Notill - Coco coir, sphagnum peat moss, both or neither?

I've been pondering this for a bit; which is the most beneficial for no-till planters, coco or peat? Or would a combination of both be best? Or what about neither and instead use just compost?

Obviously there will never been an absolute answer as the diversity of method, environment, preference, etc will always vary person to person, but I'm sure there's a happy middle ground to address the question.

I'm sure the argument will break off into sustainability eventually, so to preemptively address that. Here's this for some, food-for-thought if you will - http://www.planetnatural.com/peat-vs-coir/
There's a section where the writer addresses the sustainability of peat, specifically the bogs in Canada. Interesting if correct as I was under the impression it was far from renewable.

Off the top of my head I can see natural ph, water retention, oxygen retention, compaction over time, excess salts in certain coirs, the need to add a liming agent/buffer to peat, etc all being points to bring up.

So, thoughts?

Midwest Weedist said:

I've been pondering this for a bit; which is the most beneficial for no-till planters, coco or peat? Or would a combination of both be best? Or what about neither and instead use just compost?

Obviously there will never been an absolute answer as the diversity of method, environment, preference, etc will always vary person to person, but I'm sure there's a happy middle ground to address the question.

I'm sure the argument will break off into sustainability eventually, so to preemptively address that. Here's this for some, food-for-thought if you will - http://www.planetnatural.com/peat-vs-coir/
There's a section where the writer addresses the sustainability of peat, specifically the bogs in Canada. Interesting if correct as I was under the impression it was far from renewable.

Off the top of my head I can see natural ph, water retention, oxygen retention, compaction over time, excess salts in certain coirs, the need to add a liming agent/buffer to peat, etc all being points to bring up.

So, thoughts?

Click to expand...

If possible, pure compost is better, assuming it's primarily leaf mold.
That being said, my mix is peat based, with a LOT of compost

Midwest Weedist said:

I've been pondering this for a bit; which is the most beneficial for no-till planters, coco or peat? Or would a combination of both be best? Or what about neither and instead use just compost?

Obviously there will never been an absolute answer as the diversity of method, environment, preference, etc will always vary person to person, but I'm sure there's a happy middle ground to address the question.

I'm sure the argument will break off into sustainability eventually, so to preemptively address that. Here's this for some, food-for-thought if you will - http://www.planetnatural.com/peat-vs-coir/
There's a section where the writer addresses the sustainability of peat, specifically the bogs in Canada. Interesting if correct as I was under the impression it was far from renewable.

Off the top of my head I can see natural ph, water retention, oxygen retention, compaction over time, excess salts in certain coirs, the need to add a liming agent/buffer to peat, etc all being points to bring up.

So, thoughts?

Click to expand...

one other thing, i'd go with peat over coco, I had smaller yields with all strains when I had a coco mix, there were other growers that experienced this as well.
Go with a peat base, and add oyster flour, crab meal, shrimp meal, biochar, and oyster shells to counter the acidity.
If you have access to a good compost pile i'd use as much of that as you can.
One thing to consider if you re-use your soil, is that peat isn't so bad if you re-use it forever. It's not like you are throwing away your old soil...
A one time purchase, and trust me, if you do mess with compost piles, you'll prefer that to anything else.
Another thing to consider is that regardless of your growing technique, you should re-mix/re-amend/re-compost every third run or so, I have much better end results when I do that, after time a strict no-till will lose it's efficiency, you can only do so much with topdressing, and cannabis is a hungry plant, and it'll end up having issues in containers.

Hey Greasemonkeymann -- Great to reuse not easily renewed environmentally sensitive materials like peat. I find coir is better for re-use, as it keeps its texture better...peat seems to go to dust after a while. I age my soil mix outdoors in fabric grow pots..old root ball removed. Like to leave it out over the winter and then remix, renew organic nutes, and reinnoculate. 3LB (three little birds) had a good post some time ago about reuse of soil.

bigskymtnguy said:

Hey Greasemonkeymann -- Great to reuse not easily renewed environmentally sensitive materials like peat. I find coir is better for re-use, as it keeps its texture better...peat seems to go to dust after a while. I age my soil mix outdoors in fabric grow pots..old root ball removed. Like to leave it out over the winter and then remix, renew organic nutes, and reinnoculate. 3LB (three little birds) had a good post some time ago about reuse of soil.

Click to expand...

I agree, I have a LARGE leaf-mold project in process, going to be updating my soil as a whole simply by adding bunch of leaf-mold to it.
I have a clone that I put in a 100% compost and aeration mix, just for the hell of it, and that plant visibly looks better than her sisters in my other mix. Also somehow having a lot of compost actually helps your drainage too, you wouldn't think so, but it does.

Sorry I've been ignoring this thread, life got busy again.

greasemonkeymann said:

If possible, pure compost is better, assuming it's primarily leaf mold.
That being said, my mix is peat based, with a LOT of compost

Click to expand...

I agree with this statement, but can you elaborate on it? I've always heard that leaf mold is amazing as a compost base but have never had the space to properly compost enough to get anywhere. Thankfully I'm able to make a leaf compost pile this year at my new house!
For most leaf mold/compost will be pretty hard to source, so I wonder if composting peat / coir would provide a decent compost?
I have the urge to grab a couple ~30 gallon fabric planters and fill each one with coco or peat, let it compost till spring, maybe with some topsoil and basic amendments, then plant some peppers/maters and see which one yields the most, grows the best, etc, etc. Not sure how I could compensate for the peats acidity without messing up one of the controlled variables though, I.e. the amendments. I would imagine that using different buffering amendments like oyster shell flour in different amounts per different planters would yield at least negligible differences in growth, correct? Or am I vastly over-analyzing it?

bigskymtnguy said:

Hey Greasemonkeymann -- Great to reuse not easily renewed environmentally sensitive materials like peat. I find coir is better for re-use, as it keeps its texture better...peat seems to go to dust after a while. I age my soil mix outdoors in fabric grow pots..old root ball removed. Like to leave it out over the winter and then remix, renew organic nutes, and reinnoculate. 3LB (three little birds) had a good post some time ago about reuse of soil.

Click to expand...

I've never used peat much as an "ingredient" in my mixes, mostly just in bagged soils, but I have noticed that coco does exactly what you stated. I've had a house plant in the same coco soil mix that I made for about a year and a half now and it looks almost fresh when I dig around to check the moisture. My coco heavy notill planters that I recently dumped out and recycled still had the feel of cococoir to it when I dug through it looking at roots.

My base is peat, but I mulch with coco chunks. When I dump out pots to remix, the coco gets added to the mix. After a few cycles, you can see the peat kind of break down. I just toss in a couple gallons of new peat, or some coco coir. Or maybe some vermiculite, Or some fancy coarse perlite. Whatever I haven't mixed in for awhile, to lighter and fluff up the mix.

Midwest Weedist said:

Sorry I've been ignoring this thread, life got busy again.

I agree with this statement, but can you elaborate on it? I've always heard that leaf mold is amazing as a compost base but have never had the space to properly compost enough to get anywhere. Thankfully I'm able to make a leaf compost pile this year at my new house!
For most leaf mold/compost will be pretty hard to source, so I wonder if composting peat / coir would provide a decent compost?
I have the urge to grab a couple ~30 gallon fabric planters and fill each one with coco or peat, let it compost till spring, maybe with some topsoil and basic amendments, then plant some peppers/maters and see which one yields the most, grows the best, etc, etc. Not sure how I could compensate for the peats acidity without messing up one of the controlled variables though, I.e. the amendments. I would imagine that using different buffering amendments like oyster shell flour in different amounts per different planters would yield at least negligible differences in growth, correct? Or am I vastly over-analyzing it?

Click to expand...

the thing is, that peat is already composted, pretty sure it doesn't compost much more than it already is, in fact isn't it super old?
Anyways, the leaf mold thing isn't something I've completely finished, just in the process, it's simple, you just get an asston of leaves, and put them in bags (I wanna find a bunch of fabric bags like gunny-sacks) and you keep them moist, and aerated like a reg compost)
that's it, and about 12-18 months later you have pure leafmold/humus.
I'm making a batch of that, as well as my regular amended compost to see if it's worth the extra hassle
Takes soooo long without the thermophillic portion of the composting though.. like three times longer than a reg mixed compost.
My only issue with coco was my yields were down, all across the board. like 15% or so.
If I recall correctly @st0wandgrow had the same complaint, and there were others too, only my THC soaked brain isn't recalling them at the moment.
Your experiment, you should try, if you aged the peat with the other compost and oyster flour i'd imagine it'd be ready for anything.
OH and make your compost pile ten times the size that you think you'll need. It melts a whole lot.