Recycled True Living Organics w/ Coco

[McShnutz]

Hey OG fam, I’m starting this diary to help show just how ideal coco coir can be when fortified and maintained as a living organic substrate. This is an open thread for anyone to participate in, and the more the merrier. A collaboration of collective minds if you will. If your a LOS buff, feel free to share your experiences, methods and pictures, please keep it COCO.

Let me first start off by saying, Welcome to the thread. This community wouldn’t be possible without kind and humble growers who simply have a passion for this amazing plant.

A little background of my beginnings…
I myself have been gardening for the vast majority of my life. As a young boy I adored my Grandmother and while other kids were off playing in the neighborhood, I would shadow my Grams in the kitchen and garden. She is the sole reason I fell in love with mother nature and the profound respect I have for it. From the birds to the bee’s and everything in between, she jump-started a life long passion and ever evolving skill set playing in the dirt. Fruits, veggies and flowers were my beginnings with the seasonal wild mushroom hunts, only for the last 20 yrs have I been cultivating cannabis. She was such a intelligent and beautiful person spirituality, emotionally and open minded. I’m almost certain she used cannabis and if only she could see me now, I know she’d be proud. RIP Lady Slava

Back on topic… COCO. It’s IMHO the perfect medium, beit hydro or soil-less, even a the carbon input in making compost, it just works and works great! It has a natural pH 5.8-6.2 that is ideal for hydro as a stand alone substrate, it has a high carbon value and can easily make a suitable home for microbes. With a little fortification coco can be used as the basis in creating the perfect loamy substrate that our beloved cannabis thrives in.

It doesn’t hold as much water as peat and this can certainly help new growers in taking some of the guess work out of determining when it’s appropriate to water, avoiding a common mistake of overwatering. It also naturally has phosphorus and potassium as well as some minor value minerals.

Coco has a lower CEC (cation exchange capacity) than peat and as such can be more frequently fertigated, this allows some growers to be more aggressive with feedings and really push their plants to their full limits and true potential. With peat, simply said you can’t push hard, it pushes back just when you think everything is on track and going good, shit takes a turn for the worst. Corrections are much harder to make as the peat holds onto nutrients and is super saturated with water. And you now risk oxygen deprivation at the roots while the plant needs to focus on rebounding and equalizing, adding more time to the turn around.

Coco doesnt need dolomite lime, nor benifits from it. With an already ideal pH range naturally, adding any lime products will fix your substrate in the alkaline end and now you have a product that is very difficult to leach out thats stuck in your mix. Additionally the miniscule amount of calcium and Magnesium that you could get away with adding to coco purely for the mineral content wouldn’t last long at all and you’d be right back at square one, needing to supplement cal/mag. These minerals are best supplied in other natural forms that won’t fix your pH and allow a natural healthy swing based on the needs of the plant.

Coco comes in a few forms, pith which is finely ground. Chip of which is exactly just that, a chip and very similar to what a wood chip would be. Lastly coir aka fibre or strand, this has the texture of very course hair. Hanging basket liners are made of coir. There applicable benefits to each one but for the purposes of formulating a loamy substrate with textural diversity I like to use all 3 combined. I recycle my substrate and as a consequence of that I naturally have decomposition. The chip lasts longest retaining its form and as a result aids in aeration and drainage long after the coir has reduced along with the pith. But this is where texture re-fortification comes in with regards to recycling. Simply add aggregate or perlite.

[Weednerd.Anthony]

This sounds very interesting and awesome, I’ll be pulling up a chair.

Best of luck, happy growing and peace!

@McShnutz

[McShnutz]

So with all the pros of coco, it has a couple cons. Just like all the varying retailers of coco, an somewhat comparable variable lies with quality. Not all coco is equal, some sources may have high sodium content. This is due to where these tree’s grow, and are primarily harvested and processed.

Coco isn’t the cheapest parent material and it’s true, you get what you pay for. Bargain bin Coco will almost certainly have high sodium, but it can still be worth buying and serve you well for many years. Because of how well Coco drains, it can be rinsed with a little diligence and patience.

Coco’s other set back is it ability to absorb calcium and Magnesium. Coco has a negative charged ion (anion) and attracts positive charged ions (cations). As a result, the coco needs to buffered. If you fail do do this, you will undoubtedly have failure in plant health and ability to grow. Calcium Nitrate & Magnesium Nitrate are what I use to buffer my coco. With a ppm for each of 2000. Allow a 3hr full hydration/super saturation. Afterwards you can load the coco into empty pet food bags, storage totes or whatever you can muster up that will hold the coco and allow free drainage, drill or poke holes if need be.
Finally, the coco must be rinsed, repetitively. You can use tap water if that’s all you have, ideally RO water or deionized water is best. It has little to no mineral content it has a now greater ability to take on from which it makes contact with. A true solvent!! As the coco is rinsed the calcium, Magnesium and nitrogen with reduce, use a ppm/EC meter and test runoff periodically. Final ppm we’re targeting is 150. No more worries about cal/mag when growing. Any cal mag in the formulated substrate will be all for the microbes and plant. Once coco is buffered, you never have to do it again.

[McShnutz]

I appreciate that bud, and Im glad your here.

[McShnutz]

Now that we got the formalities of coco out of the way… we can build out desired texture based on its intended use. There’s several growing styles that coco can be used in, but for simplicity and the sake of staying on topic (for now) of Living Organic Soil, we’ll build the texture applicable to a loamy soil. Lots of wood debris, sand, silt, humus, larger aggregate such as chrushed natural stone, perlite, LECA (light weight expanded aggregate), humus and decomposing organic matter. This makes up your base texture. This is a starting standard for any successful substrate. There’s no one given “golden rule” with when it comes to texture, you can skip the extra forms of aggregate and just use sand or just perlite. But remember this, “your only as strong as your weakest link”. Diversity is key and can help you out down the road if not seen immediately.

Organic ammendments… This is where your choice in Diversity can truly shine. It won’t “make or break” but it can be the difference of the cropping the dankest Grade A Connoisseur shit you’ve ever had the pleasure to taste. And it all comes down to what do those ammendments do? Not Talking about NPK per say, at least not yet. I’m talking about effects that they have on the substrate and microbials within. Some have hormones, some have base form acids, some are strictly a food source for microbes and aid in the proliferation of a particular microbe, others initiate systemic systems within plants or help to accentuate secondary pigmentation in plant tissues.
You can see how high diversity can help in just a few examples.

[McShnutz]

Gonna stop here and pick up in the morning.

Have a great night fam!

[Cybersmib]

My path has led me to coco. Always looking to learn and improve my game. Count me in, cocktail in one hand ….

[McShnutz]

Lol, now you sound like me! There’s always room for improvement and it starts with an open mind and being humble. Knowledge is our one single most limiting factor. After all these years of hobbiest horticulture, I’m still learning new shit!

Welcome, and Happy to have ya here!
Drink in one hand and a spliff in the other.

[Ris]

I got turned onto living soil a little over a year ago. Havent looked back, however i have been thinking of using coco. This may be the push i need. Thank you for putting this together.

[McShnutz]

Glad to hear you made the switch. The exact same with me, once I saw the benifits, I couldn’t rebut LOS. Mother Nature nailed it, why deny our gardens of their natural evolutionary requirements.

The pleasure is all mine. We wouldn’t be much of a community if we didn’t grow together!
Welcome to the thread and feel free to post and share your experiences.

[Red13]

Thank you for all the work you put in to writing this thread . You have already covered so much,I need to go back and read it again so I can take all in. I definitely want to ask more detailed questions.

I’m very interested in this living soil concept. I’ve already learnt something from reading your thread and I intend to learn more. Thank you

[McShnutz]

So when it comes to coco and formulating a LOS the one single most important addition is Humus. I’ve tried in the past to just use compost and it does produce a satisfactory result, however it’s not enough. Just compost alone will leave you missing something, and that’s the organic acids. Now you can supplement these with either a granulated/ powdered version or a liquid added to your watering regimen. But why spend money on a product that you can produce naturally. It all comes down to the age of the compost that is used.

Humus is compost that has been fully decomposed and has no more organic matter left. It’s the spongy gold we need for a thriving ecosystem in our soils. If you compost at home this can take about 1-2 years to accomplish.
There’s a 3 forms of humus that I use. Leaf Mold which is simply that, leafs. Chocolate bean hulls is another. This stuff is frickin amazing and I was first introduced to it as a mulch. I noticed that Trichoderma would completely colonize it, and over the course of a couple years it would be rendered into a spongy dark tan material. I didn’t know at that time that what I was using as a mulch layer was the source of my organic acids and the ideal home for the fungi. All I knew was it provided an excellent moisture retention of my substrate. Lastly is your basic compost from food and yard waste.This is obviously where your nutrients come from, but it didn’t have as much “bang” in feeding plants the nutrients they need for sustainable growth. But when paired with Organic matter, really adds the wow factor.

True humus has a C:N of 10:1, so it’s the ideal home for microbials. It’s pH neutral and and the main source of humic and fulvic acids, provides chelation of positively charged elements, making them available to the plant at a broader pH range. They provide an increase in nutrient uptake and stimulate growth as well as improve the plants natural abilities to resist environmental stress. I will not grow without it, it’s that important to have in living soil.

[McShnutz]

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement
There’s quite a few “organic” growers in the OG community, but I haven’t really found alot of explanation on why they grow organics, and how it all works. There’s a few “good Ole boys” implementing KNF and JADAM methods and I couldn’t be more thrilled at the knowledge and expertise they offer. Something I’m still learning about. But I’m nowhere near touching them with the methods or their results. @BeagleZ @CrunchBerries

Welcome to the thread and thanks for being here.

[Red13]

I’ve done all my growing in Coco fibre, unfortunately my understanding has not evolved much, but I Would like that to change

I would like to Use it as a more organic friendly medium. The texture of most the Coco I have At present is just that basic powdery form. I’m recycling quite a bit in big containers outside Perhaps this thread will help me there

[McShnutz]

The finer particle is known as pith and still equally valuable. I’m taking a shot in the dark here but it sounds like the original coco fiber was used in conjunction with a salt based liquid nutrient?

[Red13]

@McShnutz

cation exchange capacity)

Yes that’s correct. I’ve been using an NPK liquid fertiliser.

[Red13]

Sorry about that Cat ion Exchange “it was a mistake

[BeagleZ]

Great thread bud! I have limited knowledge on using coco with organics so keen on following along!!!

[TopShelfTrees1]

Very interesting, I’ve wanted to make the switch to LSO for a year or so now but haven’t because of all the amendments etc. and additional things I need just to get my soil started plus some big beds etc. just not in the funds but really hoping I can make the switch one day, and tbh the sooner the better

[McShnutz]

After fortifying our substrates texture, brings us to…
OMRI Ammendments & Additives

Now I’ve been recycling for a very long time and the never ending necessity to ammend the substrate. Over time you’ll have accumulated a lengthy list, basically everything but the kitchen sink, lol. But when starting, start with a few and choose them based on what other attributes do they bring to the table aside from just Macro, trace.

Build-a-soil is a good place to start if you want to Jumpstart a newly made substrate and load it, kinda like an “initial charge”. Once you get going it’s easy sailing from there. Once or twice durring the season topdress a couple additions. Meals and manure/guano are my go to for this.

The fundamental idea is to maintain your Nirtogen based on perodic needs, too much in flower and it can retard calyx growth and produce excess leaf development, making for a unrealistic flower formation that’s contradictory to that particular phenotype of whatever strain your growing. Also keep in mind that the high carbon substrate loaded with wood chips we made, requires nitrogen to decompose, so you need to find a sufficient ammendment with enough N but not too much and has some P and K. Lol, shit why stop there, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur. You can run yourself in circles trying to “up this, or up that”, aside from the headache,… the expense. It can get costly to keep purchasing Artisan Blends of the kitchen sink. When in reality those “all in one” blends can be overkill.

A few things I use to maintain is, insect frass. This shit is amazing!!! Another one I won’t grow without.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.721840/full

Another maintenance ammendment is cold water kelp. Everyone knows how beneficial kelp is to plants. It’s got a small kick with potassium and that helps in the long run and I’ve never heard of trace mineral getting out of wack in terms of an excess.

Lastly one that I’ve recently had the pleasure of finding… Fish shit!! Literally, it’s a new for me, but damn dude… I’m sold, hook, line and sinker
It’s gentile on seedlings applied as a top dress, added to a watering can or brewing in a tea. Here’s the brand I use.Fishnure - Natural Living Organic Fertilizer | Sustainable | No Odor https://www.fishnure.com/