Thoughts on the effectiveness of using coconut water as a root boost for seedlings

[Zephyrs]

So I have been reading up on the benefits of using coconut water for seedlings. As well as the effectiveness at later stages of plant growth. From what I've read (which is only the tip of iceberg it seems) Is that the cytokinins are the hormone responsible for increased root growth. I do have a few questions for the way more knowledgeable than I? 1. Is is the effectiveness worth the cost of buying expensive cans of coconut water? 2. Do the microbes benefit from it? 3. Is it OK to use in conjunction with blackstrap mollasas? 4. Which commercially available brand is best to use, as I don't live where Real coconuts grow? If any More experienced growers than I would like to school me proper on this subject, Then I'm ALL EARS LOL! So this is the brand I have been using with this little 2 week old girl. She looks OK to me so far. So let's hear it all you Organics Guru's!

Is this good to use? Or am I wasting my money at $2.99 per can?

 

[UpNSmoke42]

I just read an article about the change in ph before and after nutrients and if it matters for nutrient uptake. A question that I could add is would you ph your coconut water?

I'm curious and may give it a shot... but I also just smoked so I'll have to revisit this

 

[Zephyrs]

I just read an article about the change in ph before and after nutrients and if it matters for nutrient uptake. A question that I could add is would you ph your coconut water?

I'm curious and may give it a shot

That's One thing I didn't take into consideration. Great point BTW! I hardly ever test my ph. Reason being is my soil seems to buffer out my tap water which is at about 7.8ph outta the tap. My runoff is always 6-6.5 ph. My seedling I have now is slightly lighter green color than any before. And a ph fluctuations might be the reason, as I have gave her 2 waterings of 70/30 water to coconut water. Huh, now ya got me thinking that I will ph the next coconut water dosing.

 

[UpNSmoke42]

That's One thing I didn't take into consideration. Great point BTW! I hardly ever test my ph. Reason being is my soil seems to buffer out my tap water which is at about 7.8ph outta the tap. My runoff is always 6-6.5 ph. My seedling I have now is slightly lighter green color than any before. And a ph fluctuations might be the reason, as I have gave her 2 waterings of 70/30 water to coconut water. Huh, now ya got me thinking that I will ph the next coconut water dosing.

I tried sohum soil my first time around. Water out of the tap is 7.8ish here also. I gave it a shot for a month to see what happened. Bad results when flowering hit. Checked my runoff around day 30 tho and it came out to 7 on the dot. I've since added molasses to my watering and it drops my PH a bit. Let me know what you get for ph and if you decide to ph it. It'd be cool to see your results

 

[Zephyrs]

I tried sohum soil my first time around. Water out of the tap is 7.8ish here also. I gave it a shot for a month to see what happened. Bad results when flowering hit. Checked my runoff around day 30 tho and it came out to 7 on the dot. I've since added molasses to my watering and it drops my PH a bit. Let me know what you get for ph and if you decide to ph it. It'd be cool to see your results

Yikes, yeah 7 is a wee bit high. I always use black strap mollasas every other watering as well. I am going to ph my next 70/30 water to coconut water mix. Hopefully it's not freakishly high

 

[bobrown14]

Not sure why we are adding sugars to the soil?? Testing soil runoff is not a thing. What are we testing and how does it relate to your plant health.

Watering with water that is 7.8pH is high. You can purchase some ascorbic acid powder (vitamin C). Add a pinch to you water to bring down the pH to 6.7-7pH the plants like the vitamin C as well it's part of their growth cycle. Most all plants will make it themselves.

For coconut water - can dilute and foliar on the plants love that stuff. Be sure and use "pure" coconut water. You can water in diluted as well. I usually foliar on.

 

[Zephyrs]

Not sure why we are adding sugars to the soil?? Testing soil runoff is not a thing. What are we testing and how does it relate to your plant health.

Watering with water that is 7.8pH is high. You can purchase some ascorbic acid powder (vitamin C). Add a pinch to you water to bring down the pH to 6.7-7pH the plants like the vitamin C as well it's part of their growth cycle. Most all plants will make it themselves.

For coconut water - can dilute and foliar on the plants love that stuff. Be sure and use "pure" coconut water. You can water in diluted as well. I usually foliar on.

The natural sugars from coconut water and blackstrap mollasas are consumed by the microbes in the soil. In turn helps them consume organic nutrients and helps transfer to and uptakable form by the plants roots. So YES some sugars Are beneficial to an organic living soil.

I have watered hundreds of plants over the years with my tap water at 7.8 ph. With Zero negative affects. Basically the dolomite lime and the garden lime that's already in my soil does the exact same thing as ascorbic acid. That's a fact to ME.

 

[bobrown14]

We live on a dolomite limestone deposit with well water. We have extreme alkalinity in our water from the well. It will kill plants in containers in about 3-4 weeks. Even after 4 stage RO filtration I need to bring the pH down with ascorbic acid.

I'm not saying you 7.8pH water is bad or too high pH I just offered a solution should you need one. Soil has the ability to buffer water pH but outside in nature the water usually is acidic (acid rain/sulfur dioxide).

RE: adding sugars to soil to feed microbes. I let my plants feed the microbes. The root exudate and soil microbes are in balance already without our addition of sugars. You can see the balance is right when you look at your healthy plants.

Black strap molasses is the dredges from the sugar industry so there's that. I'm suggesting that building a proper soil mix you wont need to add sugars to soil.

What I do is add ground up malted barley/corn/buckwheat (organic) and certainly there are sugars in those malted grains. That is not my purpose to add sugars. The main reason I add those are for enzymes that are in the malted grains. Those enzymes put the microbes into overdrive and that in turn puts the plants growth into overdrive.

The main benefit with coconut water is cytokinin content and then also the enzymes are in play as well.

Here's how plants regulate growth. The plants fan leaves do most of the photosynthesis and that in turn creates the sugars/carbohydrates the plant needs to grow. 50% of the sugars/carbs created by photosynthesis are translocated to the roots as root exudate so that the microbes use that energy to feed the plant.

The plant changes the sugars and the soil pH in the rhizospere to regulate the type of microbes that in turn give the plant what it requires at any given point in time. The microbial turnover (ie death and birth) is happening at a fast pace and the plant is in control via root exudate (sugars/carbs/pH) in the rhizospere. This is in constant flux and the plant is in control.

What I'm saying is that we cant possibly know what sugars are required at any given time so how do we know what sugars are the correct ones the plant wants to use to grow the microbes that break down organic matter into nutrition for that plant? We don't know....

So I concentrate on healthy soil. We can grow bad microbes just as easily as good ones. The plants have much better control. All I'm trying to say.

 

[Zephyrs]

We live on a dolomite limestone deposit with well water. We have extreme alkalinity in our water from the well. It will kill plants in containers in about 3-4 weeks. Even after 4 stage RO filtration I need to bring the pH down with ascorbic acid.

I'm not saying you 7.8pH water is bad or too high pH I just offered a solution should you need one. Soil has the ability to buffer water pH but outside in nature the water usually is acidic (acid rain/sulfur dioxide).

RE: adding sugars to soil to feed microbes. I let my plants feed the microbes. The root exudate and soil microbes are in balance already without our addition of sugars. You can see the balance is right when you look at your healthy plants.

Black strap molasses is the dredges from the sugar industry so there's that. I'm suggesting that building a proper soil mix you wont need to add sugars to soil.

What I do is add ground up malted barley/corn/buckwheat (organic) and certainly there are sugars in those malted grains. That is not my purpose to add sugars. The main reason I add those are for enzymes that are in the malted grains. Those enzymes put the microbes into overdrive and that in turn puts the plants growth into overdrive.

The main benefit with coconut water is cytokinin content and then also the enzymes are in play as well.

Here's how plants regulate growth. The plants fan leaves do most of the photosynthesis and that in turn creates the sugars/carbohydrates the plant needs to grow. 50% of the sugars/carbs created by photosynthesis are translocated to the roots as root exudate so that the microbes use that energy to feed the plant.

The plant changes the sugars and the soil pH in the rhizospere to regulate the type of microbes that in turn give the plant what it requires at any given point in time. The microbial turnover (ie death and birth) is happening at a fast pace and the plant is in control via root exudate (sugars/carbs/pH) in the rhizospere. This is in constant flux and the plant is in control.

What I'm saying is that we cant possibly know what sugars are required at any given time so how do we know what sugars are the correct ones the plant wants to use to grow the microbes that break down organic matter into nutrition for that plant? We don't know....

So I concentrate on healthy soil. We can grow bad microbes just as easily as good ones. The plants have much better control. All I'm trying to say.

That's a really Cool reply! Yes it seems there's a million things going on under the soil with the microbes and such. I totally understand what you're saying. But the root of my Original Question was about how cytokinins from coconut water are beneficial? I wasn't really asking or making a point about the natural sugars. Sorry if there's any confusion here.

 

[cbdhemp808]

I live where coconuts grow... I actually grow coconuts. But I've never thought of using coconut water. I use Mycos as a root booster, added "to the hole" when planting clones and up potting. Mycos provides mycorrhizal fungus that is symbiotic with the roots. I never use molasses because even organic molasses contains heavy metals, namely lead, which will wind up in your resin. I also never add anything sweet directly to the soil, or when watering. I do add something sweet – apple juice – when I'm finishing up a batch of aerated compost tea, in order to help the microbes bloom. Another thing I add to my soil mixture is fresh worm compost, which contains beneficial microbes, micro nutrients, fulvic and humic acids. It's fairly easy to get a worm bin going.

good luck with your plants!

 

[Zephyrs]

Well here she is today. So kinda hard to tell if the coconut water benefits. What do y'all think?

 

[Zephyrs]

Today she got screened!

 

[Porky82]

Plant looks nice and healthy mate. I use coconut water quite a bit. I use it at 20ml to the litre.

 

[TrueGritGenetics]

We used to use Sterile Coconut water years ago but finding true Sterile CW became a problem.

I was reading this its pretty much correct.
Mabolo (Diospyros discolor), which is an indigenous species locally known as Kamagong, is popularly called “iron-wood”. With over-exploitation, these species are now threatened and are becoming extinct. Hence, it is the only way to conserved and save this economically valuable species by using nursery techniques with appropriate pre-sowing treatments. Therefore, the present study was attempted to evaluate the effect of coconut water on pre-sowing treatments additive on seed germination and initial growth performance of Kamagong (D. discolor). The seeds were extracted and subjected to the following treatments for 12 hours: Soaking in 100% water which is the control (T1), soaking with 50% of coconut water and 50% water (T2), and soaking in 100% coconut water (T3). The results showed that T3 had the highest germination mean value (78.33%), mean seedling height (11.80 cm) and mean number of leaves (2.04). By contrast, T2 (50% coconut water + 50% water) obtained the least germination mean value (76.67%), mean seedling height (11.63 cm) and mean number of leaves (2.00). However, there were no significant differences in the germination percentage, seedling height and number of leaves among all treatments at (p ≤ 0.05). The seeds subjected to T2 and T3 were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) better than seeds subjected to T1, having a mean root collar diameter (RCD) value of 3.98 mm, 3.75 mm and 3.48 mm, respectively. In terms of leaf measurements, the seedlings subjected to T2 and T3 had the highest leaf width value of 5.18 cm and 4.97 cm, respectively, whereas the seedlings subjected to T1 had the significantly lowest leaf width of 4.88 cm. Moreover, there was no significant effect among all treatments in terms of leaf and root length. Furthermore, it was observed in the study that fungal pathogens should also be taken into account as the pathogens are associated with the reduction of the germination percentage of the D. discolor seeds. Also, the study found out that seeds treated with 50% and 100% coconut water positively influenced the germination and initial seedling growth performance of D. discolor.

 

[Zephyrs]

We used to use Sterile Coconut water years ago but finding true Sterile CW became a problem.

I was reading this its pretty much correct.
Mabolo (Diospyros discolor), which is an indigenous species locally known as Kamagong, is popularly called “iron-wood”. With over-exploitation, these species are now threatened and are becoming extinct. Hence, it is the only way to conserved and save this economically valuable species by using nursery techniques with appropriate pre-sowing treatments. Therefore, the present study was attempted to evaluate the effect of coconut water on pre-sowing treatments additive on seed germination and initial growth performance of Kamagong (D. discolor). The seeds were extracted and subjected to the following treatments for 12 hours: Soaking in 100% water which is the control (T1), soaking with 50% of coconut water and 50% water (T2), and soaking in 100% coconut water (T3). The results showed that T3 had the highest germination mean value (78.33%), mean seedling height (11.80 cm) and mean number of leaves (2.04). By contrast, T2 (50% coconut water + 50% water) obtained the least germination mean value (76.67%), mean seedling height (11.63 cm) and mean number of leaves (2.00). However, there were no significant differences in the germination percentage, seedling height and number of leaves among all treatments at (p ≤ 0.05). The seeds subjected to T2 and T3 were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) better than seeds subjected to T1, having a mean root collar diameter (RCD) value of 3.98 mm, 3.75 mm and 3.48 mm, respectively. In terms of leaf measurements, the seedlings subjected to T2 and T3 had the highest leaf width value of 5.18 cm and 4.97 cm, respectively, whereas the seedlings subjected to T1 had the significantly lowest leaf width of 4.88 cm. Moreover, there was no significant effect among all treatments in terms of leaf and root length. Furthermore, it was observed in the study that fungal pathogens should also be taken into account as the pathogens are associated with the reduction of the germination percentage of the D. discolor seeds. Also, the study found out that seeds treated with 50% and 100% coconut water positively influenced the germination and initial seedling growth performance of D. discolor.

Is there a K.I.S.S. summarized version of that? lol I don't think many growers around here actually grow much Kamagong or iron-wood Weed. I was asking more along the line of how coconut water helps Cannabis Plants.