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media Growing chillis in coco , how to do it?

Hi guys. I'm going to try coco as a medium, and have a few questions!

Can coco be used alone as a growing medium (non-hydro) from seed -> fruit?

How do you fertilize coco? I noticed there's coco coir specific ferts here, but are these for hydro only? http://cgi.ebay.com.au/CANNA-COCO-A...nics?hash=item3353f6b4d8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Can you mix coco with regular peat type mix, and would this provide any benefits to coco or peat alone?

Thanks in advance. I'm desperately seeking alternative solutions as my plants have pretty much failed in cheap peat based mix :oops:
 
Cocco Canna is all I use, but for even beter results this year I havbe started using Canna terra. Its better than anything I have used to date. I can't rave about canna enough. its Brilliant (and no I don't get paid by them lol.
 
stillmanz said:
Cocco Canna is all I use, but for even beter results this year I havbe started using Canna terra. Its better than anything I have used to date. I can't rave about canna enough. its Brilliant (and no I don't get paid by them lol.

do you use canna's coco coir product or just their ferts? i don't have a hydro shop near me so i buy most of my stuff from ebay. Also do you use canna terra with coco coir or with non-coco mediums? Sorry to be a pain in the ass haha i'm clueless with this stuff :shocked:

i noticed bunnings sells some "brunnings" brand compressed coco. not sure how good that stuff is, also found this stuff on ebay for 10bucks a brick http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NF-COCO-BRIC...nics?hash=item2ea5c796f4&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
unfortunately i cant find canna compressed coco on ebay and the uncompressed stuff is 32bucks a bag and shipping would be heaps more :(
 
I've used the Brunnings garden coir not the potting mix one as I think it has ferts. I think canna coir only comes in the bag. I guess either one but I would think the canna stuff would be of better quality and designed with this precise purpose in mind.
do an experiment with both, canna terra can be used on soil too.
 
sweet as i think i'll get some brunnings stuff and grab some ferts off of ebay.

one last question :P do you fert every watering and ph test your water/fert mix? and when do you start fertilising if growing them from seed in coco? With peat mix i waited about a month before ferting but i'm not sure if it should happen sooner with coco?

Woops that was a few questions :P
 
Canna Terra is supposed to be one of the best fertilizer/supplement lines available for coco. The hydro shop by me actually uses everything they sell, to see the results of the product, and they use pepper plants to do this, so it helps me out alot when I go to try something new.
 
The biggest problem I have with coir is that you basically need to use coir specific nutrients. Even if you're hand watering, you're really growing with basic hydroponics and since coir won't hold nutrients for long, you're probably best to use nutrients with every feeding, and you should keep an eye on the pH
 
I didn't have much luck with Coir in germination or growing. I found that all the plants in coir were smaller and grew slower than those in regular peat based soil.

These are Bishop's Crown seedlings that germinated within days of each other. They were both treated with the same fertilizers and same watering regimen. The one on the left is in peat. The one on the right is in coir.

bishopscrownJune292009.jpg


Here they are about a week later. The first one is peat, the second one is coir

DorsetNagaJune609plant2.jpg


DorsetnagaJune609.jpg



Here we are again. Peat on the left, coir on the right.
bishopscrowncoirvsoil005.jpg
 
A shot of the root ball in the peat based medium - sorry guys I didn't get a shot of the root ball in the coir based medium.

bishopscrownrootball001.jpg


bishopscrownrootball002.jpg



If we jump ahead to the end of my growing season (which is now :(), you can probably see the trend. The peat based medium produced a far bigger plant.

The plant on the left is in peat. The plant on the right is in coir. The plants were potted up when they became root bound which is why the one on the right is in a bigger pot.

BishopsCrownplantspeatvscoir.jpg


The results may have changed if I had been using a coco specific fert, but I wanted to compare the two under conditions as close as possible meaning watering, fertilizer regimen, sun times, etc. I'm not the only one to notice this.

A study entitled "A comparison of coconut coir and sphagnum peat as a soil-less media components of plant growth" conducted at the Utah State University shows virtually the same thing. They noted that there were differences in plant sizes between peat and coir, AND differences between plant sizes between different brands of coir. Meaning some types of coir are better than others. Their conclusion was that no brand of coir performed better than sphagnum peat; that some plant species tolerate coir better than others; and that the addition of calcium sulfate to the media did not have a consistently beneficial effect on growth and in some cases reduced it.

The conclude their study by stating that they are attempting to determine the underlying causes of poor plant growth in coir.

Now don't take this as me saying "COIR WILL NEVER WORK!" or "NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE COIR!", I'm just pointing out my findings on trying coir as well as what I've found on the internet. As with most things, your mileage may vary
 
POTAWIE said:
The biggest problem I have with coir is that you basically need to use coir specific nutrients. Even if you're hand watering, you're really growing with basic hydroponics and since coir won't hold nutrients for long, you're probably best to use nutrients with every feeding, and you should keep an eye on the pH


They actually highly recommend using nutrients everytime you water with coir because it lacks the ability to hold nutrients. But the coir specific nutes work really well for plants in regular soil since you are less likely to over do it and you can use them more often.
 
You should try the same experiment but feed one plants (or both) with coir specific nutrients. I don't think you can grow properly in coir without specific nutrients made for the deficiencies that occur in coir
 
POTAWIE said:
You should try the same experiment but feed one plants (or both) with coir specific nutrients. I don't think you can grow properly in coir without specific nutrients made for the deficiencies that occur in coir

You are correct on having to use coir specific nutes if you use stricly coir. I really believe there is some type of binding agent to get the nutes to stay around in coir.
 
I agree that there may be a big difference in the plants based on the nutrients used, but this was a first run experiment with common fertilizers and techniques. It was done as a means of comparing the two side by side and attempting to control for as much variation as possible. The test results show that there definitely is a need for coir specific nutrients and that standard tomato ferts simply aren't adequate.

I have looked around for coir specific nutes, but I've only been able to find ones designed for the bloom phase of plant growth. The growth stage nutes simply aren't available to me at the local hydro supply store or nursery. This means that conducting another test using these kinds of ferts is going to cost more than I'm able to part with at the moment. This is mainly because coir specific nutes will have to be ordered online as opposed to purchasing commonly available products here in town.
 
I've also noticed that there is very little scientific information on growing in coir. There is even less information on the different types of coir produced from different regions of the world. The one study I mentioned found that not all coir is equal. Some have high salinity levels while others do not. So it appears that the chemical composition may have an effect on the results when comparing mediums regardless of the fertilizers used. What is available to me may not be available to others.

Either way, I'm curious to see what others have experienced when growing coir. It would be nice to get a breakdown on the benefits (if any) over the standard growing mediums commonly available from people who've actually grown in coir and are not simply a manufacturer of coir extolling the wonders of their product.
 
Do a site search, many people here and on other forums love using coco coir.
I think the biggest benefit of coconut coir is that its using a waste product instead of using unsustainable resources. It also holds moisture and oxygen extremely well. Coir processing these days has improved a lot so most stuff is quite consistant in age and composition. I'm currently using coir for my worm bedding but I no longer use it straight with my plants since I prefer using my own natural(usually) nutrients instead of paying out good money for pre-bottled specific stuff.
 
There are a number of benefits for coir, namely the air to water ratio, but they seem to be offset by the need to use special fertilizers and nutes to get the most out of it. It's not something that you can simply plop plants into and expect them to do well. My main problem is the availability of coir specific nutes. They are hard to find in my neck of the woods.

In terms of the coir itself, there appears to be a consensus that they will vary from region to region. The article I mentioned was published in 2005. Although they didn't specifically attempt to determine if there were any differences in the coir, their findings demonstrated that some plants do better than others in coir meaning that not all coir products are created equal. In doing a quick search at my university turned up a few articles on the variability of coir between regions and manufacturers.

One study titled Physico-chemical and chemical properties of some coconut coir dusts for use as a peat substitute for containerised ornamental plants conducted in 2002, tested 13 different samples of coir taken from Asia, America and Africa. In terms of the chemical composition, their findings show that all properties studied differed significantly between and within sources, and from the control Sphagnum peat.

The differences in coir appear to be attributed to a number of factors. In the article titled Phytotoxicity and Detoxification of Fresh Coir Dust and Coconut Shell (2004), the authors found that age of the coconut and the extraction method used in preparing unripened coconuts contributes to the overall final product. For example, unripe nuts are usually soaked in brine to make the fiber easier to extract, but this contributes to the problem of excess salinity with some coir dust products. According to this article the increasing needs in production of coir-based media and as a soil amendment, has led to the use of coir dust that is currently shifting from the aged coir dusts, e.g., 100 year old Sri Lankan coir, to young, even fresh, coir dusts. The use of fresh coir dusts can involve serious problems of high salinity, and phytotoxicity.

There is also a study called Influence of Particle Size on Physical and Chemical Properties of Coconut Coir Dust as Container Medium (2003) that demonstrates how the physical properties of coconut coir dust affect aeration and water supply and availability. Similarly, physicochemical and chemical properties of this material are also affected by particle size, but to a lesser extent.

I guess the jist of the differences between coir appears to be with the age of the coconut, the extraction method and particle size of the dust. There may be more, but this is what I've been able to come up with over a quick search of electronic journals.

Although coir is a natural renewable waste product, it has it's own problems. This was studied in 1997 and reported in Retting of coconut husk - a unique case of water pollution on the South West coast of India

Abstract:
The extensive backwaters of Kerala are the sites for a flourishing cottage industry - the coir industry. This enterprise almost exclusively located along the 590 km coastal belt of Kerala, provides direct employment to over half a million people in the state and produces nearly 90% of the total coir goods in the world. The shallow bays and lagoons of the 30 backwater systems of the state are traditional areas for the retting of coconut husk for the production of the coir fibre. The paper examines the environmental status of the retting grounds in Kerala, in relation to the biotic communities. The study revealed that retting activity has caused large scale organic pollution along with the mass destruction of the flora and fauna, converting sizeable sections of the backwaters into virtual cesspools of foul smelling stagnant waters. High values of hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, BOD5 associated with anoxic conditions and low community diversity of plankton, benthic fauna, fish, shell fish, wood boring and fouling organisms were the outstanding feature of the retting zones.

Coir doesn't seem all that eco-friendly to me.
 
stillmanz said:
I've used the Brunnings garden coir not the potting mix one as I think it has ferts. I think canna coir only comes in the bag. I guess either one but I would think the canna stuff would be of better quality and designed with this precise purpose in mind.
do an experiment with both, canna terra can be used on soil too.

which brunnings garden coir block do you use Stillmanz there are a few to choose from
 
I use the garden soil type, but if were talking under 20 plants spend the money and buy a bag of canna terra coco substrate all GOOD hydro shops will know what you mean.
 
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