Coco coir.....Fabric pots or plastic?

rkymtnman said:

with the info from that article, it seems a good compromise would be to feed at lights out. sound right to you?

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My last feed of the day is one hour before lights out. My first feed is 30-minutes after lights on, but it's just a half-feed. I give the other half of that feed 30-minutes later. A bit of dryback early/late in the day is a good thing, IMO.

rkymtnman said:

i'm still getting used to coco so i've read both things: one good water and some dryback or lots of waterings with hardly any dryback

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I do around 5 waterings per day. You have to be careful with dryback in coco, especially if you are running a high EC.

PJ Diaz said:

I do around 5 waterings per day. You have to be careful with dryback in coco, especially if you are running a high EC.

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i'll have to pay more attention to my timings based on where they are at during the light off/on cycle.

i feed really low EC but i've also been trying to avoid dryback.

dryback seems to be another touchy subject with coco growers

rkymtnman said:

i'll have to pay more attention to my timings based on where they are at during the light off/on cycle.

i feed really low EC but i've also been trying to avoid dryback.

dryback seems to be another touchy subject with coco growers

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Yeah, you can't really crop-steer with coco the way you can with rockwool. Dryback in coco is tricky due to the physics of the medium, and it's hydrology.

Jjgrow420 said:

Lol. While I appreciate your eagerness, organics isn't the best way to grow weed. I have some organic runs that I do, some not. Some under LEDs some under cmh some under both. It all depends what I'm feeling like. The best way to grow is whatever way works best for the person growing it at the time they're growing it.

Many 'organic' nutrients contain way higher levels of heavy metals and toxins than salt based fertilizer, and advertise to people willing to pay for the words 'organic' on the label. While I'm all about sustainability and so on, I'm not about jumping on fads or telling people 'its organic'. The purpose of this thread was to discuss coco in plastic or fabric pots not organic vs salts.

There's a million diff blends of 'living soil'.
Coots, subcool, kis, etc etc. They're all basically the same thing with slightly different inputs.

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I hear you loud and clear. My problem is that 1) I'm very old and 2) I've become lazy in my old age, so super soil is tailor made for my needs. Good luck with all of your future grows.

Dr.Dave56 said:

I hear you loud and clear. My problem is that 1) I'm very old and 2) I've become lazy in my old age, so super soil is tailor made for my needs. Good luck with all of your future grows.

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You can still teach an old dog new tricks!

@Jjgrow420 there is a helluva lot going on in growing from soil to coco to plastic pots & fabric pots of which i have focused in the last 4yrs of growing, my findings are - a properly dialed in coco grow far surpasses soil in pretty much every way apart from when it comes time to empty the pot with simple to manage soil compared to tough matting of a coco rootball, when plants are grown in coco with the proper mycorrhizal ecostructure the buds consist of an extremely dense microstructure that leads up to %40 more weight per volume of bud...in essence the same size bud from the same strain grown in coco will have a %40 higher weight than the soil grown bud when both a dried & cured properly, i also believe this allows for more resin inside the bud because of this superfine micro structure, as a person can clearly see with a soil grown plant the root structure is nowhere near a fine as a plant properly grown in coco, there is something magical that happens with coco when everything is dialed in, and i see a much better plant grown in fabric compared to plastic, it took me years to finally nail how to grow in coco...but FARK man am i glad i stuck it out! sorry for the rant hehehe

ohh and im all outdoors so indoors could be a different scenario

PJ Diaz said:

Yeah, you can't really crop-steer with coco the way you can with rockwool. Dryback in coco is tricky due to the physics of the medium, and it's hydrology.

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You don't want it to get dry, but I liked to water when the top layer started to show a little freckling of light brown and the pot weighed significantly less. I consider that a dryback. Each medium has its own range of ideal air/moisture percentages. I only ever had issues with coco if I kept it too wet. The first change I made that was really noticeable came when I downsized the pots from 5 to 3 gallons.

This is also why I'm switching from rockwool slabs to rockwool chunks. I want my roots to breathe as much as possible between water cycles, and I want to give them a lot of cycles.

bk78 said:

I run the 7.5L. They hold just under 2 gallons of coco. Plenty big enough to grow trees imo



View attachment 5232302

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Hey BK I see you’re using the grow tek rings. Did they go out of business? I have been trying to get to their website and it’s gone so was wondering if there is a way to get those rings anymore. Sorry off topic.
Those pots look like they would work good.

@Jjgrow420 if you would like a detailed guide of the method i use with coco just send me a pm

lusidghost said:

You don't want it to get dry, but I liked to water when the top layer started to show a little freckling of light brown and the pot weighed significantly less. I consider that a dryback. Each medium has its own range of ideal air/moisture percentages. I only ever had issues with coco if I kept it too wet. The first change I made that was really noticeable came when I downsized the pots from 5 to 3 gallons.

This is also why I'm switching from rockwool slabs to rockwool chunks. I want my roots to breathe as much as possible between water cycles, and I want to give them a lot of cycles.

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Agreed. I also run perlite in my coco, so drybacks can go bad even quicker. I do think I'm going to try a straight coco run again soon though.

lusidghost said:

You don't want it to get dry, but I liked to water when the top layer started to show a little freckling of light brown and the pot weighed significantly less. I consider that a dryback. Each medium has its own range of ideal air/moisture percentages. I only ever had issues with coco if I kept it too wet. The first change I made that was really noticeable came when I downsized the pots from 5 to 3 gallons.

This is also why I'm switching from rockwool slabs to rockwool chunks. I want my roots to breathe as much as possible between water cycles, and I want to give them a lot of cycles.

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I'm running 4 times in 12 hrs. 1.5 gal pots. Playing it by ear

Growing quick

Jjgrow420 said:

You can still teach an old dog new tricks!

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LMAO, touche.

When you grow in fabric pots another thing to note is your going to lose a lot of water to evaporation instead of transpiration from the plant.
I've never had any noticeable benefit growing in a fabric pot vs a plastic pot.
I've tried growing in small fabric pots with coco and still experienced plants getting root bound so I think to an extent plants not being able to get rootbound in fabric pots is bro science.

I veg 8-9 weeks and bloom 8-9 weeks so I have found 15 gallon plastic pots are best for my setup. 20s were a little too big and 10s were a little too small. Yield has only gone up with larger pot sizes too.

calvin.m16 said:

When you grow in fabric pots another thing to note is your going to lose a lot of water to evaporation instead of transpiration from the plant.
I've never had any noticeable benefit growing in a fabric pot vs a plastic pot.
I've tried growing in small fabric pots with coco and still experienced plants getting root bound so I think to an extent plants not being able to get rootbound in fabric pots is bro science.

I veg 8-9 weeks and bloom 8-9 weeks so I have found 15 gallon plastic pots are best for my setup. 20s were a little too big and 10s were a little too small. Yield has only gone up with larger pot sizes too.

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That's a crazy long veg to me.

Dr.Dave56 said:

I hear you loud and clear. My problem is that 1) I'm very old and 2) I've become lazy in my old age, so super soil is tailor made for my needs. Good luck with all of your future grows.

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Thats funny....I am older and have been growing with super soil for years, aeroponic before that....and I am about to make the switch to coco. Just ordered my Canna.

Super soil is a huge PITA. First you have to use huge pots, which are heavy. For me sourcing ingredients was tricky, and I wound up buying different ingredients as prices /supply got crazy, so every batch was different. And I grew larger plants, so even with 10g bags I was supplementing with salt based ferts anyways, so it isn't true organic.

And people seems to get much better yields with coco!!

I have been going back and forth on plastic or fabric for coco, but since I have most every size of fabric bags, I am leaning towards fabric.

My next question...what size bags?? With soil I usually used 10 gallon bags. I know people that grow i n coco in 2 gallon pots. I'm thinking 5 gallon bags. But I have 3 gallon also.

I'll probably veg 3-4 weeks I'm thinking.

I do use Blumats too.

emeraldgreengrower said:

@Jjgrow420 a properly dialed in coco grow far surpasses soil in pretty much every way apart from when it comes time to empty the pot with simple to manage soil compared to tough matting of a coco rootball,

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You know you can just use a bread knife and cut the stalk out and repot straight into it, saving you removing it all

manfredo said:

Thats funny....I am older and have been growing with super soil for years, aeroponic before that....and I am about to make the switch to coco. Just ordered my Canna.

Super soil is a huge PITA. First you have to use huge pots, which are heavy. For me sourcing ingredients was tricky, and I wound up buying different ingredients as prices /supply got crazy, so every batch was different. And I grew larger plants, so even with 10g bags I was supplementing with salt based ferts anyways, so it isn't true organic.

And people seems to get much better yields with coco!!

I have been going back and forth on plastic or fabric for coco, but since I have most every size of fabric bags, I am leaning towards fabric.

My next question...what size bags?? With soil I usually used 10 gallon bags. I know people that grow i n coco in 2 gallon pots. I'm thinking 5 gallon bags. But I have 3 gallon also.

I'll probably veg 3-4 weeks I'm thinking.

I do use Blumats too.

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With a short veg time , probably 3s, but I like 5s when possible.
If I'm filling 16square feet with one plant I'll use a 10. But mostly 4 square foot per plant 5gal is great, though i know some like smaller.

manfredo said:

Thats funny....I am older and have been growing with super soil for years, aeroponic before that....and I am about to make the switch to coco. Just ordered my Canna.

Super soil is a huge PITA. First you have to use huge pots, which are heavy. For me sourcing ingredients was tricky, and I wound up buying different ingredients as prices /supply got crazy, so every batch was different. And I grew larger plants, so even with 10g bags I was supplementing with salt based ferts anyways, so it isn't true organic.

And people seems to get much better yields with coco!!

I have been going back and forth on plastic or fabric for coco, but since I have most every size of fabric bags, I am leaning towards fabric.

My next question...what size bags?? With soil I usually used 10 gallon bags. I know people that grow i n coco in 2 gallon pots. I'm thinking 5 gallon bags. But I have 3 gallon also.

I'll probably veg 3-4 weeks I'm thinking.

I do use Blumats too.

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I use 3 gal for coco grows. I feel any larger is a waste with a short veg. The growth will be fast but 3 gal works really well for coco