• Blog your pepper progress. The first image in your first post will be used to represent your Glog.

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...
Another quick update. I noticed that the seedlings and those with true leaves were struggling with growth. They also had a bit of nutrient issues given that they were staying a dark purple rather than going green. It would appear that they were getting cold and never really warming up since I turn the heat down to 18-19c at night. I've since put them on the mini-greenhouse heat mat and have noticed a rather decent turn around over the last two days. The leaves are flattening out and turning green again. Given my space issues, I put them in a cookie sheet and have the heat mat inside the cookie sheet. I can now fit all the plants on the mat. I'm also able to water multiple times a day. The largest of the plants are Scorpions (red and yellow). The two in between are the largest of the Bhut's I have growing.




Not related, but this is a house plant that was having serious issues in pro-mix and dealing with our hard water. It nearly lost all leaves and really struggled at first. It's now growing and blooming like crazy.

Here it is on 1/5/2014 just after getting a new home in coco

Edit: I found the name of the plant. Clerodendrum thomsoniae, Verbenaceae family, or commonly called a Bleeding Heart Glory Bower Vine.



Here it is now.

 
How did you transplant? Best to get all that funky promix away from the lovely coco :) Swishing around in water gets deep in the rootball.
 
All these wicked pics are making me want to bust out some bags of Canna :D
 
I took it out of the pot, banged off as much pro-mix off as I could, then swished it around in the bucket you see it in above in my edited post. I cut back a good amount of dead roots and trimmed the dead upper portions. You can see how yellow the leaves were. The shock caused it to drop a bunch of leaves and I wasn't sure if it was actually going to make it. Seems to be trucking along just fine now though!

I've never used canna before. Is it a course grind? I've had problems with some that's the consistency of a coffee grind. It was way too fine and wouldn't drain very well. The plants never seemed to do well in it and I've since bought some bricks that are considerably better. The water drains through real nice.

Neil
 
Sounds like you've got it gold, I'll shush up and watch :D
 
It is fairly fine, but having nothing to compare it too I couldnt say. Medium grind? Large and small fines, sans chunks, quite fluffly.
 
Would love to get my hands on a few bags of chunk coco one day.
 
Devv said:
Nice looking plants Blister!
Click to expand...
 

Thanks Scott! Took a bit for me to get the hang of coco, but all seems to be moving along quite nicely now. Can't wait to try the grow bags and hempy buckets. It'll also be nice to get the plants out into the sun. Really hard to compete with natural sunlight.

miguelovic said:
Sounds like you've got it gold, I'll shush up and watch :D
 
It is fairly fine, but having nothing to compare it too I couldnt say. Medium grind? Large and small fines, sans chunks, quite fluffly.
 
Would love to get my hands on a few bags of chunk coco one day.
Click to expand...
My hydro store had the croutons when I first looked into coco, but they've since sold out and haven't gotten any back in. I'd like a mix of the medium and coarse grind to really allow for good drainage and multiple waterings. The fine stuff just doesn't drain quick enough for my liking and doesn't dry out fast enough for multiple waterings.

Update:

Just a few picks of the Scorpions. Red TS




Yellow TS




I think I'll be culling one of the Red TS just to cut back on the overall number of plants I have. I'd like to cull one of the yellows, but both are just growing so well.

Neil
 
I singled out the plants today when watering. I still have to work on correcting the nutes to get the plants to go from purple to green.

First the RE-Bhut's. I'm pretty happy with the way things are turning out for them so far.



These are the J-MoAs I have growing. One is suffering from some algae/mould growing on the top. I've noticed that this tends to occur when you water frequently, but the temps are a tad on the cool side. The plant never seems to utilize all the nutrients.



I also managed to find some perlite for the Hempy Buckets. I think I'll be potting up the Jolokia's fairly soon and may be moving one of the Trinidad Scorpions into a Hempy bucket to get the process started. I believe our plant out season is close to mid- or end of May

Neil
 
The purpling is a bit puzzling, I used the GratefulH3ad as close as possilbe to what you've done, and mine tended toward the yellow side of green. One thing that is vastly different is our lighting. I'm inclined to think that may be a wavelenght / intensity issue. Some varieties may be more sensitive to the strength of the light. Just a thought. I've started using an aerated Seabird Guano tea in my new wave of peppers and tomatoes potted in coir or decomposed oak leaves; so far so good. I'd much rather see purple than wrinkly leaves.
 
I'm a little puzzled on the purple leaves too, but you may be on to something there JJJ. The older plants seem to do ok under the lights, but the younger MoAs and the Bhut's are purple. The older plants are a deep green. At the same time the Cayenne seedlings are a light green and all are being fed the same mix so I dunno. I've watered with a mixture that contains extra CalMag+ for the week, but I may try just adding extra Mg and seeing how they do. I've also been giving a foliar feeding of 1ml/L of Epsom.

Yes I agree that purple leaves are better than yellow. Just hoping that I can get them dialled in and growing fast. My season isn't very long and both are peppers that I really want.

I was looking at the GH site and noticed that they have a feeding schedule for the Flora Duo series. How close is it to what you were giving?

http://generalhydroponics.com/site/gh/docs/feeding_sched/GH-FloraDuo-DTW-Charts.pdf

Neil.
 
yup when i had a chin under blue/red led and leaves started turning purple. Moved it back to t5's (for an unrelated issue) and its normal color now.
 
Pot up time! The Yellow Scorps were getting a bit crowded in their 4" round pots so I've moved them up to the 5" square pots. The next move for one of these may be into a hempy bucket. I haven't decided which of my plants to try with them yet though.



The second Yellow Scorpion



I have also decided to cull one of the Red Scorpions. It had some strange deformed leaves and wasn't really growing like the others. Decent roots on it though.



The other red Scorpion was potted up into the same 5" square pots as the Yellows. I have also potted up two of the Bhut's. They were put into 4" round pots from the smaller 2" pots they were originally in.

Since the plants are getting bigger I've upped the nutrient strength to 700ppm which includes 2ml of CalMag+. All the smaller plants will continue to get the 500ppm strength nutes.

Neil
OKGrowin said:
yup when i had a chin under blue/red led and leaves started turning purple. Moved it back to t5's (for an unrelated issue) and its normal color now.
Click to expand...
I hope that's all it is. They were getting pretty cold at night before I put them on the heat mat. Could be part of the problem. I had also read of others that were having problems with CalMag deficiency when using RO water. It seems as though there's just not enough in the nutrients and you have to add some when dealing with different strains. In any event I'll keep plugging away until I figure it out.

Neil
 
Time to pot up the Bhut's. Decent root growth in the 4" round pots and should provide the foundation for decent growth in the larger 5" square pots. Next ones up will probably be the Bonnets.





Neil
 
THose pot-ups all look great.
 
I'm using 1.5 t of B and 1 t of A per gallon now. I think that's veg stage on the bottle direction.
Sometimes they get a little CaMg or MaxiCrop kelp extract thrown in. 
On my second wave(annums) and third wave(tomatos), I'm using 2 t of Seabird Guano in 40oz of with constant aeration. I dilute that at least 50% for once or twice per day watering. Tomatoes seem to love it; peppers maybe a little less so, but so far so good.
 
JJJessee said:
THose pot-ups all look great.
 
I'm using 1.5 t of B and 1 t of A per gallon now. I think that's veg stage on the bottle direction.
Sometimes they get a little CaMg or MaxiCrop kelp extract thrown in. 
On my second wave(annums) and third wave(tomatos), I'm using 2 t of Seabird Guano in 40oz of with constant aeration. I dilute that at least 50% for once or twice per day watering. Tomatoes seem to love it; peppers maybe a little less so, but so far so good.
Click to expand...
Thanks JJJ! I seen the plants that you're talking about. That Seabird Guano seems to really be doing the trick for you. I think I'm going to look around and see what's available here in town.

It's taking me a bit to get the Bhut's and MoA's dialled in. The cayennes I have going seem to be drinking it up, but they aren't greening up like the rest. I've decided to cut the CalMag+ and go with 3ml of huvega (epsom salt) since I buffered the brick of coco with a full dose of CalMag+.

In any case, I'm getting pretty excited about trying the hempy bucket with one of the Bhuts. May pick up a couple of extra buckets to try with an MOA and a Yellow Scorpion. It'd be nice to have something that I could water and then leave for a few days. It's nice to get out of town once an awhile and not have to worry about the plants.

Neil
 
JutsFL said:
Good lookin' plants indeed, the root systems are rather intense for the size!
Click to expand...
I'm still amazed at the root growth I've seen with coco. I've had great luck with it so far and am looking forward to seeing how the plants do this summer when I put them into their final homes.

Neil
 
Photo update!
 
Yellow Trinidad Scorpions in 5" pots of coco
 

 

 
Red Trinidad Scorpion in 5" pots of coco
 

 
Bhut Jolokia in 5" Square pot of coco
 

 

 
Bhut Jolokia in 4" round pot of coco
 

 
J-MoA bonnet in 4" round pot of coco
 

 
J-MoA's and a Bhut in 2" round pots of coco
 

 
All plants are being fed a mixture of (per 4L RO water):
 
Flora Micro ---- 4.5ml
Flora Bloom --- 6.75ml
Huvega --------- 3ml
Cannazym ----- 10ml
FloraKleen ----- 5ml
 
This mixture produces 590 ppm NaCl when mixed with 4L of RO water. I've added some florakleen in an attempt to reduce the salt buildup as seen on the bottom of the 2" red pots above. I've also dropped the addition of CalMag+ and simply gone to adding 3ml of Huvega which is nothing more than expensive dissolved epsom salts. it seems to have helped clear up the purple leafs on the smaller plants in the last picture above.
 
On a side note, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the Hempy buckets are going to work. I've had to go away for a few days and leave the plants in a small amount of standing water. I did this to avoid having the pots really dry out. Each time I've come back the plants were extremely healthy looking and had decent new growth. I've got a month left before the last frost date and can't decide if I want to put a TScorpion into a Hempy to get it established before it goes outside. The roots are looking great and have almost completely wrapped the pot. That said it'll be in the pot for at least another 3 months after that. Not sure what to do at this point.
 
Neil
 
Well I was going to put a couple of plants into Hempy buckets, but my boy had other plans...



Turns out the buckets are too fragile. One bucket cracked on the bottom and the one my boy is in cracked on the side. I'll have to pick up the bigger, bamboo buckets tomorrow. I guess the good news is that I found out before planting in the buckets and I'm only out $4. The bamboo buckets are a lot thicker and are only $3 each.

Neil
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top