Medical Grow

[Setting Sun]

I noticed when planting with CRF's in soilless media that it seems to take a few days for the nute levels to build up adequately.

I fixed that with a couple of feedings of FF Grow Big, and then discontinued it and all was good.

 

[Marley15]

I noticed when planting with CRF's in soilless media that it seems to take a few days for the nute levels to build up adequately.

I fixed that with a couple of feedings of FF Grow Big, and then discontinued it and all was good.

Ya I'm noticing the same thing. Unfortunately I put all my eggs in one basket with the DM, I have no other fert (well besides some OC+) and am low on funds! I'm gonna take Doc's advice and transplant into my final container and add a bunch more DM. Hopefully they can hang on until the roots hit the res and the DM kicks in.

Sorry for hijacking Doc, so much good info and many good peeps in this thread.



Marley

 

[Setting Sun]

watering them often will speed up the nute release.

 

[Doc Bud]

OK.....here's an update.

We're at day 44 of the bloom cycle.

Bud action, resin production....well, you'll see in the photo's.
I officially declare myself an ignorant newbie when it comes to coco.
All the plants in Coco look a bit ragged....mainly magnesium issues. This post is of those plants....next post features the OC+ FFOF plants.

And here's the coco section of the grow. Trainwrecks are the tall ones, blackberry Kush the shorties.

Hopefully I fixed the Mag issue. In the past few weeks, I've added more epsom salt to these plants than I can believe. I used a green up product that has iron, mg, sulfur.....it helped temporarily.

I've flushed and foliar fed. I've check soil pH....you name it. Finally, I added some dolomite and watered with acidic water. Hopefully that will get me through this grow and then I'll swear off coco for good.

I have no idea why people grow in this stuff....what's the point? Other mediums do just fine and they don't suck up minerals. Screw coco.

 

[Doc Bud]

here's the OC+ section. BTW, all these photos are taken during the dark cycle....the plants are much more perky when the lights are on.

Jack H cola....got some burning after I fed them with a compost tea....but the buds sure got bigger and the frosting came up big time.

this is the OG Kush section of the garden. I've had to stake these up, they are starting to fall over.

Below is a violator kush in a coco based soil, with OC+. Notice the twisted appearance....I'm not good with coco.

Alaskan

 

[Barry Manilow]

Looking great Doc. How many plants do you have in there total?

I don't know anything about coco, I'm going to read the thread one of these days.

 

[Doc Bud]

Looking great Doc. How many plants do you have in there total?

I don't know anything about coco, I'm going to read the thread one of these days.

there are 7 members of our private collective and I'm growing the state allowable 6 plants per person. There are 42 plants total.

 

[molotov]

Ya I'm noticing the same thing. Unfortunately I put all my eggs in one basket with the DM, I have no other fert (well besides some OC+) and am low on funds! I'm gonna take Doc's advice and transplant into my final container and add a bunch more DM. Hopefully they can hang on until the roots hit the res and the DM kicks in.

Sorry for hijacking Doc, so much good info and many good peeps in this thread.



Marley

Maybe if you put tape or plug the hole and give it a good dose of water and let it sit for about 2 minutes before draining you can get some nutes to the roots and saturate the perlite a little better. Just a thought. I was trying to figure a simple way to help you out.

Doc, those are some beautiful girls. I think you are going to be fine even with the issues you had. KUDOS!

 

[Grower Z]

Docbud, I am tired of having the same leaf curling problems with coco and am transitioning back to peat moss based mixes.

 

[HorseBadoritz]

Ya I'm noticing the same thing. Unfortunately I put all my eggs in one basket with the DM, I have no other fert (well besides some OC+) and am low on funds! I'm gonna take Doc's advice and transplant into my final container and add a bunch more DM. Hopefully they can hang on until the roots hit the res and the DM kicks in.

Sorry for hijacking Doc, so much good info and many good peeps in this thread.



Marley

High Marley, here's Spike 69's drooping cure:

Re: Spike's Grow Room
permalink

"I thought maybe I would put up here the way I do clones because it is
working so good for me.Alot might say to much work but it works.

I take my cutting,scratch up stem where rooting gel goes,put the gel on and plant in good dirt.then water good, Then she goes right into darkness 24 hrs.take out next day and just put it near but not to close to veg. light the
minute it starts a little wilt back to darkness.Each day when you take out of dark it will be spry and looking good,put near light when it wilts samething.
after aweek or 10 days you can leave in light and thats it.Since I've done this they have all lived.

YO Jason about trying the bg cloning method,take the cutting with cloning gel or whatever you got put her in good dirt and give her a day of dark.
Then take her out and depending on how close to the light you put it will depend on how long.at first I give them 4 hrs,but thats far enough away they feel no heat, same distance for a few days and increase a few hrs. each day,if you are going to be gone awhile just keep them farther away.
Even if they wilt alot just put them in dark till they spruce up,and of course keep damp all the time,I give a little water daily,and you know no nutes."

Here's a Jack Herer I did in a coco mini hempy. As you can see, the original leaves never did perk up, but the new growth is fine.

Sorry for the scattergun hijack, Doc

 

[Doc Bud]

Docbud, I am tired of having the same leaf curling problems with coco and am transitioning back to peat moss based mixes.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles with that. I'm at a loss to explain why people think coco is such a great medium. Sure, it drains well and wicks well......but so do other mediums.

I don't understand how to get the minerals right....it complicates things, and in my grow room it's easy to see the difference between a peat based soil and a coco based soil:

the FFOF are larger and greener.

So....next go 'round we ditch the coco!

 

[Marley15]

WoW Doc lookin good, great pics. 42 plants of that magnitude are gonna pull in some serious greens!

Seeing your troubles here I'm glad I didn't go with coco. I was seriously thinking about running perlite/coco hempies but stoked now that I didn't. If you are having some minor deficiencies I can only imagine what I would do to the poor plants with coco (frightening actually).

Maybe if you put tape or plug the hole and give it a good dose of water and let it sit for about 2 minutes before draining you can get some nutes to the roots and saturate the perlite a little better. Just a thought. I was trying to figure a simple way to help you out.

Doc, those are some beautiful girls. I think you are going to be fine even with the issues you had. KUDOS!

That's actually what I've been doing! (Good lookin out tho). I've transfered 3 out of the 4 into there 3 gal buckets, I'm just gonna hang on for the next bit and continue trying to feed em. None of the roots had hit the res yet on the mini hempys and they all looked good, no rot or algae. One had a very small root system, and that was the one with the most leaves/tallest! No wonder shes droopy.

High Marley, here's Spike 69's drooping cure:

Re: Spike's Grow Room
permalink

"I thought maybe I would put up here the way I do clones because it is
working so good for me.Alot might say to much work but it works.

I take my cutting,scratch up stem where rooting gel goes,put the gel on and plant in good dirt.then water good, Then she goes right into darkness 24 hrs.take out next day and just put it near but not to close to veg. light the
minute it starts a little wilt back to darkness.Each day when you take out of dark it will be spry and looking good,put near light when it wilts samething.
after aweek or 10 days you can leave in light and thats it.Since I've done this they have all lived.

YO Jason about trying the bg cloning method,take the cutting with cloning gel or whatever you got put her in good dirt and give her a day of dark.
Then take her out and depending on how close to the light you put it will depend on how long.at first I give them 4 hrs,but thats far enough away they feel no heat, same distance for a few days and increase a few hrs. each day,if you are going to be gone awhile just keep them farther away.
Even if they wilt alot just put them in dark till they spruce up,and of course keep damp all the time,I give a little water daily,and you know no nutes."

Here's a Jack Herer I did in a coco mini hempy. As you can see, the original leaves never did perk up, but the new growth is fine.

Sorry for the scattergun hijack, Doc

Hey Horse thanks for the reply.

I think my clones are a bit beyond that point, most of them are around 8" or so..the biggest probably around 10". I think Doc is right, they need more root mass for what they are supporting up above. The smallest one (the one I left in the cup) looks the healthies out of them all. I think after a week or two in their new home they will recover nicely. I'm really only concerned about the one with very little root mass and tons of leaves and height.

Those curled up JH leaves look really similar to a few of my Larry leaves. I will focus more on the new growth when considering the health of the plant.

Thanks All! Got a ton of people here on 420 I need to +rep.



Marley

 

[Setting Sun]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles with that. I'm at a loss to explain why people think coco is such a great medium. Sure, it drains well and wicks well......but so do other mediums.

I don't understand how to get the minerals right....it complicates things, and in my grow room it's easy to see the difference between a peat based soil and a coco based soil:

the FFOF are larger and greener.

So....next go 'round we ditch the coco!

Some people stick with coco until they learn it's idiosyncrasies because it is unique among media in that it's water retention/aeration properties are
singularly excellent.

Coco growers who learn to work with it seem to never go back to anything else.

I'm not at all discouraged by the issues I've had with it, because there is a learning curve and I'm willing to put the effort into it.

The fact that many growers have learned to use it successfully and with better results than they've had with previous media, means to me that it's a viable product that takes a bit more effort to learn to use, but again, I'm willing to put the footwork in.

Until I learn to use it, however, I won't be using it exclusively.

My issues with coco are due to my lack of experience with it, and not anything fundamentally wrong with coco.

I do, however, completely respect yoiur decision to abandon it, as we all have different perspectives and needs.

For me, the reason coco has lost a bit of it's appeal is that apparently it gives the best results by being watered more frequently than soil, and decreased watering frequency with near-hydro growth and yield was it's main attraction for me.

If I have to water it more frequently than soil to get significantly better results than soil, it's of no use to me, but I'll have to do a few grows with it first to determine that.

It's best defense is that a significant number of commercial nursery growers have made the switch, and, of course, all the pics on the Internet of huge and beautiful cannabis plants grown in it.

 

[Doc Bud]

I hear ya, SS.

To be fair, however, I've also seen some huge and beautiful plants grown in good old organic soil. If you get the time check out some of Subcools grows.

His plants look like fall in New England as they finish up. Buds and resin are epic.

The main issue I have with coco is that you have to tinker with it, and you also have to add nutes. With soil, you have a much more complex and nuanced spectrum of nutrients, bacteria and fungi.

With regard to the nurseries who have switched to coco....are they growing ornamentals or food? Are they growing herbs?

 

[Setting Sun]

A search on Google for "commercial greenhouse coco coir" brings up numerous hits for both flowers and vegetables.

 

[Munki]

Sorry for your troubles but most learning happens when we overcome challenges like the coco. Maybe you can switch back to it in the future for more experimentation. Overall, the plants are looking great (with nice pics! )

Too many leaves for me on the Trainwrecks though. Glad I won't have to trim them.

 

[Setting Sun]

I wouldn't give coco a second look if I didn't think it was unique, especially since it requires more work on my part to learn how to use it, but there really aren't any other media that combine all of its properties.

I think on my next grow I'm going to go with 75/25 FFOF/coco and OC+.

 

[IrishBoy]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles with that. I'm at a loss to explain why people think coco is such a great medium. Sure, it drains well and wicks well......but so do other mediums.

I don't understand how to get the minerals right....it complicates things, and in my grow room it's easy to see the difference between a peat based soil and a coco based soil:

the FFOF are larger and greener.

So....next go 'round we ditch the coco!

CoCo is a great medium! it just takes planning before planting and a learning cure that creates more work. and more money by adding Cal/Mag. but tons of peo0le i know pull huge buds with it and love it. life is allot easier with CoCo nutes also.

i dont blame you for not wanting to use it from whats happen, but CoCo really is a great medium. just different folks different strokes

 

[Two Tokes]

Love the bud porn!

 

[slimm]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles with that. I'm at a loss to explain why people think coco is such a great medium. Sure, it drains well and wicks well......but so do other mediums.

I don't understand how to get the minerals right....it complicates things, and in my grow room it's easy to see the difference between a peat based soil and a coco based soil:

the FFOF are larger and greener.

So....next go 'round we ditch the coco!

Coco can be a little tricky if you do not understand its cation exchange properties. It has an affinity for Mg and more so for Ca. Ca & Mg can be managed more easily with ph and light supplementation. Coco is not for everyone but for those that understand the CEC coco is pretty much the ideal medium. Thorough rinsing and pre-charging coco before using it are essential. It is probably the most eco friendly medium as well.

Doc, you seem to have a better sense for how to grow in soil - glad to see you won't be using coco again.