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Blisters LED Coco grow has reached it's inevitable end...

I've been away from the forum for some quite some time. Over the last 2.5 years I've been blessed with a son, have had to move to 2 different cities and transfer jobs twice. I really didn't have time or room to grow anything let alone focus on peppers. Now that I'm settled in and have a few extra $ on hand, I've been able to invest in a 180w UV Blackstar LED and have started growing in Coco.

Why coco? I've grown in soil before and had decent results. The problem was that my growing season is around 90 days. We don't get the heat or sun needed to grow super hots to their full potential. On top of this soil needs fairly large pots for the plants to really produce a large plant, but again we don't get the heat needed to let the pot dry out and stress the plant. I'd have great tasting peppers, but no heat.

I've done a bunch of reading (mostly the 420 sites) and it would appear that coco offers the ability to grow large plants in rather small pots. It offers a great root zone alternative that will allow you to develop massive roots. Once the root ball is fully developed, they fill the pot to the point that you can water every day (during growth), and every other day during fruiting. The ability to control the water/wilt schedule should allow the plant to stress out enough so that it produces nice hot peppers. We'll see how this works though.

Fertilizers I'm currently using are:

Botannicare 
- CNS-17 Grow (stand alone)
- CNS-17 Bloom (stand alone)

General hydroponics (using a modified version of H3AD's mixture)

- Flora Micro
- Flora Bloom


Advanced Nutrients 
- Monkey Juice A
- Monkey Juice B

Suppliments

- Botannicare Cal-Mag+
- Botannicare Huvega (nothing more than expensive dissolved epsom salt)

Problems experienced so far:

I had a bunch of issues getting the seeds started. They'd start, die. Next set wouldn't start. Set after that started and provided me with enough seedlings to get going. 

Next problem. I started with Botannicare's CNS-17 grow. Everything started fine, seedlings were doing ok, but it wasn't too long in before I realized that I had a huge problem with my tap water. It's extremely hard. After a few weeks the leaves were going yellow and dropping. Especially when I added a small amount of Cal-Mag+. The problem drove me a little nuts and is why I have a 3 different ferts! I didn't know the water was the problem and tried a different brand. Oh well. I bought a TDS Meter and found that my tap water is a little over 500ppm. After I found this out, I switched to bottled water and noticed an immediate improvement.

 I'm only growing two types of peppers so far:
- Yellow Scotch Bonnet (bought from Stokes)
- Bhut Jolokia (two strains. One from a friend and one that was bought off e-bay by my in-laws).

EDIT:

Newly added pepper! Jamison was kind enough to provide me with MoA Bonnets! They arrived today (Dec 31, 2013).
 
Click to expand...
Just a quick update on my grow.



A few of the trinidads have some crazy joined leaves. Seem to be doing alright though. This picture also makes it look like some plants are growing, while others aren't. I've actually been pulling the extra Trinidad's as soon as the Bhut's and MoA's have been sprouting.

Neil
 
You've got good leaf color going. I'm pretty sure my weak nute solution was the pale leaf problem with my coir plants. I've bumped it up and the top growth is coming in much darker and the old leaves are getting darker veins. I gave them a bit of GO CaMg too though. Something's working :)
 
Thanks JJJ. Glad to hear that you got the light leaf color issue ironed out. It makes sense that a plant will need a higher nutrient strength as it gets bigger.

I'm still working on getting my system dialled in. I had the light a bit too close to the plants initially and ended up with some purple leaves. I've since moved it up a few links. The plants are sorting themselves out. The leaves are nice and flat and are responding to the staged introduction to nutrient strengths nicely. I've been using:

- 1st week = 100-150ppm
- 2nd week = 300ppm
- 3rd week = 500ppm


I also just pulled another Yellow Trinidad to make room for a J-MoA. That should give me 4-5 of both the bonnets and the Jolokia's. I have two Yellow and two Red Scorpions remaining. I have a request for some Cayenne's so that's the next one to get going.

Neil
 
Blister said:
Thanks scott. I'm really looking forward to some TRUE Bonnets. So far I've only had Hab variants and I'd really like to try an old favorite jerk pork recipe with ACTUAL bonnets. Fingers crossed that it happens this year! Got a meat slicer for sammies the next day and all.

http://thehotpepper.com/topic/11994-jerk-pork-tenderloin-and-jpt-sammiches/

Neil
Click to expand...
The MAJOR reason I'm going heavy on the MoAs.
That looks pretty doggone close to a recipe I tried a couple years ago, except the bonnets.  :rolleyes:  Not available in this area.
I went heavy on the onions greens and it paid off. 
Nothing like standing around the smoker with some Marley, a Red Stripe and pokein da meat weeth a steck
 
Devv said:
Got that recipe copy pasted, can't wait to try it...yum!
Click to expand...
  

Awesome! It's really one of my favourites. It's great on chicken and pork. The downside is that you really have to watch chicken when you do it on the grill. I've done it a couple of times, but the last time it was... well I turned my back for a second and it became more a ball of fire than anything else :(.

JJJessee said:
The MAJOR reason I'm going heavy on the MoAs.
That looks pretty doggone close to a recipe I tried a couple years ago, except the bonnets.  :rolleyes:  Not available in this area.
I went heavy on the onions greens and it paid off. 
Nothing like standing around the smoker with some Marley, a Red Stripe and pokein da meat weeth a steck
Click to expand...
Bonnets aren't available here either. We can get regular orange habs, serrano's, and jalapeno's. That's it. Not to mention that it's rather hit and miss when it comes to quality on them. I cannot agree more on grilled meat nights filled with beers, friends and music. I'm really looking forward to the end of winter. I need to get my grill aaaawwwwwn! First up will probably be some meat and a head of garlic. Knock the top off a head of garlic, throw in a gob of butter, some salt and fresh cracked pepper then wrapped in tin foil. About 10 minutes on the grill and you can squish them out of the skin straight into your mouth. After a couple of cloves like that I find people leave you alone pretty much all day!

Anywho, I snapped a few pics of one of the yellow scorpions a I have growing. It's got a couple of snake tongue looking leaves and even a crazy joined leaves.



Twisted joined leaves



Kind of interested to see how this one grows out.

Neil
 
God damn, that is some nice root porn. Everything looks wicked.
 
Recovering coir, the zyme you have is perfect. Pull off outer roots/main stem, into a rubbermaid, water with enzyme solution. Pool enzymes are the same, just much more concentrated and don't come with the growstore price tag.
 
Read this from front to back, and it's like watching a fish in water :) The only thing I would recommend is Drip Clean (House and Garden), or FloraKleen, the GH version. Prevents salt build up, which is inevitable, though maintaining run off will help.
 
How did the PK treatment go?
 
About 10 minutes on the grill and you can squish them out of the skin straight into your mouth.
 
I thought I was the only one... hah. Used to head to a pub in Edmonton that served heads of garlic and toast. Now I just skin 5 or 6 heads into an ovenproof, top up with oil, roast and I'm set for garlic for a day or two.
 
miguelovic said:
God damn, that is some nice root porn. Everything looks wicked.
 
Recovering coir, the zyme you have is perfect. Pull off outer roots/main stem, into a rubbermaid, water with enzyme solution. Pool enzymes are the same, just much more concentrated and don't come with the growstore price tag.
 
Read this from front to back, and it's like watching a fish in water :) The only thing I would recommend is Drip Clean (House and Garden), or FloraKleen, the GH version. Prevents salt build up, which is inevitable, though maintaining run off will help.
 
How did the PK treatment go?
 
About 10 minutes on the grill and you can squish them out of the skin straight into your mouth.
 
I thought I was the only one... hah. Used to head to a pub in Edmonton that served heads of garlic and toast. Now I just skin 5 or 6 heads into an ovenproof, top up with oil, roast and I'm set for garlic for a day or two.
Click to expand...
 

Thanks miguelovic! I've had to do a lot of reading on the 420 sites to get an understanding of what I need to do with coco. At first it was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm looking into a smaller version of the coco with a perlite base Hempy bucket after seeing the effects of leaving about 8 chili plants in a cookie sheet of standing water for a few days while we were out of town. They really perked up. I'd also like to try the growbags, but I haven't decided yet.

Thanks for the tip on the pool enzymes. I'll have to keep that in mind when I run out. I don't know what you pay for it, but my hydro guy sells it for $37.50/liter. I'm also going to look into FloraKleen. I've been watering to runoff, but you can see the salt buildup on the sides of the pots.

The PK treatment seemed to work as it should, however, I had potted my plants up shortly after I added it so it dropped a lot of flowers as it moved back into growth mode.

 
Devv said:
Makes me hope all the Garlic I have in the garden makes!
Click to expand...
I loves me some garlic. I'll have to post a recipe and instructions for a thick lebanese style garlic paste for you guys. It's great as a dip or as a rub. And man is it strong!

Neil
 
Youm must be talking about toum. That stuff is fantastic!. Hard as hell to make. I usually end up adding an eggwhite to make it whip.
 
JJJessee said:
Youm must be talking about toum. That stuff is fantastic!. Hard as hell to make. I usually end up adding an eggwhite to make it whip.
Click to expand...
It might be called toum, I really don't know. The recipe I use is basically:

- 1-2 heads of peeled garlic
- 1 TBSP of coarse sea salt
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1 cup regular olive oil
- 1 cup veggie oil

I've had terrible results when using a plain blender. I poured all the ingredients in and blended it up as best I could, but it just doesn't thicken up to the point where it's the consistency of chip dip. I've only had good results when I use an immersion blender. The proceedure I follow is to:

Add the peeled garlic to a 500ml mason jar, add the salt then hit it with the immersion blender until it's fairly well mixed.

Then I start to drizzle in a small amount of the liquids one at a time. For example, drizzle in a bit of olive oil, blend the hell out of it. Drizzle in a bit of the lemon juice, blend the hell out of it. Drizzle in a bit of the veggie oil and blend the hell out of it. I just keep doing this until I reach the desired thickness.

I don't usually end up using all the liquid because I hit the consistency I want long before the liquid is gone.

Neil
 
I've decided to pot up a few of my pepper plants rather than waiting as long as I did the last time. Since the Trinidad's were the furthest along I put them into 4" pots. The roots of all the scorpions was fairly well established in each of the Reds and the Yellows

First the Yellows



Notice the fork like growth that's already occuring in the plant on the left. Each of the main branches is already forking at the top. 

Roots of the Yellow Scorpions





Roots of the Reds





I thought I would show the fork on the Yellow Scorpion now that it's had a bit if time to stretch and grow. It's not your typical fork. It's like it's a second main branch or something. This plant has a few 'snake tongue' leaves and one crazy twisted up one that looks like two conjoined leaves. It's the bottom leaf on the right.

 
I picked up some supplies from the dollar store today. They had some landscape fabric there on sale for $3. I'm going stitch up the sides and see how it'll work for a grow bag. I also picked up a few buckets for $1.50 each to see how the Hempy buckets will work with chili plants.

The Hempy buckets are a 5 gallon bucket with a single hole drilled about 2" up from the bottom. It acts as a drain when the water reaches the level. You then put in enough coarse perlite to fill the bottom of the bucket up to the hole. The rest is filled with coco. This creates a small reservoir that the roots eventually grow into and can utilize as a source of nutrients. I'm going to use a smaller bucket since I don't have a long enough season to really utilize a 5g bucket.



Neil
 
There we go! Thanks Scott. The fabric I have is MUCH thinner than the stuff used in the link. I was thinking of doubling, or tripling up the fabric enough to be thick enough to last throughout the year.

Neil
 
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