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).

 

[Chilidude]

Plenty of nice roots there Blister, but i am not going to wait that long to transplant my chilis to a bigger pot.
 
The flower dropping tendency with my c.chinense have been slowing down and they are now making pods.
 
Floramicro 10ml/ Floramato 15ml to 10 litres of water seems to be working for indoor growing.

 

[JJJessee]

Blister,
I'm using spring water, and the coir is Cocogrow by Botanicare.
 
I've stored and drank water from that spring for years and never seen any turbidity or sediment.

 

[Blister]

Blister,
I'm using spring water, and the coir is Cocogrow by Botanicare.
 
I've stored and drank water from that spring for years and never seen any turbidity or sediment.

Good morning JJ,

Glad to hear that you got some good coco. It's surprising how different each brand is when it comes to the various producers. All the cash crop guys recommend name brand to avoid having to flush the coco with a few gallons of water and then precharge it with a light nutrient solution. From what I've read many of the different brands of coco can contain high levels of salt due to where coconuts are grown and how each manufacturer makes their coir.

I poked around the internet looking for info on water in your area and stumbled across a fairly decent writeup on SW Virginia.

http://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/BSE/BSE-64/BSE-64-PDF.pdf

Seems like most places in your area have fairly hard water (around 300ppm) plus a number of other different minerals etc in it. IF this is the case in your area you may have similar problems as I did with your water and nutrients solution. GreatfulH3ad's solution is designed to give you approximately 700ppm when used with reverse osmosis or bottled water. If you are starting at a base level of 300ppm then adding 700ppm you'll be pushing 1000ppm fairly quickly. From the little experience I've had with nutrient strengths and the GH series so far, 700ppm really crinkled up my leaves during the grow stage.

I also suspect that the calcium in my water pushed everything out of balance in nutrient solution. If I recall correctly you should have a 2:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium. Too much of one and you stand to lock out the other.

According to the article the ph in your area seems to run from 6.5-8ish. Others have grown with ph as high as these, but the preferred level is 5.8. Too high or low and you potentially stand to lock out nutrients particularly calcium and magnesium.

Then again you may not have problems, but do keep an eye out for continued yellowing leaves and eventual leaf drop.

Neil

 

[maximumcapsicum]

Great photos blister! Love those thick stems. Keep on growing strong!

 

[JJJessee]

Thanks, Neil. That's an interesting article. I'm one county southeast of those listed. My water is coming out of a sandstone mountain. It's called Iron Mt and there is an iron/sulphur spring about 7 miles further up the ridge from my collection point. I just listed some strip tests I did on my water in my glog today.

 

[Blister]

I've just finished watering and snapping a few pics of the plants in their new homes. I also noticed a few new Bhut pods that are coming along nicely  . It's crazy how much these can change over a the course of a week and a half or so.
 
Bhut 1
 

 
Bhut 2
 

 
Bhut 3
 

 
Bhut 4
 

 
Bhut 5
 

 
Bhut 5 Pod
 

 
Not Bonnet and pods
 
I still have this one kicking around. It's producing some really nice pods, but as you can see they don't have the bonnet shape at all.
 

 

Great photos blister! Love those thick stems. Keep on growing strong!

 
Thanks maximum! I still have no idea on why the stems are growing the way they are. I'm still not doing anything to the plants other than water and give them plenty of light. I have no idea how thick they would be had I put a fan on them.
 

Thanks, Neil. That's an interesting article. I'm one county southeast of those listed. My water is coming out of a sandstone mountain. It's called Iron Mt and there is an iron/sulphur spring about 7 miles further up the ridge from my collection point. I just listed some strip tests I did on my water in my glog today.

 
You may be one of the lucky few that actually has good water. I really wish I could just use readily available water  . So far I've been picking up an 18.9L bottle of water for $5.50 a go. It lasts about 3 weeks so I guess it's not that bad. I may give the snow another shot and see how it works. It had really low ppm (~10ppm), but it was fairly acidic and hovered around a PH of 4ish. I just have no idea what's in it that's causing it.
 
 

Plenty of nice roots there Blister, but i am not going to wait that long to transplant my chilis to a bigger pot.
 
The flower dropping tendency with my c.chinense have been slowing down and they are now making pods.
 
Floramicro 10ml/ Floramato 15ml to 10 litres of water seems to be working for indoor growing.

 
The only reason I left them in the pots so long was because I don't have the space or the extra light needed to keep them growing at the pace they have been. It looks like you've found the sweet spot for the Flora line though. I'd love another couple of lights like your setup, but I have a feeling that I'd probably be too tempted to grow more!
 
Neil

 

[Devv]

Very nice job with the plants!
 
All this PH talk has me wanting to do something with out water, I ran out of saved rain water yesterday. The well pumps out like 7.5, really high. Can pool additives be used to get the PH ideal?

 

[JJJessee]

The plants are gorgeous, beautiful shape and coloration.
The pod shape and texture on those Bhuts is not what I was expecting. Could it be Winter Pod Syndrome?

 

[Chilidude]

The only reason I left them in the pots so long was because I don't have the space or the extra light needed to keep them growing at the pace they have been. It looks like you've found the sweet spot for the Flora line though. I'd love another couple of lights like your setup, but I have a feeling that I'd probably be too tempted to grow more!
 
Neil

 
Blister my good sir, few extra Leds would't hurt one bit..or would they! Oh and delicious looking Orange pods you got there.

 

[Blister]

Very nice job with the plants!
 
All this PH talk has me wanting to do something with out water, I ran out of saved rain water yesterday. The well pumps out like 7.5, really high. Can pool additives be used to get the PH ideal?

  

Thanks Devv! I honestly don't know what is in pool ph solution. What's in it?

The plants are gorgeous, beautiful shape and coloration.
The pod shape and texture on those Bhuts is not what I was expecting. Could it be Winter Pod Syndrome?

  

You know it wouldn't surprise me if these had been a cross of some sort. That's been my luck up to this point. After looking a bunch of pictures, they should be longer and slimmer. These appear to be more hab-like. I do have two sources of seed in the tub right now so I'm hoping that the other ones produce true pods. Unfortunately I won't know until the others set and grow out a bit.

Blister my good sir, few extra Leds would't hurt one bit..or would they! Oh and delicious looking Orange pods you got there.

HAHAHA! I wish I could get some more lights. I half considered upgrading the lights to the 240s or whatever they were, but I've had so much luck with these ones that I didn't think it was really necessary. Next year I think I'm going to hold off a bit before getting everything going.

Those orange pods have a hab flavor, but haven't really produced in terms of heat. They all seem to be around a jalapeño level. Maybe the bigger pods are hotter, not sure though. May have to try one and see how it goes.

Neil

 

[Devv]

One way is to use muriatic acid. I'm going to Google it..

General Hydro uses food grade Phosphoric acid

 

[Blister]

Google would be the way to go. When it comes to different types of ph adjusters I don't have enough experience to say one way or the other at this point. I'm currently using Groteck PH down. It's also phosphoric acid.

Neil

 

[Nick08*]

Really enjoying your glog! ...making me want to try coco now!! Loving the LED setup as well!

 

[scratchzilla]

Where did you get the seed for you Not Bonnets? Those look just like the bonnets I grew from pepper joe a couple years back. At first I was disappointed at their shape, but the turned out to be very prolific and delicious.

 

[maximumcapsicum]

They're lives are too easy. Got to stress em to build the heat...

 

[Blister]

Really enjoying your glog! ...making me want to try coco now!! Loving the LED setup as well!

Thanks Nick08! I'm trying to chronicle my experience with the Coco/LED set up as I go. I'm more than happy with the production so far. Hopefully it'll help people avoid the same problems I had when I first started out.

Where did you get the seed for you Not Bonnets? Those look just like the bonnets I grew from pepper joe a couple years back. At first I was disappointed at their shape, but the turned out to be very prolific and delicious.

I got the seeds from Stokes Canada. They sell them as true Scotch Bonnets, but as you can see they are more pumpkin shaped than bonnet shaped. They have a really thick wall to them and a milder hab-like flavour. I'd be happy to pull a few pods, dry them and fire off some seeds if you'd like.

They're lives are too easy. Got to stress em to build the heat...

I've been yelling at them, telling them that they're lazy and they'd never amount to anything. If that wasn't enough I've been telling them that they're a burden to me. Nothing seems to work!


Neil

 

[scratchzilla]

Thanks for the offer, I've got some seeds I saved from my plant. It's a great pepper though. B

 

[Blister]

I took a quick peek at the bottom of my pots while I was watering tonight. My Jolokia's weren't potted up long ago. Yet here we are...



The Not Bonnet peppers

Pod picked off the plant



Cut open. A quarter in the middle for perspective.



As you can see the Not Bonnets have a thick wall and a fair amount of seeds. They have a mild hab-like flavour, but these have little heat. Perhaps it could be due to the fact that these are winter pods and not grown in the full summer sun.

Thanks for the offer, I've got some seeds I saved from my plant. It's a great pepper though. B

No problem scratch. I made the offer to reciprocate the generous offers I've received from people on THP.

 

[Blister]

Well since my Bhut's don't appear to be Bhuts, I think I'm going to go in a different direction. I have ONE MoA in coco now and am considering what to do with the rest of the plants. At the same time, I've put the rest of the Red and Yellow Trinidad scorpions into paper towel. I've also put some Manzano seeds into paper towels. Maybe I'll give the bhuts a shot again next year.

I also culled the last Not-Bonnet I had today. I decided to cut the root ball open and see what was inside. It looks like there are more roots wrapped around the ball than running through the ball.





Neil

 

[JJJessee]

Very Interesting. I wonder how this method would work in an AirPot.
If you need any seeds to Reboot, PM me.