And now I’ll talk about something I’ve been hiding because I’ve seen SO much conflicting advice/info about growing in coco. Some will see this and say “no no no!” - Some will say “well yeah, duh”.
I water/nute my coco every single day! There, I said it!
On my 1st grow, I struggled with this big time. Coco looks and feels like dirt. I wanted to treat it like dirt. I wanted to wait for it to dry before watering again. I almost killed my coco girl trying to figure it out. The range of advice was all over the place. When I finally settled into small amounts every single day, things stabilized. I ended up with pretty low yield from all the stress, but the quality… oh snap!
There was also the nute argument… every day or not? What strength? Even in seedling stage? Again, advice is all over the place. One article had me doing 3day cycles: nute water, plain water, plain water. These were dark times for my girl. She almost didn’t survive. I think it was @Donaldj that pointed out that this plan was probably repeatedly shocking, then starving her. The behavior of the plant totally supported his theory. So, I tried every other day, low-strength nutes every time. This was way better. I did that until things got stable, then went to every day and she finished strong.
Here’s the thing - coco is hydro, not dirt. The water isn’t sitting there in the pot, drowning the roots. It drains through, and pretty quick. It’s not so much watering the plant as feeding it. Think about dwc hydro. The air is agitating and stirring and moving everything and constantly introducing oxygen so the roots don’t drown (aka rot). Now flash back to coco, but keep thinking about that cycling and air flow process. Instead of a continuous cycle, you’re doing it manually, once a day. Aeration is handled by whatever you chose for your coco makeup. I’ve only used Mills coco with cork, so I can’t really speak to other options. I think most people mix in perlite and that contributes to keeping room for air flow.
So the moral of the story is that I nute water every day. Even starting 2nd week of seedling. I’m talking drops here people. The 1st week was just water with regen-a-root and wilt-guard. I’d mix 1 cup of water with 1 drop of each of those, ph the mixture to 6 and give each baby 3-5 ml. Starting week 2, in bigger pots, I went to 1 whole cup per plant per day and added in manufacturer recommended seedling nutes. Again, I’m talking drops. I’ll save how I calculate nute quantities this small for another post. Which nutes I use will be another. In fact when I go to veg, I’ll start posting what and how much. It will defy your sensibilities how OCD I am. Lol