This guide is meant for the grower just beginning to grow in coco...
All of the following is my opinion based on my experiences in my garden using 100% coco. None of what comes after this is as important as the individual grower. I'm not going to get into any "become one with the ganja" bullshit. But you have to be in tune with the plants. If you've chosen coco coir as your medium for your very first grow ever, after this first grow you'll know what being in tune with the plants is all about.
Learn to read what your plants are trying to tell you. Use the fan leaves as a barometer to gauge how they're really feeling about what you're doing and learn to trust what they're telling you. Case in point, I'm harvesting plants right now and during the grow, I started picking up some yellowing. It didn't really look like a N deficiency but I tested the pH of the reservoir and it was at 5.8 so it had to be nitrogen. I bumped up the nitrogen level and re-fed. Next couple of days and after bumping the nitrogen up again, the leaves were getting worse. My gut was telling me I should have gone with my gut the first time. This really looked like a pH lockout problem. I re-calibrated my meter and it had been off. I had been adjusting pH to an out of range number and the plants couldn't use what I was giving them. Once I found the error, I knew I had too much nitrogen in the pots so I added water to the res to reduce the ppm. I then brought the pH of the reservoir to 5.8 and I switched on a feed cycle. Problem solved and the undamaged parts of the affected leaves greened up again within a matter of days. Go with what the plants tell you.
Coco is a neutral medium and by that I mean that aside from its limited ability to adjust pH to optimum levels, it provides nothing to the plant. All the nutrients your plant needs to grow will be provided by you. What coco does do though, its fibers create millions of tiny spaces between themselves. Think about coco as being a very porous, open cell sponge. It releases water very quickly and as it drains out of the bottom of the pots, it pulls in fresh nutrients and oxygen. The medium holds water, oxygen, and nutrients in perfect ratio for the roots in these tiny spaces.
How to grow in coco.
This is a basic primer and it should be successful for anyone wanting to try coco as a grow medium.
This is not the definitive guide to growing in coco. These are the basics, and by that I mean, if you follow these general guidelines you should be able, with the help of this new forum, to grow your way to a successful harvest. There are those that will play with this or that and add this or that and that's fine. But if you begin to have problems, fall back to this level and you can probably rescue the plants.
I hear people asking the same questions over and over again about growing in coco and I thought I’d give a shot at trying to put down a fail safe regimen for them to start with. I’ll let you know from the start that I’m a “less is better” sort of guy so these will be the basics of growing in coco and for the most part, it’s exactly how I grow. What I do is no secret and I’m no better at it than the newbie will be if they follow it.
Above all else, pay attention to the plants. Download the sick plant guide and study it. There’s a lot you won’t have to worry about in coco but study it just the same. If you do the following, you shouldn’t wreck any plants.
Water:
Always pH the water after you’ve added the nutrients as they tend to lower or raise the pH themselves. Don’t forget to agitate the water to disperse the nutes before you check the ec/ppm. Also PH your water after allowing the nutrient mix to sit for 3-4 hours, especially if you use Canna Coco Nitrients, check the PH of the run off about 2 times a week.
Nutrients:
Be sure the nutrients you start out with are meant to be used in coco. Coco is special. Remember – coco specific nutrients
Discount the ec of the plain water when adding nutrients. By that I mean, if someone tells you to feed at a certain ppm or ec, they are talking about that ec or ppm as the ec or ppm of nutrients only and without taking the ec of the trace minerals in the tap water into account.
I use Canna A&B, PK 13/14 and Cannazyme (once in a while) and once in a while a bloom enhancer
PK 13/14 is used two weeks into flower and again a couple of weeks before harvest. You don’t have to do this but I do.
Canna A&B is the backbone of the grow. You begin giving it at small levels after you see the first true leaves on the seedlings and you keep giving it right up until you start the flush to prepare for harvest.
I first give the A/B at about 0.5mL/qt right after I see these leaves and continue to give it at levels up to 6mL/gal for the rest of the grow. Up until this point, the plants just get plain water pHd to 5.8. Even at this point, they need very little in the way of nutes and too much will kill them. Canna coco is stronger then what they say, most strains will be 4-5ml/gallon, and most of the heavy eaters will not go above 6 ml/gallon of Canna Coco A&B.
For the beginner, don't use epsom salts with coco. As a matter of fact if something says it has salt in it, and I don't care what order the letters are in, don't put it into your plant's pot. And I'm not trying to start a debate on what's left over from nutrient solutions. SALT! We water to runoff to get rid of that.
Medium:
I’ve used both Canna coco coir and B’Cuzz coco. I use both right out of the bag as with these two brands, rinsing is not necessary. I have experience with other brands but I know these two to be safe to use without rinsing.
I use 100% coco. No additional components are needed and actually I think anything else added to coco just complicates the medium unnecessarily.
1. Water ever day at least once till you get at least a 15% runoff.
2. pH the feed water to 5.4-5.8.
3. Use 100% coco till you get the hang of things and can handle a problem or two.
4. Use nutrients that were made to be used in coco. Specifically coco! Canna, Hesi, etc.
5. Start feeding with plain tap water at the seedling stage and very slowly work your way up to what the plants will tolerate.
6. Keep temps around 70F-82F.
7. Keep humidity in check during flower to control mold.
8. Provide adequate lighting to keep plants from stretching too much and to maximize yield.
9. Flush the pots if you suspect a problem.
Don’t make rapid adjustments to either pH or ppm. Slow is good but then unless a crop duster has just sprayed your plants with agent orange, you’re gonna have time to fix things. It’s kinda like sailing across the Atlantic in a sail boat. Nothing happens fast. You wake up, find out you need to tack and then decide if you want to do it today or tomorrow, hehehe. The jet flying over you needs to make corrections in a more timely manner due to speed. We’re in a sailboat here folks. Don’t give yourself hemorrhoids trying to do things quicker than is needed.
Follow the above and you should be enjoying the fruits of your labor in no time at all. If you screw something up, flush it away.
Good water, good nutrients, good lighting, good temps and good air! And you will get good Buds.
In my opinion, Press'd Block Coco is Garbage and should not be used. High Quality COCO like Canna Coco or B'cuzz can be reused and can even be reused after having gnats, by flushing it with boiling hot water to kill the eggs. COCO has no micro orginisims in it when produced, this is why you should use coco specific nutrients.
I still think I can train a Monkey to grow in this stuff.
Here are three very informative video's on How Canna Coco produces their product and some info on how to use it.
Parts of this were plagerized and altered to fit my system and growing technic.
