Using coco for full or at least semi organic automated grow

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watsongreenthumb

Active Member
Hollatchaboy said:
If you want organics to work, and you're top dressing, you need to add mulch. Otherwise, your soils microbiology will diminish quick. Plus the whole runoff thing with bottled nutes, you shouldn't do that with organics. You wash your microbiology away.

If you want to grow organics, but you want something closer to hydro performance, and perfect moisture levels, in soil, look into sub irrigated planters.
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Yeah I didnt mulch and I have noticed the top layer dries out very quickly. Was thinking of pouring a layer of hydroton on top of the soil but maybe that barley straw would be better?
 
W

watsongreenthumb

Active Member
watsongreenthumb said:
Yeah I didnt mulch and I have noticed the top layer dries out very quickly. Was thinking of pouring a layer of hydroton on top of the soil but maybe that barley straw would be better? I dont water to runoff generally in the soil, just did a little the other day to get an idea of what was going on in there, but I added it back afterwards.
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youraveragehorticulturist

Well-Known Member
watsongreenthumb said:
I usually put a full shot glass worth of the microbe charge and then a shot glass not quite full of either their grow or bloom, (or a mix of both) into a 5 gallon bucket with roughly 4 gallons of dechlorinated and ph'ed water and a big air disc at the bottom, then I aerate for between 4-24 hours. Then I remove the air disc, fill the bucket the rest of the way up and check the ph, adjust as needed and then feed to the plants. The air pump I use is one of those cast aluminum "commercial" air pumps with a barb for 1/4" id- 3/8" od tubing, and I run that straight to the 1/4" id barb on the air disc (no manifold). If you stick the suction cups on the disc to the bottom of the bucket after you add the water but before the terp tea mix it holds pretty well, but if you forget and add the terp tea mix before sticking the airdisc to the bottom the suction cups will not hold and you will need to weigh it down with something.

I only have 1 plant in a 20 gallon fabric pot right now in organic soil so 5 gallons is just enough but if I switched more plants to organics I would need to build at least one of those 20 gallon trash can tea brewers, and probably get a bigger air pump. Hope that helps
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A little more "Microbe Charge" than "Grow" or "Bloom." And don't hesitate to mix up a custom grow/bloom hybrid recipe. That helps a lot.

I got some of the grow and bloom before I found the microbe charge, I wasn't sure how much of the microbe to use.
 
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watsongreenthumb

Active Member
youraveragehorticulturist said:
A little more "Microbe Charge" than "Grow" or "Bloom." And don't hesitate to mix up a custom grow/bloom hybrid recipe. That helps a lot.

I got some of the grow and bloom before I found the microbe charge, I wasn't sure how much of the microbe to use.
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Yeah I know their dosage instructions are super vauge, one teaspoon to one tablespoon per gallon, so I played around with different mixtures to see what kind of results and EC it would give me. I really like the microbe charge, I mix some into my coco during transplants even on my non organic stuff, makes a noticable difference with clones especially. The bloom booster from the terp tea line is nice too, and a little goes a long way.
 
Y

youraveragehorticulturist

Well-Known Member
watsongreenthumb said:
Yeah I know their dosage instructions are super vauge, one teaspoon to one tablespoon per gallon, so I played around with different mixtures to see what kind of results and EC it would give me. I really like the microbe charge, I mix some into my coco during transplants even on my non organic stuff, makes a noticable difference with clones especially. The bloom booster from the terp tea line is nice too, and a little goes a long way.
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I like the microbe charge stuff too. I mix a 1/2 cup with my EWC or Compost and let it sit for a few days to "activate" it before I make compost tea or extract. It really gets that white fuzz going.

Cool info about mixing it in the coco. But I guess I should have thought of that? Anyway, I'll have to start adding a little to the hole when I put clones in dirt or move to bigger pots.
 
W

watsongreenthumb

Active Member
youraveragehorticulturist said:
I like the microbe charge stuff too. I mix a 1/2 cup with my EWC or Compost and let it sit for a few days to "activate" it before I make compost tea or extract. It really gets that white fuzz going.

Cool info about mixing it in the coco. But I guess I should have thought of that? Anyway, I'll have to start adding a little to the hole when I put clones in dirt or move to bigger pots.
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Yeah I used to use great white pretty exclusivly with clones and during transplants, but one time I had to do some transplants and ran out midway through so I grabbed the microbe charge off the shelf and used that for the rest, I found that the plants I had added the microbe charge too outperformed the great white plants over the next couple weeks, so I have incorporated it ever since. This was outdoors with plants going from 3 gallon pots to 20 gallon bags and using strawberry fields potting mix pretty much straight out of the bag so its totally possible that the extra food in the microbe charge compared to the great white accounted for more of the difference than the biology itself, but better is better right?

So a little update on my organic girl, I have been giving her some terp tea basically every watering for the last week or so to try to get more nutrition (especially nitrogen) into the soil as fast as possible, and have had a minor improvement in the color and feel of the leaves but not the major turnaround I was hoping for. Lower leaves are still being cannabalized at about the same rate, maybe even a little faster, as I have been ramping up the c02 by 25-40ppm every day to get it where it needs to be for the rest of the room. They are in coco being fed jacks 321+power si and looking great.

I was actually thinking about cheating and giving my soil girl a few feedings of jacks, or at least the calcium nitrate, but yesterday I decided instead to make the haul out to a new grow shop in the next county that specializes in organics, and has a ton of build a soil stuff. I ended up getting some fish hydrolosate 14-0-0, as well as the buildasoil ag sil (love to find something to replace that EXPENSIVE power si) as well as some mustard seed stuff that is supposed to help with fungus gnats, as I have a couple flying around that havent stuck themselves to the cards yet and are driving me crazy.

Gonna test this stuff out today when the lights come on. Has anyone used the AG Sil before and have any tips and tricks on usage or feedback on how it worked for them? Also a couple questions on the fish hydrolosate, it says under the npk rating that all 14% of the nitrogen is soluble (seems to be a light fluffy powder), but is soluble the same thing as plant available? I think most NPK labels I look at have the % of nitrogen that is available and the % that isnt instead of saying soluble and insoluble, but maybe they are the same thing? I thought the form of nitrogen (nitrite vs nitrate) has more to do with whether it is immediatly available to the plant then whether it is soluble or not? But could be totally wrong on that school was a long time ago....

(Edited for clarity and to break up into paragraph-like thoughts... ADD at work)
 
HGCC

HGCC

Well-Known Member
I have some plants out in my greenhouse that started life as regular old coco and jacks...but are ending up as an experiment with Dr earth tomato and vegetable granules. Pretty simple regimine...top dress some of the fertilizer in and put some mulch on top and water daily, add more fertilizer every few weeks.

It's going ok, I wouldn't really recommend it though. Kinda leafy and not quite as dense/looks like it won't yield great as I would like. Pretty easy though. One is about done, curious how it ends up being, waiting for it to fade out a bit.

Edit: don't see why you couldn't do a resevoir of plain water dripping into the containers, to make it automated. There are some options that were lower in N, that would probably work out better.
 
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watsongreenthumb

Active Member
HGCC said:
I have some plants out in my greenhouse that started life as regular old coco and jacks...but are ending up as an experiment with Dr earth tomato and vegetable granules. Pretty simple regimine...top dress some of the fertilizer in and put some mulch on top and water daily, add more fertilizer every few weeks.

It's going ok, I wouldn't really recommend it though. Kinda leafy and not quite as dense/looks like it won't yield great as I would like. Pretty easy though. One is about done, curious how it ends up being, waiting for it to fade out a bit.
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Sounds like a great setup, wish I had a greenhouse!!! I have done many outdoor grows in soil using organic amendments, and had good sucess especially with large containers (60-100 gallons). I think that is where this got away from me a bit, the 20 gallon container did not have enough volume to contain the amount of food+ the biology to process it that I needed once I flipped the room to flower and started ramping up the light intensity and co2 concentration.
Ps doctor earth is good stuff especially for the money, I used their tomato food blend outdoors a while back with good results, and I am planning a raised bed for a vegetable garden next year and will probably incorporate some into that mix also.
 
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