Was wanting to do a grow in straight coco and perlite and control the nutes through watering. Anyone that can point me to a good YouTube tutorial would be greatly appreciated.
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@patrick1960 you do phenomenal in this medium, any pointers?
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Coco and perlite is a great medium as long as you have time to keep up a frequent watering schedule. I went to it this grow and love it so far.
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I highly recommend looking into autopots or self watering bases if doing multiple plants. Coco needs to be fed daily to runoff and it can become tedious between mixing, feeding and discarding the runoff.
I grow straight coco no perlite…
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I’m going to be running coco and perlite next grow with my autopots. Looking forward to how it goes!
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Cocoforcannabisdotcom. great source of info along with the many growmies that use this. I myself just made the switch from soil. Haven’t grown anything yet but will be dropping a bean soon especially if my 9 babies I currently have in the germination tent dont make it.
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I do about a 60/40 coco to perlite in auto pots. I do water / feed daily throughout the grow until I can get them on reservoir. As mentioned coco by hand is a chore, auto pots or some type of drip irrigation will help alot. On my first go, I relied upon cocoforcannabis for tips and why you have to feed/water coco differently than soil. It is much different and needs to be treated differently.
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Coconut coir and perlite will give faster growth than soil.
Everyone says you need to water and fertilize coconut coir daily. I do mine 2 times a week and they are fine. The reason they say it needs to be done daily is because it’s considered a hydroponic medium. However, most hydroponic mediums don’t hold water or nutrients well and need watering several times a day to keep the roots damp. Coconut coir on the other hand, holds water and nutrients extremely well. It can actually be added to normal potting mixes to increase water holding capacity and improve drainage.
If you want to use coconut coir, mix it with perlite in a 70/30 ratio. You use 7 parts coconut coir and 3 parts perlite. You use a container to measure the coconut coir and perlite. Don’t do the 70/30 mix by weight because perlite weighs virtually nothing. If you don’t want to make your own, you can buy it premade (Fox Farms in the US does it, at least I think it’s Fox Farms).
When handling perlite, never use it dry. Always wet it first or wear a dust mask.
Perlite has a fine dust in it from the manufacturing process. If you inhale this dust, it can damage the membranes in your lungs and cause scar tissue, which makes it hard to breath.
When you get a bag of perlite, poke a number of small holes in the bottom of the bag. Then cut a small slit in the top of the bag. Do this outside on the lawn. Put a garden hose in the top of the bag and turn the tap on a little bit. Wash the inside of the bag and perlite and let the bag fill with water. Remove the hose and let the water drain out the bottom of the bag. The fine dust will drain out the bottom of the bag onto the lawn and work its way into the soil. The wet perlite in the bag is then safe to use. I like to rinse the perlite a couple of times just to make sure the dust is gone.
Growing plants in coconut coir & perlite mix is easy to do and lets you control everything in the growing medium.
Regarding fertilizer. I make up a liquid fertilizer using tap water and a powdered plant fertilizer. When the fertilizer has dissolved into the water, I check the pH and adjust it if necessary. Then water the plants with it. Most dry fertilizers will cause the pH to drop so check the pH after dissolving the fertilizer in the water and not before.
With new coconut coir, you should soak and flush it with water that has a high calcium and magnesium content. This is to wash out any sodium chloride (salt) that has been left behind by the manufacturing process. Coconut coir is normally soaked in seawater before drying and packing and salt residue will be right through the coir. Soaking it and then rinsing/ flushing it with water containing magnesium and calcium, gets rids of the sodium and replaces it with calcium and magnesium, which is better for the plants.
To soak coconut coir, just get a large plastic storage container and put the dry coir in it. Fill the container with water and go do something for half an hour. Then get a second container and take out handfuls of the wet coconut coir and squeeze it out a bit with your hands. It will become damp but fluffy, it’s kind of weird and it has an interesting smell. I like the smell but some people don’t. Put the dryer coir into the other container. Do this until you have removed all the coconut coir from the water and squeezed most of the water out.
The coir is now ready to use and can be mixed with perlite in a container. Once you have the mixture, put some shadecloth or plastic flywire on the bottom of a pot and fill the pot with the coconut coir and perlite mix. When the pot is full, use a watering can filled with calcium and magnesium water to water it. Just pour it over the mix and let it drain through.
After that you can plant seeds in it. When you plant seeds in it, water it again with fertilizer water so there is nutrients for the seedling when it germinates.
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I’m definitely looking at auto pots. Mine are seedlings and they dry out enough to water 2-3 days . When I see the first dry fibers on top, I water. Pots never get light like in Promix though, something I gotta get used to.
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thank you
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