Convince me to switch to Coco

I’ve never used coco coir before. Honestly, I don’t know much about it, but I hear some people swear by it.

What are the pros and cons? Give me your best pitch.

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Haven’t used it before personally before what are you coming from? One thing it’s seems is it’s a more of a sustainable resource when compared to spaghnum peat if that’s a concern.

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Whats your current preference in soil vs hydro, and also what medium do you currently set your roots in?

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Soil, no hydro for me.

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If it ain’t broke no sense trying to fix it! Lol

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its the transition gap between the two, as you can kinda run it both ways.

If your watering is on spec coco coir will out perform soil just comparing media volumes vs output.

But im the use what you have type, is it better than peat based mixes, yes…

cheap and worth a try :wink:

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Don’t do it !
:wink:

Tried canna Coco slabs back in 2004 and it’s been a hell of a run… Never again .
DS
Edit : as @Esrgood4u said , dwc all the way !

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Coco for me at least sits between soil and pure dwc. I recommend bubble buckets over coco.


On the left is dwc. The 4 top right are in Coco and the 4 bottom right are in soil (planted 10 days or so after the dwc and coco)
I rest my case :laughing:

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Aight so assuming you’re using peat, the coco holds so much more air. If peat and perlite had a baby, that baby would be coco chips. It also seems that the water doesn’t absorb into the coco, and only adsorbs to the surface, so overwatering is unlikely.

If you want to try coco, I would suggest adding 50% by volume coco of your choice to your current medium, and going about business as usual.
(Not a fan of pure coco.)

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Yeah I agree with the pure coco statement. This is my 1st try with pure coco and they need more attention I’m watering almost daily. I’ve resorted to bottom feeding as it was all to time consuming. It’s the 1st and last time I’ll use it

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Totally agree with @Worcestershire_Farms
Half soil mix, half coco is a really nice growing medium.

If I can convince you to use soil blocks to start your veggies, you will need a good deal of coco laying around

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Is this a trial/comparison “test” run for you? If so, :thumbsup: to that. I’ve been tempted by the simplicity & lower cost of DWC but still don’t wanna mess with nutrients & pens & stuff yet, myself. This is the sort of thing that makes me :thinking:

:evergreen_tree:

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No not comparison grow. I’ve grown in DWC before and love how clean and simple it is. I’ve read a lot about coco and just wanted to give it a try. The soil is because I was gifted the seeds and was itching to try some of @ReikoX creations and obviously anything purple is a winner thanks @Cobra50.
I’m investing in an autopot system next for the simplicity of it as work tends to get in the way a little. This grow is fine tuning the best medium for me under @anon58740919 solstrip creation. Basically I want to be able to LITFA as much as possible. :+1:

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get your coco from a good source and ph it prior to use…so important

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Biobizz Coco has been performing well for me so far for aeration. Non compaction etc

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My biggest issue with coco is that i didn’t try it years ago :grin:

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See I’ve not seen the growth in was expecting. It’s classed as hydro but my bubblers plants are 3x the size. It’s my first run of pure coco so maybe I did something wrong.

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I’m using canna coco pro plus because it’s supposed to be well prepared but i still have to flush it with loads of water at a ph of 5.5. I mix in calmag at 0.5ml per litre then add nutes. I start at a fairly low EC of around 0.7 and a ph of 5.5 then slowly build it up until i see tip burn or i reach a max of around 1.4 and that’s usually in full bloom, by which point the ph will be around 6.

Nutrients can build up fast in coco and cause overfeeding and/or an in-balance so i always allow plenty of runoff, usually at least 30% but sometimes much higher to properly flush the coco. If i think i need to do a good flush cos of nutrient buildup i never flush with just plain water, i always use a low-ish strength nutrient mix but keeping the overall EC fairly low stops it from building up that much in the first place. Flushing also helps to stop the ph drifting too far off.

When they are young i let the coco dry out a little until it feels quite light but i usually feed once a day when they get big and can use the nutes. Also starting in small pots and not potting up before they establish a decent root ball helps. It’s pointless using pots bigger than 10l unless you want a tree. I believe most folk could get away with 7 litre pots or less. You don’t need a huge root ball with hydro and it wastes time, medium, nutes, water and space growing one.

When you get the hang of coco it’s great stuff to work with but i have only used the canna stuff so i cant speak for other brands. Hope you get it sussed out bro and i’m sorry for the long ramble, i’m not good at condensing my thoughts as some here know already :laughing:

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Yeah the coco I bought was actually organic stuff and had proof that it was organic (not that I was bothered about it being organic) I prepared a water solution of 5.8 and allowed the block to swell. I then rung it our so no more water seemed present then I made a solution up of mega crop at 400 ppm and ph 5.8 and soaked the coco again. I collected some run off and the ph was the same as what I put in. It’s a lot of work :joy:. I do admit it’s doing better than any soil grow I’ve done but nothing compared to a bubble bucket.

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I think it’s main plus point is you can just chuck it in a pot and treat it like dirt that has no nutrient value so you control everything. It can be simple to set up a grow with it which doesn’t require a reservoir, pumps, nutrient chiller etc so it’s perfect for lazy old gits like me who can no longer be bothered with all that hassle. You do need to be around all the time though unless you rig up a drip feed. Maybe you could try a lower starting ph next time cos i’m finding it can rise quite quickly in coco :thumbsup:

I have no idea if they actually made synthetic coconuts bro so the claim organic is probably correct in this instance :joy:

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