Switching from soil to coco, suggestions??!

Smokenpassout

Well-Known Member
Last run I threw one coco plant in the mix. Used some fox farm cultivation nation which is a ready made 70/30 coco perlite mix. Didnt know much about coco, and bought a basic coco “A” and coco “B” nutrient set. I didn’t know about the frequent watering requirements of coco, or even have a ph/ppm reader. Amazingly the plant gave me no issues. Even drying out 4-5 days like it were in soil! The result at harvest was a nice big girl with fat colas all over in a 3 gallon fabric pot. No deficiences. I got almost as much flower as I Ive gotten off a 5 gallon soil plant. So now I’m really ready to ditch the dirt and go all coco. Now I know to never let the medium dry out. Water daily at least, correct? Also to PH my water to 5.8-6.2? Is it ok to use synthetic nutrients like general hydroponics flora 3 part? Or do you really need to stick to coco specific nutrients for some benefit? Also I should use calmag every water because coco is deficient? I did before. Any tips from experienced coco growers are appreciated! I want to make it simple as possible, no washing bricks buffering etc. so I’ll stick with the ready to go coco. Also, when transplanting do you still use mycos on the root system in coco? Appreciate yall.
 
I'm one step behind you, using Megacrop 2 pt, 1 vegging in 2gal coco. Appreciate u making this thread for me. Very much interested in making the switch myself.
 
Coco is pretty easy to use. The gh trio you mentioned is great. Lots of us who go coco only eventually switch to using just maxibloom for ease.

I am very low effort with starting my plants and never have an issue. I buy the compressed bricks on amazon, hydrate them with tap water, put the hydrated coco into my pots, and when i plant/transplant make sure to water with a weak nutrient solution. I don't even use perlite, and I reuse the coco for the year, then dump it in my yard.
 
Mostly the only real difference between coco specific nutes and general nutes is that they contain more calcium and magnesium. Any general nutrient line will work, but you will need to add a separate calmag bottle to the mix.

I used GH 3-part for years, but any line works as long as you stick to their NER (nutrient element ratio) and dial in the correct EC for the crop you're growing (e.g., tomatoes take higher EC than cannabis so a general line will have the strength levels much higher because they figure most people are growing tomatoes, eggplant than cannabis).

GH should be mixed in these ratios:
1/1/1 micro/gro/bloom for seedling and early veg
2/3/1 micro/gro/bloom for mid/late veg
2/1/3 micro/gro/bloom for flower

Silica is very good to use, but you can skip it your first run. If you do use, say Armor Si, then you would add it to the water first and let it bond for at least an hour.

After an hour or so (or overnight), add calmag, and then the 3-part using the above ratios according to whichever growth stage you're in. Keep in mind those are ratios and not ml's. 5ml/2.5ml/10ml and 1ml/0.5ml/2ml are both a ratio of 2/1/3 but are vastly different EC levels.

It's also not a bad idea to use a microbial, like GH's Defguard. You can save money and use Southern Ag Fungicide (I haven't personally used this). Either way, they both are bacillus amyloliquefaciens to a concentration of 98.85%. This is far better than Hydroguard, which a lot of people use due to the Botanicare name, which is the same thing but diluted down to 0.038% and costs around the same per pint as Defguard but you obviously have to use a lot less when it's 99% concentrated and get more for your buck.

Running a microbial can help prevent root rot. Some people use H2O2 or pool shock, but running sterile can be challenging due to the nature of plants. Pick one or the other. You don't want to use both a microbial and a sterilizer.

EC levels (can depend on strain):
0.4-0.5 for the first week (some people don't feed nutes at all until day 5-7, but I hit it with nutes 24 hours after it's popped up from the coco and get great 1st week growth)

After a week of ~0.4 you can start hitting it with about 1.1-1.3 for rest of veg.
Flower, 1.2-1.6. I usually don't go much above 1.2 anywhere during the grow.

pH is acceptable anywhere between 5.5-6.5, but certain nutrients are more available at the higher range and others more available at the lower range. That being the case, you want to be in the higher range the first week, like 6.2-6.4, and then work it down to around 5.8-6.0 by week three and you can pretty much stick to it there for the rest of the grow. Again, it's not going to shit the bed if you just went 5.8 or 6.1 from start to finish, it's just that it's most optimal to be in the higher range during seedling and the first week of veg due to calcium.
 
Coco is pretty easy to use. The gh trio you mentioned is great. Lots of us who go coco only eventually switch to using just maxibloom for ease.

I am very low effort with starting my plants and never have an issue. I buy the compressed bricks on amazon, hydrate them with tap water, put the hydrated coco into my pots, and when i plant/transplant make sure to water with a weak nutrient solution. I don't even use perlite, and I reuse the coco for the year, then dump it in my yard.

Just going Maxi is definitely something I'm going to try when I'm out of the 3-part. I use 1g pots 100% coco. Which size pots do you use for straight coco?
 
Just going Maxi is definitely something I'm going to try when I'm out of the 3-part. I use 1g pots 100% coco. Which size pots do you use for straight coco?
I use 3 gallon plastic right now, but have had good times with 1, 3, and 5, in cloth and hard. The one gallons ended up needing to be watered way more often than I prefered so i upsized, but the plants themselves were happy amd healthy
 
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