I have to change my advice to all of you, I found the coir pots back when I was in veg and really thought they were great, wait till you see what I found, let me tell the story,,,,,,,,,,,
Matilda was/is dying, a few weeks ago I saw a Cal def and started adding DynaGro, al of you saw it in my journal, then last week I saw a Mag def and added some Dolomite, my thinking was that the plant had used what was in the soil?
None of it worked and she kept declining with leaf necrosis spreading, the latest thing she was telling me was showing up as an N def, with lower leaves yelowing?
I am not one to run to the forum for help I could see what was happening, so I took action, the def's were telling me that she could not get enough nutes out of the soil, even though I was feeding her.
What I knew was that she was wicking water good still so she still had vigor but was having trouble getting nutes, this told me I had either a root problem, a binding problem (stem) or an antagonistic nute problem (one nute blocking out another) This made sense when the first def was Cal then I added Cal and saw a Mag def (to much Cal blocks out Mag).
To eliminate the roots I did a flush with H202 and water the idea here was to cleanse the roots of possible detremental fungus or bacteria, I noticed that the water was draining slowly so I got a shishkabob squewer and airiated the soil till I once again had good drainage. While doing this I noticed a few stabs into the soil gave resistance as I was poking thru the coir pot.
She worked her ass off and wicked the water in a day and a half and I'm thinking she could not do this if there was a root problem, WTF ???
My next thought was I'm feeding her to lightly so I was going to wait till she was almost dry (and drooping) then was going to feed her? As I was laying in bed last night it hit me that she could be having trouble getting roots thru the coir pot. Part of this was the final clue as I was sticking my finger in the soil to test drynes I noticed that I could feel the wall of the coir pot and saw no roots (and I was digging in several inches).
This morning I decided to test my theory and I lifted on her gently by the base of her stem, I was able to pull the coir pot out of the soil and there was hardly any roots coming thru it. I was then able to remove the coir pot and saw that there was only a few small roots that had made thier way into the coir pot, it peeled away easily.
Yes I know this stressed her out, but she was dying and I had no choice, true she would most likely finish with no problem being this close to the end but I did not want to just sit back and watch her die without trying to help her, after all she has been such a trooper!
I transplanted her back in the pot minus the coir pot and fed her with a good mix of nutes to give her a chance to recover? Now I simply wait and watch???
What I learned, was that the coir pot which held my original soil mix with nothing but Happy Frogs had enough nutes (cal/mag) in it to sustain her for 6 weeks (when the cal def showed up). That the Coir pot did NOT allow her to spread her roots out thru it and she became root bound in 7 weeks. Lord knows how much more she could have grown if I had not made this mistake???
The pics show you the leaf failures so you can see what it looks like, for learning I would point out what the different def's look like. the coir pot after I removed it and a bud shot to show you that the buds are still ok and doing well.
I will do everything I can to keep her alive and bring her back and will post her sucesses or failures? This is what learning is all about
