Jiffy seed starter mix

[stcapt]

Noob here. Medical user so light needs, Outdoor grower on Hawaii Island, so good climate but not so good availability of boutique products. First grow yielded more than I need, but wasted a lot of seeds and other material, so would like to up my game.

First target, the starter mix. I can easily and inexpensively get MiracleGro, Jiffy and SunGro seed starter mixes. I used MiracleGro but my impression is that MiracleGro is a bit coarse, with sticks and small stones. It also has time-released nutrients, which seem to be frowned on here. SunGro is mostly peat moss but doesn’t wick as well as the others. What I notice is when I water from the bottom of the seed cup, the others wick moisture to the top considerably faster (hours vs days). I think that comes from the coco coir. For these reasons I’m leaning toward Jiffy. It’s a mix of peat moss, coco coir and vermiculite.

Any pre-packaged starter mix seems to have a neutral PH, so I will add a bit of aluminum sulfate. I also have to add nutrients as the plants appear, because Jiffy has none. I am thinking of Bonide Root and Grow.

An alternative is to ‘roll my own’. If I do that I would think of trying 50% peat moss, 30% coco coir and 20% perlite. Perlite instead of vermiculite because coco coir should provide the moisture retention. From there check the PH and add either lime or aluminum sulfate to get to a slightly acidic mix. Use the Root and Grow with this as well.

My impression is that Jiffy is close enough to the ‘roll my own’ mix. I would have to somehow grind the materials if I do it myself since they would be too coarse from the manufacturer. Jiffy would be much easier and the only difference from what I would create is vermiculite instead of perlite and Jiffy would have already adjusted PH, but not to what I want. Because of the peat moss, Jiffy probably added lime to get to a neutral PH and I would add aluminum sulfate to get back to acidic. Seems silly, but hopefully not enough additives to worry about. I’m inclined to just buy Jiffy to reduce the work and mess.

But as I said, I’m a noob. I could be wrong in facts, reasoning or conclusion. I was sort of hoping a kind expert here would correct me, as learning through experimentation is wasting time, money and materials.

Mahalo!

[Myfriendis410]

@stcapt

An alternative is to ‘roll my own’. If I do that I would think of trying 50% peat moss, 30% coco coir and 20% perlite. Perlite instead of vermiculite because coco coir should provide the moisture retention

That would be a good mix and IMO preferable to the Jiffy peat starter (I found it to be too fine a grind). That said; coco is a valuable medium because it doesn’t retain water. This is a good thing, especially for seedlings.

Your starts don’t need nutrients until the first leaves (cotyledons) yellow. At that point you can start supplements. One you might look at is “Jack’s” 3-2-1: it’s economical, grows great cannabis and can feed full strength from first feeding to last.

I’m a coco or Promix grower and use this to great affect. I would think a brick or bag of coco would be available somewhere on the island.

Vermiculite does retain water but it also releases Mg into the soil which is a good thing. Instead of aluminum sulfate I’d be looking more at dolomitic lime or oyster flour. PH range for coco is 5.3 to 5.8 or so.

If I were forced to use Jiffy peat starter I would add about 50% perlite to it. You can also start plants in straight perlite. Water is actually your enemy until plants get big.

[stcapt]

Mahalo! Lots of interesting tidbits here!

TBH, what mostly caught my eye is the comment that Jiffy has too fine a grind. I thought that was a good thing for starter mix and the coarseness was something I didn’t like about MiracleGro. BTW, SunGro is even finer. The only thing that would stop me from rolling my own is the necessity of grinding the individual components. If that’s not needed then I should just give that a try.

I can easily get large bags of peat moss. I know it’s deprecated because of environmental concerns, but for a starter mix I wouldn’t use all that much. I can buy coco bricks from Home Depot that expand into 20 gal of coco. HomeDepot also sells large bags of perlite. The only foundational material that is hard to find here is vermiculite, which I don’t think I want anyway.

Funny thing. In the right season I could walk around the neighborhood and pick up all the coconuts I want. But the coco coir bricks were created somewhere in the far east, made their way to the mainland then came here. Lots of shipping just to avoid making the coir here

As far as the aluminum sulfate, that I think depends on the correction you need. The manufactured bags of mix seem to be adjusted to neutral PH. My understanding is that marijuana thrives on slightly acidic. Dolomite lime would decrease the acid and aluminum sulfate would raise it. If I roll my own, which I need to add would depend on where I end up before the correction. It sounds like both peat moss and coco are naturally acidic, so if I roll my own I probably add lime but if I start with Jiffy I add aluminum sulfate. It would take some experimentation to figure out how much.

Amazon has a number of ‘up’ and ‘down’ chemicals to adjust PH. But most of them won’t ship here. I can get the FoxFarm variety though. I don’t know what they are made from. I could just use whichever of those is needed.

When I google coco coir I find this:

Coco Coir’s Hydrating PropertiesCoconut coir has exceptional water retention as > well as drainage abilities — some forms of coir can hold up to nine times their weight in water. Its natural air-to-water ratio helps nourish plants’ root systems without oversaturating them or putting them at risk of root rot.

This sounds similar to vermiculite. That’s why I was thinking vermiculite is good with peat moss and perlite with coco. Not sure why Jiffy chose vermiculite and coco along with peat. I was thinking peat, coco and perlite.

Probably the best suggestion I saw for grinding myself was to check Goodwill and find a cheap food processor. The dedicated soil milling machines would be a budget buster for me. And either is supposed to kick up a lot of dust. My lean toward Jiffy was to avoid that hassle, thinking Jiffy had already ground it to the right consistency. If that’s wrong maybe I am back to rolling my own.

[Bonjoyle]

I was going to comment on the coco coir since you got coconuts all over the place. You would think that would be a huge market right there on the island. Which one are you on?

Mahalo back at you. Good luck.

[stcapt]

I’m on Hawaii Island, aka ‘the big island’. I live in Kona. For marijuana growing it’s a pretty good environment. About 75-85 degrees year round, daylight varies from about 11-14 hours. Kona is on the leeward side so it’s sunny almost every day. The windward side catches most of the rain. I’ve been using autoflower seeds and can plant whenever I want. I still have a lot to learn to be productive like the folks on this forum. However, my medical marijuana card is good for 10 plants and I could get 4 crops a year if I needed to, so even with my crazy waste I don’t need the dispensary any more. I plant just a tiny fraction of what I’m allowed.

Probably we could make coir here, but I doubt if we could export it profitably. From a public policy perspective I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to encourage growing marijuana for export? I think the pineapple and sugar cane industries died because of the cost of shipping the product out, but marijuana has a very high value / shipping cost ratio. Coffee farms still do OK here, I think because Kona Coffee is expensive, but I would think marijuana could be even better.

[Myfriendis410]

You would do just fine with out of the container coco coir. It does not need to be ground finely to work. My experience was the fine grind resists water absorption once it’s dry. Of course, coco is the same but is easier to hydrate. The main thing with sprouts/seedlings is very sparing with the moisture. When I start seeds I do so in a Solo cup with a gazillion holes melted into it. Straight coco/perlite dampened and squeezed in the hand to get the right moisture level. Seed/sprout 1/3" under the medium and a clear dome over the cup. (Clear Solo cup) Once leaves touch dome it’s time to pot up. With autos that would be their final home.

Autos are fine but for a large outdoor plant I’d recommend photoperiod. If the length of day isn’t long enough; a single light over the plant for 20 minutes at midnight will trick plant into thinking it’s a longer day. Just FYI.

[stcapt]

Kind of want to put a bow on this. What I’m doing now is similar to the last post by Myfriendis410.

First, some corrections: about 2 weeks ago pallets full of coco coir appeared at the local Lowes and Home Depot at a very affordable price. About $12 for a 10 pound brick, which after soaking and drying comes to about $5/cf. The manufacturer is ijcoir in Honolulu, so about as environmentally responsible as I’m going to get.

Also, Home Depot had a ridiculous sale on vermiculite, so I have plenty of that. Perlite, peat moss and compost are inexpensive and easy to find. I had to order worm castings but am well-stocked now.

I am making my own mix. I still think if I was going to use a commercial seedling mix jiffy is the best I can get here. The others have nutrients included already and I think that’s why ILGM seems to frown on MiracleGro. Particularly the timed release ones. I think it makes the grow harder to control since the mix will release nutrients at possibly unexpected times.

I don’t grind the mix myself, but I bought a compost sifter and use my regular growing mix sifted to make it a little finer. By doing that I hope to avoid the issue where a fine grind resists water absorption, but still remove the sticks and stones that the tiny roots could run into. This isn’t an issue with coir, but compost seems to have them.

I use the regular growing mix because I don’t repot. I plant the seedlings in a compressed peat moss cup. I let it in that cup under a grow light indoors until I can see roots coming through the bottom, then I put the whole thing outdoors in a grow bag full of the same mix. I’m doing this because if I put very young seedlings outdoors some kind of pest (could be geckos, mongooses, slugs, cockroaches or lots of other things) tends to eat the seedlings. If I let the seedlings get a bit bigger before moving outdoors they have a better chance of survival.

It seems like I am doing better, but in fact I don’t think I was ever having a problem with the mix. I think I had the grow light too close. I bought a PAR meter and have fixed that. I now don’t lose many plants until I move outside, when the pests become an issue for me. Pests are now my biggest challenge.

I kind of like autoflowers so I’m not very inclined to learn how to use photosensitive seeds. Autoflowers grow faster which gives the pests less time to attack. The yield is plenty for me and the quick turnaround lets me play with different strains more often.

Thanks so much for the advice! It feels like I am learning but could still do a lot better.