Seedling feeding question.

Hi. I just started a grow in a solo cup with coco mixed with perlite. Will be going into 3 gal fab pot with ffof perlite work castings dolomite line neem seed meal and Gaia 4 4 4.

While she is in the solo cup now to I feed? So far I gave only tap water 6.3 ph. A few days ago.

I have e c meter and ff grow big and cal mag.

I'm nervous bc I killed last 2 seedlings for one reason or another ..

And advice?
Ty

My advice is to ditch the Gaia, worm castings, etc. and feed chemical nutes starting around day 3 from sprout.
I've yet to see a successful grow using that stuff in coco.
Good luck to you.

MickFoster said:

My advice is to ditch the Gaia, worm castings, etc. and feed chemical nutes starting around day 3 from sprout.
I've yet to see a successful grow using that stuff.
Good luck to you.

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Just finishing 2nd grow using ffof and ff trio. I wanted to try organic this time around. Ty for advice though.

Ydoineedtoregister said:

Just finishing 2nd grow using ffof and ff trio. I wanted to try organic this time around. Ty for advice though.

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That stuff works good in soil........not so much in coco.

MickFoster said:

That stuff works good in soil........not so much in coco.

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Yea I wasn't thinking. I should have put ffof in the solo cup with perlite and added coco. I tend to mix things up. What should I do now to feed her just to get through until I can transplant to the ffof mix in the 3 gal?

If it's just coco and perlite in the solo cup you can start feeding nutes to run off around day 3 from sprout for the first couple of weeks.
Mixing coco with soil isn't a good idea either........they have different pH and feeding requirements. Soil needs to go through a wet/dry cycle and coco should be fed daily to run off and stay saturated.

MickFoster said:

If it's just coco and perlite in the solo cup you can start feeding nutes to run off around day 3 from sprout for the first couple of weeks.
Mixing coco with soil isn't a good idea either........they have different pH and feeding requirements. Soil needs to go through a wet/dry cycle and coco should be fed daily to run off and stay saturated.

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Shit I thought since it was just for the solo cup it would be OK to do this... you're saying I should just do straight coco and perlite now since I messed up and did that work solo?

Stupid auto correct. Since I already put that in the solo cup I meant

If the only coco is in the solo cup and the 3 gallon pot is with soil........you're ok. I thought you meant you were mixing the two.

A solo cup of coco in 3 gallons of soil isn't going to hurt anything. Since it's in coco now, just feed as you normally would in coco until it's big enough to transplant.

3 gallons might be a bit small if you're only going with dry amendments in the final pot. Check out the "official" Gaia Green thread if you haven't already: https://www.rollitup.org/t/official-gaia-green-grow-method.1026893/

At this stage, just pH 6.3 water is a good start. In coco-perlite mixes, calcium and magnesium run out fast, so you can start using Cal-Mag at a minimal dose. Hold off on FF Grow Big for now – seedlings are sensitive, start with half the recommended dose in a week or two.

ps.
I’ve lost two seedlings before too – went overboard with nutes. XD If you have an EC meter, aim for EC 0.5-0.8 for young plants. Also, make sure the coco doesn’t dry out too much. Don’t stress, you’ve got a solid plan with your mix for the 3-gal pots!

MickFoster said:

If the only coco is in the solo cup and the 3 gallon pot is with soil........you're ok. I thought you meant you were mixing the two.

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Yes it's only coco in the solo cup.

Amanda15 said:

At this stage, just pH 6.3 water is a good start. In coco-perlite mixes, calcium and magnesium run out fast, so you can start using Cal-Mag at a minimal dose. Hold off on FF Grow Big for now – seedlings are sensitive, start with half the recommended dose in a week or two.

ps.
I’ve lost two seedlings before too – went overboard with nutes. XD If you have an EC meter, aim for EC 0.5-0.8 for young plants. Also, make sure the coco doesn’t dry out too much. Don’t stress, you’ve got a solid plan with your mix for the 3-gal pots!

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Welli gave her around .8 ecu yesterday with grow big and a tiny bit of cal mag. Hopefully she'll be OK. Ty 4 info in reply

Lots of rock solid info in this thread. I have a very different experience with using coco. There's absolutely no denial with coco being a perfect substrate for hydroponics. But it has been said for many years now that it's just NOT that good for use in organics such as Recycled True Living Organics (supersoil), or even No-Till. I beg to differ on that one. Not only is it untrue, but incredibly bias.

Traditional organics has mainly utilized peat as the base and dolomite to buffer the dominant acidic nature of it. Dolomite can take up to 24 months to fully break down with the magnesium contribution breaking down long before the calcium does. This obviously leaves an elemental imbalance as the substrate is Recycled. More dolomite is added to help balance the buffer, but in reality just further adds to this inevitable imbalance.

Coco on the other hand has a natural pH that's ideal for cannabis and doesn't require a pH buffer like dolomite. It does naturally have higher sodium levels due to where it grows, also it has a strong tendency to bond with calcium/magnesium. However, once it's been buffered with calcium and magnesium nitrate, it will no longer have that tendency. Nitrogen is very easily leeched from any substrate and coco is no exception. There's requirements in the preparation of it to flush out the sodium and buffer, but after that it will perform for many many years. I'm running coco dominant No-Till beds and have been for at least the last 10yrs. My results have been better than peat and the microbes love it.

Using coco with organic liquid fertilizer is not idea and treating it like an organic peat dominant supersoil will surely present complications. The key to success with coco is the soil conditioners. Compost and leaf mold are absolutely invaluable and can be used a bit higher percentage than compared to soggy peat. The choice of dry ammendments are unrestricted, use what you like or have available locally. You can even use products that are granulated all in one, such as tomatoe tone or dr earth.