Hi,
So last night I decided to have a go with using coco for the first time. Seeing as though I have a disposable strawberry and melon plant I though they would act as ideal test victims.
I hydrated the coco with a solution of 0.8 EC Sensi Grow nutes and RO and transplanted my plants before going to bed. The coco cames in 10 ltr plastic bags which act as pots, the instructions ask to pour 6-8 litres of water over the block to hydrate it and add drainage holes if required. This afternoon I added the drainage holes and measured the pH at 5.8 (the same as it went in) and the EC of the run off at 3.6! I'm mythed as to how the run off was so incredibly high...?
Where did I go wrong?
Were the nutrients able to concentrate at the base of the bag before I added the drainage holes? The run-off stank of the Sensi nutes so I'm confident existing salts in the coco are not to blame. Should I have hydrated the coco first with water and then squeezed out the excess water prior to watering with nutrients?
A separate point which could be of relevance may be that I saturated a different block with pH 7.0 water and then in an attempt to bring the pH down to 5.8 proceeded to flush the coco with ~5 times its volume with pH 5.8 water only to achieve a run-off of 6.5. After so much flushing I gave up to seek advice here
Any explanation to the above would be great.
T
So last night I decided to have a go with using coco for the first time. Seeing as though I have a disposable strawberry and melon plant I though they would act as ideal test victims.
I hydrated the coco with a solution of 0.8 EC Sensi Grow nutes and RO and transplanted my plants before going to bed. The coco cames in 10 ltr plastic bags which act as pots, the instructions ask to pour 6-8 litres of water over the block to hydrate it and add drainage holes if required. This afternoon I added the drainage holes and measured the pH at 5.8 (the same as it went in) and the EC of the run off at 3.6! I'm mythed as to how the run off was so incredibly high...?
Where did I go wrong?
Were the nutrients able to concentrate at the base of the bag before I added the drainage holes? The run-off stank of the Sensi nutes so I'm confident existing salts in the coco are not to blame. Should I have hydrated the coco first with water and then squeezed out the excess water prior to watering with nutrients?
A separate point which could be of relevance may be that I saturated a different block with pH 7.0 water and then in an attempt to bring the pH down to 5.8 proceeded to flush the coco with ~5 times its volume with pH 5.8 water only to achieve a run-off of 6.5. After so much flushing I gave up to seek advice here
Any explanation to the above would be great.
T
