that the media washes out excess readily. A 2.0ec solution is entirely too much food for 90% of strains out there even at the peak of flowering. Veg is different but I'm not growing vegetative plants. I'm growing flowers.

    I have used Canna for years. Your entire post seemed completely wrong based on my experience, perhaps intentionally misleading, and IMO underhandedly trying to spread misinformation.

    Very simply, a plant cannot consume all of that salt in the media. The way uptake works is via electrical equilibrium controlling the rate of osmosis. Many of the molecules you are adding are too large for your roots to even uptake (square peg in a round hole). The most your plant would be able to do is balance with the media, but some residual will remain.

    So, it is more than unlikely that what you are saying is the actual truth. Very obviously, your media must wash out some residual, and even more with a ridiculously strong solution on a regular basis.

    As someone who has been measuring their runoff for the last 400 days or so you're not going to ever convince me that your runoff is under 0.5ec when using a 2.0ec solution in a charged media. I know better.:smoke:
     
  10. SCMC, I'll make this short and sweet. I am no liar. Regardless of your opinions, I do peak my feeding at 2.0EC and I do typically get runoff in the 0.2EC to 0.5EC range.

    I'm out of here.
     
  11. 400 days of measuring run off @ about 5 min a pop thats almost a full work week for nada, reading run off in coco does nothing but waste time and drive u crazy imo. do a slurry test to find out whats really going on in that coco.
     
  12. It takes you 5 minutes to measure the EC of a solution?
     
  13. no I said it takes you 5 min . takes me a about a min cause thats what it says in the manual. I don't dick around trying to measure runoff. I'm in pots on the floor so in order for me to test runoff I would have to lift up the pot and try to get the runoff in that stupid little container that they give you , anywho I just imagined you doing the same and guessing on a average time it would take. my point was if you want to know whats going on inside the coco do a slurry test not runoff.
     
  14. Well, it's good to know the kind of person I am dealing with.

    Brilliant.

    Have fun with your slurry tests. Now there is something that not only takes more time than testing the runoff it also costs a small amount of money for the required deionized water.

    Measuring my runoff has been working fine. Runoff should always be removed and collected, otherwise there is no point in getting runoff.

    Just so that you don't have to make the (wrong) assumption in the future perhaps you could ask a person how long it takes them to test the EC. Apparently you seem to think I am some dullard or moron who requires 5x the amount of time to do the same job you would. This exposes your own inadequacies, not mine.

    Testing the EC of the runoff takes about 20 seconds. Pour some into a party cup. Dip, swirl, wait a moment for the meter to balance out. Done.

    Glad to know that this is a place that would like to stay on the topic at hand, whether or not to let it dry out.
     

  15. i would have to agree.
     

  16. Yup. 20 seconds is about right.

    As for the original question. It's perfectly fine to water every 2 days. Coco can be used with all sorts of watering schedules, if you like what are you doing now just stick with it.
     
  17. I am thinking about going coco for my next grow and had been reading everything I can, when I came across this post. It touched on a subject that had puzzled me a bit, and I have been searching for some answers.

    I plan on doing the Reservoir with Drip system and have seen answers for watering fly from every 15min to 3 times a day to once every 3 days. Having to water even 3 times a day would be rough without a Reservoir, but having the runoff go back into the reservoir to be reused seems like a bad Idea, but the suggestions/reasoning here seem to give me a better idea as to why its not as bad/odd as it sounds.

    How often do you completely change out the Reservoir water? :confused:
     
  18. In coco u want run off to carry out excess salts so reusing the run off will cause probs. the thing with coco is you could read about it till ur blue in the face, but until u get ur feet wet u wont know what works for you. could be any of those feeding schedules.
     

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