Coco vs FFOF mid-veg conversion:

[DreadedHermie]

Well, I kinda ran outta space so I had a pair of indica dom clones, and a pair of sativa doms to :weedpoke: It's just mids bagseed, vegging under CFLs, and not much of them. I try to maintain a responsible carbon footprint, (size 10EE). :hippy:

Been rooted for 3-4 weeks now (the plants, not me) in FFOF. Gonna take one of each pair and try a mid-veg conversion to coco. Leave the other as a "control" to compare to the coco results. I tried to give the "Soil Team" every advantage by picking better developed plants, although each pair is from the same mum.

The "indicas:"
[attachment=o219393]

The plant on the left above has a slightly better root system (shown on the RIGHT in the pic below, sorry), so it gets to stay in soil. I'll transplant it and the stronger sativa into 3 gal. nursery pots with FFOF, and put the weaker of each pair in aprx. 2 gal. wastebaskets fulla coco.

[attachment=o219394]

[DreadedHermie]

These things are a pain. The original bud looked jes' like old-time "Redbud Colombian." The plant is a lighter green color and will not let go of any of its dead leaves. Even if they dry to desiccated crispiness (a worthy aspiration) they have to be pulled screaming and kicking from the plant.

[attachment=o219395]

I know the plant on the right looks bigger. It's not. That's stretch, because I had these things out on the floor under a couple CFL's and that plant didn't get enough light. It was turning its fans toward the light, which is why we see the undersides of the leaves.

[attachment=o219396]

The better root system (on the right) belongs to the less stretchy plant (on the left, sorry, first grow log here--I'll try to keep things lined up better) so that plant gets to stay in soil.

[DreadedHermie]

I've got about 1.5" of gravel in the pots, soil and coco to ensure drainage.

My water is terrible, very salty well water (~705ppm). Gonna use it anyway, always worked before. Jes' gotta water right and flush when needed. How it'll do with coco, well, if this works I think anyone can do it.

I moistened the coco with nuted water, 1 tsp. Dyna-gro (7-9-5 for veg) per gallon, as suggested by Weezard. I think the nuted water pH'ed at 6.9, so I left it at that 'cos the coco's pretty acid.

The soil plants got FF Gro-big, as everyone had been getting up until the transplant. (about 1 tsp/gallon there, too.)

So here are our contestants: in the dirty, black trunks weighing in at 20 freakin' pounds or so, soil. In the light trunks, coco. Floats like a butterfly. ;)



[attachment=o219397]

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I can tell ya right now I'm not going to be able to provide exactly duplicate conditions for the plants, due to different container sizes, different genetics, etc.

They'll be going under 2 shoplights, 2 x 32W T8's in each, if they'll fit with what's there already. These lights raise up to 37" maximum, so if anybody gets stretchy from this point forward they're getting tied down. Plants growing into the lights ain't gonna learn me nuttin. I'll try to keep conditions as even as practical, though. :rasta:

[fluid69]

I'll be checkin in on this one. I want to see a coco vs. soil grow. things are lookin good, keep it up.:thumbsup:

[crabbyback]

Settling in for the ride. :stoned:

[Weezard]

Brilliant!
<hangs up hat puts six pack on table>

Aloha, guys


Weezard

[MerryPrankstr]

Sounds interesting.

I'm in !

MP

[DreadedHermie]

Welcome, everyone. I think we need more beer already. :glugglug:

Glad I decided to do this. Got some surprises already.

After the first 24 hours, all the plants are doing very well. I may have kick-started the soil plants a little more than usual in my attempts to keep everything "even."
Normally, when I transplant up a size with FFOF, I just water--no added ferts. The FFOF is pretty hot with worm poo, bat poo, etc. so I generally just water well and let the plants relax in low level light for a day or so; the idea being I want new roots first and more lettuce later.

But, since I was nuting the coco, I added FF Gro-big to the dirt. :stoned: :hippy: And everybody went back under the lights fairly soon, but a pair of shoplights is hardly intense lighting.

And, I'm really hampering those coco plants. The wastebaskets are kinda elliptical and the 1 gal. pots barely fit inside them. So rather that being totally surrounded by coco, these plants have coco underneath and on 2 sides. And, they're still in a big-ol' soil rootball. So they are probably unaware I was expecting a huge growth spurt from them. I still expect it once the roots go exploring.

Here's the sativas:
[attachment=o219442]

Way too early to judge anything. Looks like the coco plant is producing larger leaves. These were not this big 24 hours ago.
[attachment=o219443]

Also getting some nice development in the midsection. Musta had summa Weez' beer.
[attachment=o219439]

Here's the soil sativa. Lots of development of new structures, but not the increase in size of the growing leaves like in coco.
[attachment=o219441]

The soil plant showed me a preflower. No big deal, I just liked the pic.
[attachment=o219440]

[DreadedHermie]

The soil plant (left) is really thickening up into a stout plant.
[attachment=o219444]

Here's the new growth on the soil plant:
[attachment=o219446]

And on the coco plant.
[attachment=o219445]

Right now, nobody's running away with it. Of the indicas, the soil plant is looking better at the moment, at least above ground. Hopefully the differences will become increasingly evident and I can report every few days, or when there's news.

Right now, that the coco didn't kick soil's ass right outta the gate is news to me. Well, let's let that rootball marinate for awhile. Fire in the hole! :D

[DreadedHermie]

After 48 hours, everyone still looking fine. Coco still seems moist so I'm guessing the roots haven't escaped their soil-y plug yet. Still, seems like the coco plants are catching up just a little.

Just so this isn't so tedious for everyone I think I'll concentrate on 5-pic summaries of each pair's growth.

Here's today's shots, just cos I have 'em....

[attachment=o219524]

[attachment=o219525]

[DreadedHermie]

The coco is still moist enough I don't want to water yet. To play it safe I'm squirting a little water in at the far ends of each wastebasket to try to coax the roots out looking for water.

I'm using a hair-dye applicator, which was left over from Oldmac's Grecian Formula job. :p It's like a condiment squeeze bottle, but clear, more leakproof, and impervious to some chemicals, at least stronger ones than ketchup. :D
[attachment=o219575]

[attachment=o219576]

I "chromed" the wastebaskets (metalized duct tape) so they're not transmitting light down to the roots. Mrs. Hermie thinks they look sporty.

Also diluted the salty-ass well water with bottled water (40ppm) down to 370ppm. I'll add some CalMag when I actually dare water. Right now I'm trying not to drown the roots so it's cat-and-mouse with too-dry conditions until we get some roots out there where the action is.

The coco plants look like they're about to bust a move, though. :dance:
[attachment=o219571]

[attachment=o219574]

[Weezard]

" I'll add some CalMag when I actually dare water. Right now I'm trying not to drown the roots so it's cat-and-mouse with too-dry conditions until we get some roots out there where the action is. "

Hmmm, unless that well water's very odd, judging from the ppm readings you can probably skip the calmag.

I add it because my tap water is ~120 ppm.
Just keep shakin' yer squirter whilst you water.:D

Aloha,
Weeze

[DreadedHermie]

judging from the ppm readings
I'm afraid it's all NaCl.

I prolly cut down beneficial minerals from inconsequential to infinitesimal. Halved the salt. If this was chess, that'd be a good move.

The coco was scarin' me. I had expected it to explode immediately. Think the soil ball insulated it.

The soil team plants have had every advantage; at least I can avoid poisoning the coco plants--that's only fair. I'm being rather nonchalant about the pH, if that makes any difference. I know this coco is nicely acidic. Can't water to runoff, so I don't know what the soil conditions are. :smokin:

[Weezard]

I'm afraid it's all NaCl.

I prolly cut down beneficial minerals from inconsequential to infinitesimal. Halved the salt. If this was chess, that'd be a good move.

The coco was scarin' me. I had expected it to explode immediately. Think the soil ball insulated it.

It'll take a week or two for coco's advantage to make a difference and it will not be as dramatic as the early growth is.
My A/B photos were kind of misleading.
FFOF stunted the pepper seedlings because it was too "hot" for kids. And they never fully recovered.
The main advantage of the coco was nute titration with full control.
Started out at 1/4 strength and bumped it a little as the girls grew and asked me for more.

The soil team plants have had every advantage; at least I can avoid poisoning the coco plants--that's only fair. I'm being rather nonchalant about the pH, if that makes any difference. I know this coco is nicely acidic.

Not really.
Peat is acidic, coco is almost neutral.
Brings almost nothing to the party.
So, until you mix in the nutes and run it through the coco, your PH tester will be tellin' lies about acidity.

Can't water to runoff, so I don't know what the soil conditions are. :smokin:

There are plenty drainage holes though, yah?
It'll get "swampy" real fast without them.
Next time you set girls inna tub/shower for a flush, grab a cup of the drippings and test da hell out of it.

Lurkin' and kibbitzing,
Weeze

PS It's your move in stoner chess.:jointsmile:

[DreadedHermie]

It's occurred to me there are prolly differences betwixt coco types.

We're using this Botanicare:
[attachment=o219662]

Wanted to check it against peat for acidity, we had summa this layin' around.
[attachment=o219663]

It's 80% CA sphagnum, 20% perlite. Good stuff, if you need light peat.
[attachment=o219664]

Nuted, lightly Calmag'ed and pH'ed water (bottled / well mix) to 1400ppm, pH 6.3.
[attachment=o219666]
[attachment=o219665]

Ran the water through 1 gal nursery pots filled with:
a) Botanicare coco and
b) Lambert's peat

[DreadedHermie]

The coco dropped the pH to 6.0, and raised the ppm to 1580 (salt?).
[attachment=o219676]
[attachment=o219677]

The peat dropped the pH to 5.7, and raised ppm to 1490.
[attachment=o219678]
[attachment=o219679]

This was like a slow, "deep watering" over 10 minutes or so. I'd expect a straight-through, flooding flush would give less deviation, and that holding the water for awhile (as a plant would) might give wider spread results.

[DreadedHermie]

Coco's taking a slight lead. (The coco plants are in the shiny wastebaskets, if you just got here- indica right, sativa left.) Watered, lightly, with the 6.3 / 1400 experimental water. I didn't water to runoff, I still don't dare. Don't think I've got enough roots out there yet to suck up any excess water.

[attachment=o219689]

[attachment=o219690]

I did start a little LST with the sativas. Under low light like this, you can't let things get outta hand. I am using 24/0 for this experiment, which works better for me when light's "minimally sufficient."

[attachment=o219691]

[DreadedHermie]

Coco has a slight edge. Not worth a pic yet.

Watered once with proper nutes, etc. Found Weezard's pH advice to be accurate:


Me: "I know this coco is nicely acidic."

Weezard: "Not really.
Peat is acidic, coco is almost neutral.
Brings almost nothing to the party.
So, until you mix in the nutes and run it through the coco, your PH tester will be tellin' lies about acidity."



I watered to runoff with water @~6.1 pH, tds~1000ppm.

The runoff measured pH 6.0, tds ~1400, so despite the results of my pot-fulla-peat-runoff experiment, with a plant living in there the pH is solid in the coco.

We're about to water with plain pH'ed H2O. This'll only be the second watering since the transplant, so maybe the coco will start to take off better now that there's some roots in the "zone." All the plants look good, considering the low light.

[DreadedHermie]

Well, this was not nearly as exciting as I'd thought. Shot the last pic from a different angle because the photos have been looking more similar than the plants did.

Here's the sativas at day 10:
[attachment=o221408]

Day 16:
[attachment=o221409]

And day 19:
[attachment=o221411]

So, the coco sativa has been slowly gaining on the soil plant. However, the advantage gained by ther coco plant seems to be growing at a now increasing rate.

Coco's main trunk is probably about 1.3X the avg. diameter of the soil plant's. Looks like an equivalent amount of leaf material increase.

[attachment=o221412][attachment=o221413]

Alas, I have no room for these things as they are trying to be 15' tall. So the sativa comparison ends here, with coco a clear winner in a not-very-well-controlled :weedpoke:. No sense :beatdeadhorse:. Indica update coming. Hermie

[DreadedHermie]

Okay, here's the coco results:

Day 6: [attachment=o224970] Day 10:[attachment=o224971] Day 16: [attachment=o224972]Day 39:[attachment=o224973]

So, by day 39 of the switch the coco indica is at least 30% bushier that the soil control plant. (Jes' eyeballin' it, and that's a conservative estimation.)

This occurred even though the soil plant was given every advantage, and started out as a "better" plant. Further, both plants were started in soil and the coco plant had to make an adjustment to the new grow medium partway into her life.

I'm sold. Lightweight and neat, and no used soil to dispose of with tell-tale perlite added. :hippy: