COCO for first timers

[DoctorWho]

I no longer water with plain water either, its always the nutes the plants need for their weekly feed and then 1/4 strength nutes the rest of the time.  I recently tried flushing with 1/4 strength nutes and plain water and the plain water plant instantly turned to shit.  It went from being super pretty to the ugliest thing ever in a few days while the others were showing signs of deficiencies but it was a very slow progression.  I could still taste the nutes a little though so next time round I'm going 1/4 strength flush for a week and then plain water for 3-4 days to clear the last of the nutes out.

 

Most important thing for coco imo is keeping the ph higher than normal.  Normal hydro wants 5.8ph but coco does far better at 6.2ph and during the height of flowering you can run the plants higher than that as the ph will drop as phosphorus is used up bringing it back to the optimal range for the other nutrients.  If you start at 5.8 you'll be running them too low and as nutes are used the ph will only move further away so run them a little higher than the mythical 5.8ph and in flower when they're really packing on the weight run them much higher.

[Midget]

thanks for the advise guys...

[nici]

I no longer water with plain water either, its always the nutes the plants need for their weekly feed and then 1/4 strength nutes the rest of the time.

So dr do you just feed once week full strength and every couple of days top up with 1/4 strength feeds?

[forgetiwashere]

I no longer water with plain water either, its always the nutes the plants need for their weekly feed and then 1/4 strength nutes the rest of the time.  I recently tried flushing with 1/4 strength nutes and plain water and the plain water plant instantly turned to shit.  It went from being super pretty to the ugliest thing ever in a few days while the others were showing signs of deficiencies but it was a very slow progression.  I could still taste the nutes a little though so next time round I'm going 1/4 strength flush for a week and then plain water for 3-4 days to clear the last of the nutes out.

 

Most important thing for coco imo is keeping the ph higher than normal.  Normal hydro wants 5.8ph but coco does far better at 6.2ph and during the height of flowering you can run the plants higher than that as the ph will drop as phosphorus is used up bringing it back to the optimal range for the other nutrients.  If you start at 5.8 you'll be running them too low and as nutes are used the ph will only move further away so run them a little higher than the mythical 5.8ph and in flower when they're really packing on the weight run them much higher.

 

hey doc, i have been experimenting with something similar to what you are doing. i was finding that a week of flush at the end wasnt really flushing well enough as my coco was holding too much nutrient. so i started running half strength for a few weeks then doing a flush at the end.

 

i have refined it a little further this run and im really liking what im seeing so far.

 

you can experiment with this yourself but basically if you make your nutrient solution too weak your plant will dry out your pot really quickly because it takes in more water to try and get more nutrients and if you feed too strong the plant wont take up as much water. so by watching the way my plant uptakes water i noticed about halfway through flower, once the initial push is over and they start to swell my plants were taking an extra day to dry out the pots so i cut my feed strength a little until they were drying out every 2 days again, then a once they started taking longer to dry out again i cut them again and so on and so forth, this way i have been seeing a really nice gradual fade with some really nice fall colours coming through in my plants without all the patches of necrosis and stuff you get from actual deficiencies. i will still run a proper flush right at the end but im really liking the results im getting with this technique as i was finding before my plants were staying a little too green in coco

[Frank Reynolds]

I've found since the cooler weathers, I can really bump up the feed for my girls in coco, they are loving it havent tested it for a while but id be around 2.0 ec.

 

This flowering run i'm doing I havent flushed yet in coco, dont plan to to see how we go.

 

One thing i've noticed is recycled coco holds heaps more water! So maybe the later you get into flower the more its decomposed the more water it holds?