Advice first grow soil or coco

xtsho

Well-Known Member
It's thorough. You may have to read one tutorial to understand another but the info is there.

Easy to understand if you read through it all

Links to buy the supplies he's referencing is helpful even just to get a part number if you can buy it cheaper somewhere else.

It's FREE.


A good one stop shop type of place to get going in coco when you're just starting out. It's not the only option but it's a good one. We all learn in different ways though. I didn't know anything about coco and I found that forums had a tendency to cross a lot of the information because different people would be chiming in with info that only applied to their environment and setup. Sometimes important details are left out. Showed me how to understand my own environment and make adjustments according to that.

If a new grower has someone like yourself as their mentor. That grower really doesn't need a website like cfc but there's plenty of people out there swimming in a sea of bad or incomplete info. Just my opinion, I wish everyone success in whatever way they find it.
Point taken. Although there is some outdated information on there but I guess it's better than nothing if you've never grown in coco.
 

xtsho

Well-Known Member
Soil.
Don’t have to fuck around with PH.
A bag of Roots 707 will last you a month into veg.
A one part Bloom formula like Floranova from there on out.
I’ve never tried coco. Soil is too easy and you get the same results on a home grow scale.
The only problem these days is all the new growers starting in soil get all caught up checking soil runoff and mess around trying to adjust the runoff even if the plants are healthy which leads to problems. Not too long ago the only people worrying about pH or runoff were coco and hydro growers. Now it's like using calmag. It's just done without any thought as to why or even if it's necessary. Crazy.
 

Green Refuge

Well-Known Member
For me Coco is much more forgiving. You know when to feed, how much, and what to expect. With soil you always guestimating when to feed if you're doing organic and if a problem arises there's so many different causes that it's difficult to pinpoint the root cause. Coco there's a formula and it never fails if you follow it.

Here's a picture of 3 Durbin poison all 1 gallon first two are Coco 3rd in corner ffof planted same day.

Second picture is two Coco plants one synthetics and one organic liquid.
 

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drsaltzman

Well-Known Member
I understand the types of minds that like coco.
Everything by the numbers. Like a baker.
Soil gardeners are more like chefs. A pinch of this, a dash of that.
As far as forgiving … coco’s not gonna be forgiving if circumstances have you missing feeding/watering a couple three consecutive days. Soil is far more forgiving in that sense. Plants don’t grow naturally in coco.
 

Creature1969

Well-Known Member
If you want control, coco.
If you want guesswork, soil.
I grow in coco because I like to know a correction worked within 24 hours, I don't want to wait a week for improvement. Also, once an issue pops up in soil, it's already been a problem for a week.
For example, current grow, woke up to a calcium def. plant. 12 hours later it was fixed.
Coco also allows for a much smaller pot of medium to grow the same size plant. Try growing a 4-6oz plant in only a gallon of soil. :bigjoint:
They both have a learning curve, I find coco easier.
 

PizzaMan5000

Well-Known Member
If you're starting out, happy frog soil, Jack's classic all purpose, tomato FeED, blossom booster, epsom salt, and PH down is tried and true.

I struggled with soil as a beginner, everything went swimmingly in DWC with general hydro nutes. Now I grow in soil with Jack's classic simply to save time on feedings. Quality is fine, yield is down a hair but IDC.
 

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
I’m about 9 weeks into my first grow with both soil and coir, and coir is so much better.

I also followed the charts and guides on cocoforcannabis.


If you’re able to read and follow basic directions it’s pretty tough to screw up coir.

The only deviation from their tutorials I’ve done is watering once or twice a day instead of up to 6.
 

Wayne55

Well-Known Member
I’m about 9 weeks into my first grow with both soil and coir, and coir is so much better.

I also followed the charts and guides on cocoforcannabis.


If you’re able to read and follow basic directions it’s pretty tough to screw up coir.

The only deviation from their tutorials I’ve done is watering once or twice a day instead of up to 6.
What size pots are you using for the coco?

In 3 gallon pots I could get away with 2 or 3 feeds a day when the plants were at peak thirst.This round I'm using 1 gallon pots and started at 1 or 2 feedings a day but now in flower I'm at 5 times a day. The smaller the pots the more rounds of water that are needed throughout the day as the plants get bigger, is my understanding.
 

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
What size pots are you using for the coco?

In 3 gallon pots I could get away with 2 or 3 feeds a day when the plants were at peak thirst.This round I'm using 1 gallon pots and started at 1 or 2 feedings a day but now in flower I'm at 5 times a day. The smaller the pots the more rounds of water that are needed throughout the day as the plants get bigger, is my understanding.
I run 3 gallon cloth pots with coco. They'd be fed once or twice daily.

Last run I finished was 1 gallon cloth pots and were primarily feed once daily. They could have used a lot more feedings as after 24 hrs the pots were bone dry.

Hand fed. Got to do the best with what you have.
 

Green Refuge

Well-Known Member
I run 3 gallon cloth pots with coco. They'd be fed once or twice daily.

Last run I finished was 1 gallon cloth pots and were primarily feed once daily. They could have used a lot more feedings as after 24 hrs the pots were bone dry.

Hand fed. Got to do the best with what you have.
I'm in same boat 1 gallon fabric and plastic pots and feed them once a day. They're almost completely dry next day. They seem to be fine with it so I'm not changing anything. Did you up the ppms in flower ?
 

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
I'm in same boat 1 gallon fabric and plastic pots and feed them once a day. They're almost completely dry next day. They seem to be fine with it so I'm not changing anything. Did you up the ppms in flower ?
1 gallon fabric pots and ran a max of 1.2 EC through all of flower. I'm sure the low EC helped out especially when they went dry to prevent high EC spikes where they could have been burnt.

They were happy their entire lives.
 

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
I went from cups to one gallon, and just recently to two gallon because roots were popping out all over.


In the one gallon once a day was fine until around week 5 from sprout then it needed two. I’m back down to once a day with the extra gallon of coir now but I just flipped so I’m sure it’ll go back to two or three a day eventually.


I’m curious if feeding it constantly like some of the instructions say actually speeds growth up. Kind of seems like it must for people to be doing 6-7 feeds a day when you can get by on one.
 

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
What soil did you go with

Back when I first started......The ground.....Ok, enough of that.

I like Potters Gold, and when lazy... I use it as my base for building super soils.

Another stand out soil would be, Dr. Earth's potting soil - gray, black and white bag.

Fox farms Ocean Forrest works. I prefer to add a big half cup of Dolomite Lime to a bag (if only using the FFOF).

Mix it in well and it'll save you from rather possible Mg and pH issue's down the road..

Learn to build your own!

Google up "make potting soil.
 

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
I wish I had mixed lime into my ffof. The first bag was fine but then I got new bags to pot up.

A week after transplant

3BF1283E-9CE3-4629-B154-82C6E19C4D2B.jpeg

Only the plants that got the soil from the new bag got these micro deficiencies.
 
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