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media Anyone Grow in Pure CocoPeat?

C

cmpman1974

I am quite intrigued by this stuff. I found these small bales at a garden store that expand from a very small cube to 3 cu ft. They were on sale for only $2.99 (regular $13+). The texture is incredible. I am experimenting with it and think it may be a perfect medium for peppers (light, holds moisture well, air space). The price is EXCELLENT. Any experience with this stuff? If not using pure, mixing in with anything?

All comments/experience is appreciated. I like a $3 price tag for 3 ct ft of medium. If people have good things to say, I'm going back to buy a bunch more.
 
cmpman1974 said:
I am quite intrigued by this stuff. I found these small bales at a garden store that expand from a very small cube to 3 cu ft. They were on sale for only $2.99 (regular $13+). The texture is incredible. I am experimenting with it and think it may be a perfect medium for peppers (light, holds moisture well, air space). The price is EXCELLENT. Any experience with this stuff? If not using pure, mixing in with anything?

All comments/experience is appreciated. I like a $3 price tag for 3 ct ft of medium. If people have good things to say, I'm going back to buy a bunch more.
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At that price I'd clean out the store. :)
 
I think Hotpeppa uses this stuff? Sorry to post with no info, but hoping he'll chime in. I know the reefer folks seem to like it, but I seem to remember there are coco specific nutes.
 
joeknowsjolokia said:
Yeah cause they grow alot on the open road!:shocked: At that price you could mix it with any medium you want... right?
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At that price you could triple your money on fleabay or just smoke it with one of those mobile refer dudes.
 
Cocopeat? Huh? Coco coir yes, peat yes but cocopeat. Naw can't be.

Peat, according to Merriam Webster is: : partially carbonized vegetable tissue formed by partial decomposition in water of various plants (as mosses of the genus Sphagnum)

Coco, from the same source: the coconut palm ; also : its fruit
 
Texasclosetgrower uses this stuff and swears by it. Also Stillmanz says he loves it too.
Only difference to soil is that you gotta keep the nutes up to it.
 
I just started experimenting with it recently. i get the 650gram brick by General Hydroponics for $3. So you're paying waaay less!

Working well so far for my pequin in my passive wick system. I also have a bunch of basil in a container with huge drainage holes and straight coco, i hand water that with hydro nutes and use the drainage to water my other plants. The basil looves it.
 
I'm usin' it (if we're talkin' coir) w/ Botanicare nutes outside mostly. Have the Grow and the Bloom formulas and the Cal-Mag supplement. Not sure if I need the Cal- Mag though, as I'm not using RO water. That doesn't help salt build up though, which can be an issue even if your water's pure as I understand it. I just picked up some Clearex, (also by Botanicare) a salt flushing solution (to use periodically or before a big harvest, not sure yet) . So far it's doing very well for me, as good as my pricey hydro store potting soils. I could see it holding too much water though, especially if you're in FL like Scoville, or any other place where it actually rains.

As I said though, this is my first year w/ it. Haven't completed a full pepper's cycle yet.

And if it is a coco "peat", I don't know a thing about it.
 
I mean Coco coir..sorry everyone. I'm thinking mixing it with some perlite to increase drainage. Yes Scoville, it's wet. I wonder how it dries out between waterings? I'm only considering this to fill 2.5" square pots for the seedlings I grow. Not long-term use. $25-$35 bales of 3.8 cu ft Pro-Mix aren't too reasonable.

I've never been super happy with some of the pure peat mixes as they dry out badly at times, especially if you need to go on vacation someday. lol. Scoville, what did you try blending it with? I would purely control conditions indoors with it too. This would NOT be an outside growing medium.
 
you will get the same thing with coco coir... dryness that is, unless you are ontop of it.. that being said, it does hold moisture very well...

its all i use.. and i love it !
 
I'm giving it a shot this year. I've done a fair bit of reading on it so far and have found that not all coir's are created equal. Some are better than others, some are more coarse/fine, contain more salt etc. Although the quality of coir has improved considerably in the last few years, it appears that pure peat-perlite mixes are still better than the coir-perlite mixes in terms of plant production. Utah State University did a fairly recent study on the use of soiless growing mediums and came to the conclusion that:

...coconut coir should be used with great caution. Although the Sri Lanka brands performed better than the Mexican brands, no brand performed consistently better than shpagnum peat. Some species tolerate coir better than others. The addition of calcium sulfate to the media did not have a consistently beneficial effect on growth and in some cases reduced growth. The best growth in coir media occured in the Grow Coir brand. We are continuing these studies to determine the underlying causes of poor plant growth in coir
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PDF LINK

Although I've read the article, I'm comparing two plants (Bishop's Crown) and their growth rates in the standard peat potting mix and coco coir right now. Both plants are being treated the same in terms of nutes and ferts and so far they both appear fairly equal in terms of growth. I didn't do anything special to the coco coir, but it does seem like coir should be soaked in a vitamin enriched water when expanding if it is to compete with peat based mixtures. Although the coir has a better air to water ratio (and should provide better growing medium than peat based mixtures) I have also read that the coir soil-less mixes should be mixed with perlite. Other slow release nutrients such as bone meal, blood meal, and a bit of dolomite/dolopril should be mixed in in order to overcome the nutrient deficiencies compared to soil mixtures. I haven't a clue as to how true this is, but I'm going to give it a shot in the near future and find out for myself.

I'll take a few shots of the bishops crown plants and post them here as they grow.

I'm also trying to germinate some seeds in pure coir and compare them to the germ times in pure peat pellets. If all goes according to plan, they should be sprouting within the next 3-4 days just like the other seeds had done in the peat pellets.
 
Coco coir is LIGHT, I mean, real light. I made up a potting mix made of soil + coco peat + perlite/vermiculite and my plants fell over in the wind so easily.

This year, I'm trying the same, but I'm adding some builders sand down to it. Found a post on another gardening forum from a dude that worked at the CSIRO (research labratory) here in Aus who claim that sand is awesome in potting mix providing its coarse. It's going to help weigh down my pots too.

All in all, coco coir is awesome, but be careful, its real light, and doesnt have any nutrient value, so you have to ensure all waterings have nutrients, unless you mix it in with something that does.
 
cmpman1974 said:
ProMix has no nutrient value either. :)
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Doesn't ProMix BX have some nutes? Hell, I've only begun to fertilize my plants in promix, and they were at 6 sets of leaves when I moved them to 5 gallon containers.


They look like this now...

DSCN0761.jpg
 
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