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Mill's 2010 season starts

For best results you need coir specific nutrients to deal with specific excesses and deficiencies associated with coir. I believe most specific nutrients will have higher levels of calcium and magnesium and lower amounts of nitrogen
 
I think coir is probably better suited as a hydro medium. I mean why start seeds in coir if you plan to switch to a different potting medium or plant in the ground and switch nutes again. Coir may be cheap but if you have the added expense of specific nutes and you don't plan to grow to maturity with coir, why bother using it for seed starting.

Here's a quote about coir and its requirements:

Use Coco Coir Specific Nutrients - Coco coir just isn't like other media. It has a lot of unique physical and chemical properties that might actually make typical hydroponic nutrients less than ideal. Most hydroponic products assume that you will use something like rockwool, perlite, clay pebbles, air, or water as a medium, and design their nutrient balance around these kinds of media deliver nutrients. But because coconut fiber is unique, it might actually retain certain nutrients while releasing others at a faster rate. This means that your plants might suffer from a nutrient deficiency even if the nutrients appear to be perfectly balanced in your reservoir. Nutrient products designed specially for coconut fiber have the special nutrient balances that plants growing in this medium need.

Rinse with Freshwater Before Use - One of primary concerns of using coconut coir as a hydroponic medium is salt content. Coconut husks have a naturally high amount of salt, and that might negatively affect your conductivity and cause salt buildup. Most of the higher quality coconut coir is thoroughly rinsed before it is sold, but much of the cheaper coconut fiber you find usually contains high levels of salt. If you can, opt for the higher quality, pre rinsed medium. But either way, you should rinse it with fresh, pH balanced water before placing it in your growing trays or buckets.
Click to expand...
 
Don't sell coco coir down the road just yet.

Here's a few things I've found on the web about it:

"Coco coir is a proven best alternative to any growing media. Its use as a growing medium outperforms any other medium used for growing vegetables, ornamentals and tree plants. Its soft structure promotes easy root penetration and healthy growth. Coco coir is 100% environmentally friendly. It is a renewable resource that is consistent in quality. Coco coir has the best physical and chemical properties to promote better plant growth.

• Coco has high water-holding capacity. It can hold water up to eight times of its weight and release it over a period of time.
• Coco has ideal pH in the range of 6-6.7
• It has excellent drainage and air porosity for better plant growth
• Coco is very low in EC and carries mostly potassium salts, which is an essential major plant nutrient
• Cation exchange capacity is very good
• Coco coir has some anti-fungal properties that help plants to get rid of soil borne diseases. It inhibits pathogens like Pithium
• Coco is very easy to re-hydrate after being dehydrated
• It is a biodegradable source that degrades very slowly and has a life of three to four years
• Contains significant amounts of phosphorous (10-50ppm) and potassium (150-450 ppm)

As mentioned above Coco coir is not just a natural product with very good properties for plant growth - it also has some winning advantages over other growing mediums.

Advantages of Coco Coir
• It is a 100% renewable resource
• Coco coir is light in weight
• It is consistent in high quality
• Coco coir is completely environmentally friendly
• The top of the product layer in grow bags/pots always remain dry, leaving behind no chances of fungal growth
• Coco coir never shrinks, cracks or produces crust
• It promotes better root systems in a short time
• Coco coir is odorless, pleasant to handle, and uniform in composition"

Doesn't sound too bad to me.
 
I did some digging on some plants and the roots were insane. I am not giving up on the coco, just going to buy a bag of seed starter before the end of the season to have for next year. I am going to use the remainder in a mix instead of peat and see how they perform when mixed with different things.
 
@patrick

Coir definitely has ample marketing dollars behind it; someone saw a chance to make a profit from waste and there's nothing wrong with that. The added expense of coir specific nutes for a relatively short start period kills any advantage for me.

As a potting additive I prefer the much cheaper locally produced pine bark fines. Pine bark fines (partially composted pine bark and also sold and labeled as "soil conditioner") has most of the qualities of coir and sells here for a little less than $3 for a 2 cu ft bag.

Coir seems to be the rage with hydro mj growers.
 
patrick,

Coco has it's benefits and its detractors. It is NOT as environmentally friendly as it's presented by companies selling it. In research conducted by Nandan, the retting of coconut husks has caused a huge problem for communities that produce the stuff.

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.
Click to expand...

Nandan, S. Bijoy (1997) 'Retting of coconut husk - a unique case of water pollution on the South West coast of
India', International Journal of Environmental Studies, 52:1, 335 — 355
 
+1 on that SS. The start up small size nutes cost can be sorta high. Man, I wish I could get pine bark fines for that price too.

Remember this thread MW, had some good info in it. http://www.thehotpepper.com/showthread.php?10111-All-about-coco-coir&highlight=coco%20coir

Just bit the bullet and bought some gallon sized nutes finally since I have so much coir from last year, and your thread got me thinkin about how well my outdoor container peppers did in it. I guess IMO the bottom line is I wouldn't trip on being coco specific if it isn't going to be the plants primary container. And FYI, the salt flushing solution for coco is pretty cheap if you ever have a need for it.
 
Most coir these days is very environmentally friendly, especially any big producers like canna, and most is flushed fairly well too. Peat on the other hand is non sustainable and is quickly being stripped from Canadian bogs
As already said, coir has advantages and disadvantages, I really don't think you can't just say one medium is better than another but I personally I'm not a fan of having to buy any specific nutrients. I've been growing plants all my life and really like using my own fertilizers(compost, manure, worm castings etc.) when possible or blending my own nutrients which are a fraction of the cost of what's often sold. This has proven to be much more difficult for me with coir, although definitely not impossible.
 
+1 on the compost/manure/natural plant food.

I'm shifting my base container mix this year to 4 parts pine bark fines to 1 part sphagnum, 1 part perlite, 2 cups dolomite, + 1 part good stuff (compost/manure). This mix will be used at final pot up (unscreened) to 5 gallon nursery containers (actually about 4 gallons). A screened smaller sized version will be used for the first move from the seed starting mix to 3" pots and a little larger screened particle size when moved to 1 gallon nursery containers (actually about 3 quarts).

The plants will be fed periodically with aerated compost/manure tea. I call it pootea (pronounced pooty)
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With this recipe a bale of peat will fill many pots and stretch a dwindling natural resource.
 
SS, I tried that mix last year. Watch out if you pot up too soon, and make sure you use a wick. When I put little guys in the larger pots and it rained before roots could make it down/ I had a huge stinky sticky nasty mess in the bottom of some containers, just FYI.
 
You used that same exact recipe? Satisfied with it or changing this year?

I've never used wicks and haven't had any moisture problems, but that may be due to the wicking action of the ground on which my pots rest.

I think the 4 speed shift from tray to 3" to 3 quart to 4 gallon will be sufficient.
 
Pretty close to exactly. I did also have mine up on the deck for a while and that could have cause the problems/and it rained non stop for about 3 weeks when I first planted out. As long as you progressivly pot-up I dont think there will be a problem. I went from solo cups to 3 and 5 gallon pots, so...
 
A quick scan of the literature on coir retting says otherwise. Retting activities take place in regions and countries that have little to no regulations on the effluent that is released into the ecosystem. I'm not naive enough to believe that people profiting from cheap coir from these countries will arbitrarily decide that they are going to shell out more money to save the environment. Especially when they can make a claims of "renewable resources" and "environmentally friendly" on the packaging as is. Coir is not environmentally friendly.
 
Well, my season has sucked. Dont know why, dont care. Most things have not grown real well and those that have, have been in the exact same conditions as the rest, so who knows. I culled quite a bit, over 30 plants that were really not looking healthy/ died already, and now have nineteen new starts. I also have about 10 over-winters that I hope take well, two already have. Potted everything in new soil today. I used the same soil I am going to have them in when they are in their final pots and barerooted most of them when I did. The roots on the weakest looking plants were the biggest in the bunch telling me that there was not enough nutrients for them. Every watering came with nutrients and some plants thrived and some died. So this, I hope, takes care of my problems to date and hopefully all the annuums I plants here this coming weekend will thrive. Piccy time.

Most of em in new peat pots with new soil. And some avocados.

SDC10277.jpg


More in the stealth cab.

SDC10278.jpg


C. Rhomboideum looking really good and big.

SDC10279.jpg


overwintered yellow devils tongue and red scorpion

SDC10282.jpg
 
And last the big overwintereds. Only supposed to be lows in the 50's this week so they are outside to see if I can get any new growth from them.

SDC10284.jpg


And here is my first in-ground bed ever. 8x8

CIMG0026.jpg
 
Sorry about the loses, but the rest look like you're on course for a great season.

I kicked mine outside too last Sunday 24/7 because the lows looked nice and to make room for some maters, but it looks like it will cool off again this coming weekend.

What nutes were you using on the ones that died?
 
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