Buffering coco in layman's terms?

Star Dog

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
I've got a brick of coco to try I need to know how do I go about preparing it to use, I read coco requires buffering what is I do I do in gardening terms?

I don't mean to sound ungrateful but there's no point in posting links the science is to complicated I can't get my head around it, I remember now why I've just bought canna previously :-)
Now i'm looking to prepare my own any help with that would be great?
 
Beehive

Beehive

Well-Known Member
Hydrate the brick and rinse the dust out. Until the runoff is fairly clear. It doesn't have to be super pure looking.


Then soak it in water that's had 15ml of Cal-Mag per gallon added. Tap or RO. Doesn't matter.

Soak it for at least a day. 24 hours. I soak mine for a couple of days. I don't rinse it after the Cal-Mag treatment. Let dry a bit until it's ready to planted.
 
WintersBones

WintersBones

Well-Known Member
Star Dog said:
Just had a quick peek it looks very informative, thanks very much.
Click to expand...
Cheers. Learnt most of what I know about coco from that site. And there's tons of other good articles and info on other topics as well.
the other posters summarized the process fairly well however. rinse, soak with CalMag, drain, basically the whole process.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
Beehive said:
Hydrate the brick and rinse the dust out. Until the runoff is fairly clear. It doesn't have to be super pure looking.


Then soak it in water that's had 15ml of Cal-Mag per gallon added. Tap or RO. Doesn't matter.

Soak it for at least a day. 24 hours. I soak mine for a couple of days. I don't rinse it after the Cal-Mag treatment. Let dry a bit until it's ready to planted.
Click to expand...
It's a good idea to put the coco into the pots and let them dry out for about a day. If you keep it all together in a bin, the bottom will be way wetter than the top, later causing the pots' moisture levels will be inconsistent.
 
Beehive

Beehive

Well-Known Member
lusidghost said:
It's a good idea to put the coco into the pots and let them dry out for about a day. If you keep it all together in a bin, the bottom will be way wetter than the top, later causing the pots' moisture levels will be inconsistent.
Click to expand...
After the hydrate and wash. Then filled fabric pots. I stick the entire pot in an ice chest. Fill it with the Cal-Mag water and walk off for a couple days.

After the soak I pull the pots out the chest and let them drain. Long enough to where there's no water dripping carrying it to grow room. (I don't want to have to clean it up.) A soggy 5 gallon pot is kinda heavy.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
Beehive said:
After the hydrate and wash. Using filled fabric pots. I stick the entire pot in an ice chest. Fill it with the Cal-Mag water and walk off for a couple days.

After the soak I pull the pots out the soak and let them drain. Long enough to where there's no water dripping carrying it to grow room. I don't don't want to have to clean it up. A soggy 5 gallon pot is kinda heavy.
Click to expand...
Damn, that's next level shit.
 
Beehive

Beehive

Well-Known Member
lusidghost said:
Damn, that's next level shit.
Click to expand...
I left out mixing some perlite into the coco after its hydrated. The first rinse also washes the perlite dust out. You can mix coco to perlite 70/30 or 50/50. There's growers on here that grow in 100% coco. I haven't.

Other then bricks. I got lazy and started using the premixed Roots brand. It goes through the same process as if it was a brick. Saves the labor of mixing perlite into the coco.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
Beehive said:
I left out mixing some perlite into the coco after its hydrated. The first rinse also washes the perlite dust out. You can mix coco to perlite 70/30 or 50/50. There's growers on here that grow in 100% coco. I haven't.

Other then bricks. I got lazy and started using the premixed Roots brand. It goes through the same process as if it was a brick. Saves the labor of mixing perlite into the coco.
Click to expand...
I've always used pure coco. Now I bypass all of the headaches and use these.
www.thecocodepot.com

GroEzy™ 6" Coco Grow Cubes

GroEzy™ Cultivation Blocks Size: 6" x 6" x 6" Volume: Approx 1.5 Gallon Packing: 32 units per case Pallet: 54 cases per pallet Coco Grow Cubes, the perfect foundation for growing strong, colorful plants, you may enhance your gardening experience. Made from high-quality coconut coir fibers, these...
www.thecocodepot.com www.thecocodepot.com
 
Star Dog

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
Beehive said:
I left out mixing some perlite into the coco after its hydrated. The first rinse also washes the perlite dust out. You can mix coco to perlite 70/30 or 50/50. There's growers on here that grow in 100% coco. I haven't.

Other then bricks. I got lazy and started using the premixed Roots brand. It goes through the same process as if it was a brick. Saves the labor of mixing perlite into the coco.
Click to expand...
I like a bit of perlite 30/35% in canna that's all I've used previously.
That said I didn't know just how airy the coco brick is, canna pro+ is what describe as quite fine imo it benifits from perlite.
I'm not saying the brick won't but it's a much lighter/airyer product I think it would be fine without.
 
twentyeight.threefive

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
Beehive said:
Hydrate the brick and rinse the dust out. Until the runoff is fairly clear. It doesn't have to be super pure looking.


Then soak it in water that's had 15ml of Cal-Mag per gallon added. Tap or RO. Doesn't matter.

Soak it for at least a day. 24 hours. I soak mine for a couple of days. I don't rinse it after the Cal-Mag treatment. Let dry a bit until it's ready to planted.
Click to expand...
15 ml/gal of CalMag? That seems excessive, although I buy bags of Canna Coco so I don't know about bricks. I run a low 0.4 EC feed of nutrients through my coco, removes fines and preps the coco for seedlings.
 
twentyeight.threefive

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
Star Dog said:
I like a bit of perlite 30/35% in canna that's all I've used previously.
That said I didn't know just how airy the coco brick is, canna pro+ is what describe as quite fine imo it benifits from perlite.
I'm not saying the brick won't but it's a much lighter/airyer product I think it would be fine without.
Click to expand...
Comparing my current two girls I'll probably never used perlite again. There's no visual difference between the plants and the pure coco pot drains the feed way faster. You'd think the coco/perlite pot would drain faster.
 
Star Dog

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
I'm fairly sure this buffering business is the reason I've seen a low ec in the run off and it's been asked about a number of times in posts, usually disputed.
I could be wrong but I've learned a couple of things tonight that has lead me to this conclusion.

The coco is empty in a sense the nutrient goes through it and any cm, mg, p, k gets drawn out of the nutrient leaving a weak solution to run off.

Those of you that prep your own might not be aware of this but it's a thing if you use coco from the bag without feeding/buffering/charging it whatever lol.

I've run 1.0 nutrient through a 1 ltr pot and the run off was 0.2
 
Beehive

Beehive

Well-Known Member
twentyeight.threefive said:
15 ml/gal of CalMag? That seems excessive, although I buy bags of Canna Coco so I don't know about bricks. I run a low 0.4 EC feed of nutrients through my coco, removes fines and preps the coco for seedlings.
Click to expand...
15ml of Cal-Mag per gallon. I'm sure.

I gotta dry trim in the morning and I'm not looking forward to it. Jars have been cleaned(26 jars) and I think I grew ~way~ to much.
 
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Star Dog

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
twentyeight.threefive said:
Comparing my current two girls I'll probably never used perlite again. There's no visual difference between the plants and the pure coco pot drains the feed way faster. You'd think the coco/perlite pot would drain faster.
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to say it until I tested them lol but I'm 90% sure that coco drains quicker than my canna+perlite mix, I will test it :-)
 
twentyeight.threefive

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
Star Dog said:
I'm fairly sure this buffering business is the reason I've seen a low ec in the run off and it's been asked about a number of times in posts, usually disputed.
I could be wrong but I've learned a couple of things tonight that has lead me to this conclusion.

The coco is empty in a sense the nutrient goes through it and any cm, mg, p, k gets drawn out of the nutrient leaving a weak solution to run off.

Those of you that prep your own might not be aware of this but it's a thing if you use coco from the bag without feeding/buffering/charging it whatever lol.

I've run 1.0 nutrient through a 1 ltr pot and the run off was 0.2
Click to expand...
I'm still confused on how that's even possible. I can't comprehend how it's possible unless you aren't watering to enough runoff. Eventually the output had to equal the input.
 
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