Dec. 30, 2024
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Coconut coir, or coco coir, is one of the most popular growing mediums for everything from ferns to cucumbers.
Coco coir delivers nutrients directly to your plants during every feeding cycle, and it also retains nutrients so you don&#;t have to water your plants as frequently as you would with a hydroponics system.
While coco coir is beneficial for plant growth, it is most helpful when it&#;s watered and tended to properly. Taking care of plants grown using coco coir can be tricky, but it doesn&#;t have to be. That&#;s where this guide comes in. Here you&#;ll learn everything you need to know about coco coir and how to water your plants when using coco as a grow medium.
Table of Contents
By the end of this guide, you'll be able to grow your very own plants using coco coir!
Coco coir is a grow medium that consists of brown and white fibers &#; these fibers comprise the material between the shell of a coconut and its outer husk. The brown fibers come from older coconuts and are fairly strong. The white fibers are taken from younger, less ripe coconuts and are more flexible.
The brown and white fibers in coco coir are removed from coconuts, processed, dried, and prepped for storage. These fibers are then packaged in a variety of ways, including:
Loose material in bags, like Root Royale and BioBizz Coco-Mix (usually mixed with
perlite
). Coco coir in this form can be packed into pots, similar to soil or ebb and flow hydroponic systems.
Chips (similar to wood chips) like Nutrifield Coco Chips Blend 50L . This can be used in
hydroponic grow systems
and top-feed grow rooms alike, with the added bonus of more airflow.
Densely compacted bricks which can be broken down and used like loosely packaged coco.
There are many advantages to using coco coir as a growing medium over soil or even coco pebbles.
Ease of Use
Coco coir is one of the simplest growing mediums you can use for growing. Soil can be tricky to amend when nutrients and pH are off, and full-on hydroponics can be a little daunting for beginner growers. With coco coir, though, you can feed your plants all the nutrition they need without guessing what they&#;re already getting like you would have to with soil.
At the same time, coco coir has enough water retention so that you don&#;t need to be constantly monitoring your garden like you would with hydroponic systems that use rockwool or hydroponic pebbles.
If you decide to take the leap to hydroponic growing from soil, using coco coir is an easy way to make the transition from one to the other because you&#;ll already know how to feed your plants nutrient-rich water.
Coco coir has no nutritional value. That may seem like a strange thing to highlight, but it actually removes a lot of guesswork when feeding your plants.
One of the biggest challenges with soil is that it may or may not have all the nutrition your plants need. Even more challenging is trying to supplement nutrients and balance pH levels without spiking their feedings.
As such, coco coir is basically a clean slate. You can give your plants the exact nutrients they need to ensure they&#;re getting the proper &#; and correct &#; nutrition.
Coco coir is one of the best growing mediums when it comes to retaining and draining water. It has the ability to hold as much as 10 times its weight in water. Unlike hydroponic pebbles that are meant to wick water away, coco has the ability to retain water so you&#;re not having to constantly run a system to ensure your plants are being fed.
In addition, compared to soil, water drains from coco easier and faster. This allows you to feed your plants more often, and in turn grow larger plants.
Healthy Root Development
Coco coir is exceptionally great for root development. This is due to coco&#;s ability to take in nutrients in high amounts, retain those nutrients, and still allow for water wicking.
Without plenty of oxygen, root systems will stay small, thus keeping your plants small. At the same time, too much oxygen means you&#;re drying off and harming your roots if you&#;re not on top of your watering schedule. Coco coir offers a unique blend of nutrient retention, quick drying, and airflow that soil and hydroponic pebbles have a hard time doing efficiently.
Less Pests
Most insects and other pests that can damage your plants don&#;t like coco coir. Pests tend to land in soil because of the nutritional value they can obtain from it, but coco serves them no purpose, so they tend to stay away. In fact, other than fungus gnats, pests aren&#;t typically attracted to coco coir.
It&#;s worth noting that pests will always be attracted to your plants, so it&#;s always important to practice proper pest prevention and elimination. Still, coco deters more pests from landing on your plants because they know they can&#;t stay for long if they do.
Coco coir is made with recyclable and reusable materials, which means you can extend its life beyond just a few growing cycles. Unlike pebbles that are usually thrown out after each grow, or soil that needs to be rejuvenated with nutrition, coco coir is easier to maintain and keep reusable after multiple grows.
If you plan on reusing coco coir, you&#;ll have to let it dry first and then remove any plant stems and other debris after a growing cycle. Other than that, you&#;ll be good to go and your coco will be ready to reuse.
We've outlined the steps for preparing coco coir for your next growing cycle. It's actually pretty simple.
Growers who use top-feed setups or ebb and flow hydroponics systems with buckets should use loose coco mixed with perlite.
Growers who use deep water culture (DWC) hydroponics, or who prefer working with clay pebbles, should use coco chips.
Fill your buckets with coco and rinse it thoroughly with clean water. This will wash out any imperfections that may be present in the coco.
If you&#;re using coco bricks, start by soaking the bricks to break them down. Let the coco bricks dry, and then give them another thorough rinsing before setting them up.
Once your coco coir is ready, you can fill your growing pots. Next, you&#;ll want to water your plants. Properly watering your plants will determine how successful your coco harvest will be.
The last thing you&#;ll want to know before you start feeding your plants is what you should be feeding them.
Unlike other growing mediums, coco coir is not a nutrient-rich solution. As such, you&#;ll need to use nutrient-enriched water or provide additional nutrients. This technique, also known as fertigation, consists of mixing nutrient-rich solutions and fertilizers with water.
When you are able to properly fertigate your coco, you will achieve the best results with your plants. Here are the nutrients your plants will need if you use coco coir:
Calcium
Magnesium
Phosphorus
Potassium
Sulfur
Nitrogen
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The best way to ensure you are providing your plants with the proper nutrients is to buy a fertilizer or nutrient set specifically made for growing with coco coir in potted plants or with a hydroponics system. General Hydroponics and Dyna Gro, for example, are great for coco coir grows because of the complete nutrition they&#;re able to provide.
While your watering schedule will depend on the type of plants you&#;re growing, it is definitely vital that your coco coir is always wet. You should never allow your coco to dry out, as this will prevent your plants from getting the necessary nutrients.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind when watering your plants in a coco coir medium:
Just like
soil
, it&#;s time to stop feeding once 10 to 20 percent of the water used for your plants runs out of the bottom when using coco coir.
For the average hydroponics system, coco coir needs to be flooded every three to five hours. You will have to gauge your system to make sure you&#;re still maintaining 95 to 100 percent saturation and adjust your flood cycle accordingly.
Ideally, your coco coir should be 95 to 100 percent saturated at all times. When your coco coir has lost 5 percent of the total amount of water it can hold, you&#;ll need to water it again.
Note: If you pinch a little coco off the top, it should give you some moisture, but not much. Lots of water running out means plants are overwatered. No water running out means it&#;s probably time to feed. Alternatively, If your coco coir medium is in a pot, you will notice that the pot feels light when the coco coir is too dry.
As your plants grow, it&#;s important to make sure you are watering them more frequently as they will require more water during the later stages of their development. You may find yourself flooding at least three to four times at day toward the middle of your growth cycle, and even more often toward harvest time.
Like any growing medium, coco coir has its intricacies and requires that you know what you&#;re working with. By directly feeding your plants and retaining both water and nutrients, it&#;s a unique and effective growing medium.
It&#;s also simpler to use than soil and pebbles, making it a more approachable medium whether you&#;re a beginner or a long-time grower.
Now that you know what coco coir is and how it&#;s properly used, you&#;ll be ready to use it for your next grow. And thanks to its reusable properties, you&#;ll be able to keep using it for multiple subsequent grows.
If you are into hydroponics, or indoor growing more generally, you'll have heard about the soilless growing medium coco coir. This sustainable replacement for soil improves water retention but still offers excellent drainage. Not to mention the fact that coco coir for plants being the perfect consistency for root aeration has a neutral pH and is reusable.
Coco coir is perfect for cannabis, indoor veggie gardens, and even house plants. Are you considering making the switch from soil-based growing (or even from another substrate)? What do you need to know about this magical coconut-fiber ingredient? It requires a bit of special treatment but offers great payoffs come harvest time.
What is Coco Coir Substrate?
Coco coir is a gardening product produced from the fibers of coconut husks. Several coconut products fall under this category of substrate, including coco pith, coco fibers, and coco chips. These substrates are classified as soiless growing mediums, and are designed to totally replace the need for soil.
Pith, also called coco peat, is an excellent replacement for peat moss, and most importantly, it's much more eco friendly. Another coconut by-product, coco fibers, is stringy and absorbant. They create air pockets in the substrate for better aeration. Coco chips combine peat and fiber together for the most value. Coco chips provide great drainage, yet retain enough moisture to keep plants happy.
Indoor growers prefer coco coir because it is eco-friendly and improves nutrient availability. Plants spend less time seeking nutrients and more effort producing. Also, coco fibers naturally reduce the risks of pests because insects prefer real-soil over coconut products.
Can you Mix Coco Coir with Soil?
Generally speaking, coco coir has become a popular substrate for hydroponics or soilless growing. The coconut by-products replace traditional soil mixtures, giving roots a place to hold on, and direct access to nutrient solutions. In whatever hydroponic system you have set up, the coco coir replaces any need for soil - although it does require a few additional steps to prep, flush, and reuse.
Outside of the hydroponics world, coco chips and coco peat are excellent additions to soil, helping improve water retention and aeration. It's so useful, you find more companies than ever before are adding coco coir as an amendment to potting soil mixtures, instead of the more conventional peat moss.
Coco coir has a lot of similar properties with peat moss but is much more eco-friendly. Peat moss is a nonrenewable and environmentally damaging industry, so coco coir is growing in popularity. For some growers, there is not debate about growing with soil vs coco coir &#; they choose both.
What is the pH of Coco Coir?
When it comes to indoor growing, pH is critical to harvest success. Coco coir starts off as relatively neutral, a pH between 5.2 to 6.8. This base-pH is perfect for growing cannabis because cannabis thrives in a hydroponics system between 5.5 to 6.5.
But, and this is a very important but, hydroponics systems fluctuate over time. As you add new nutrients into the nutrient solution, and as your plants absorb these nutrients through their roots, you may find the pH level rises over time. Careful and frequent pH testing is an ongoing requirement for growing in coco coir with hydroponics.
How to Prep Coco Coir for Growing Cannabis
Growing in coco coir can improve yields, but it requires a bit of special attention beforehand. There are several pre-buffered and pre-mixed coco coir options out there, but you can reap significant savings by preparing your own.
Buffered coco coir already has the tiny particulate (coco peat) removed. These small particles are quickly removed by soaking and straining the mixture. If you do not buffer the mixture, they compact the substrate and make root development difficult.
For this preparation, you will need coco coir bricks, a bag of perlite, a large plastic container, a fabric pot (for prepping), and a Cal-Mag solution.
In a large
7 Gallon Fabric pot
, unwrap and roughly break apart a coco coir brick.
Place the pot within a larger plastic container. Add water and the Cal-Mag solution. Allow the mixture to soak for ten minutes to rehydrate and break down the brick.
Remove the fabric pot from the plastic container, letting the excess water drain out through the fabric pot. Dispose of the excess water.
Add perlite to the coco coir, mixing thoroughly until evenly combined.
Now the mixture is ready to grow, split between your hydroponic containers.
Is Coco Coir Reusable?
One of the big benefits of growing with coco is the ability to reuse for several successive runs. But, it does require a bit of reconditioning between crops. Suppose you don't clean and recondition between uses. In that case, the lingering nutrients, roots, and other organic materials can cause issues for the next run.
To reuse your coco coir, follow these three simple - but crucial - steps:
Remove from the container and break apart into a large empty rubber maid (or larger container). Remove all old roots, dispose of them.
Using distilled water, flush the cleaned coco coir. This will remove the built-up salts and nutrients from the old run. Flush several times to ensure the coco is clean.
Add beneficial bacteria, if using.
Now your coco coir is cleaned, conditioned, and ready to grow again. With the right attention, a single purchase of coco coir will last for grow after grow.
Coco Coir: An Ideal Growing Medium for Cannabis
Coco coir is the preferred growing medium for cannabis. As an affordable and readily available by-product from the coconut industry, it's eco friendly and renewable. From coco fiber to coco peat to coco chips, all parts of the coconut shell are usable for hydroponic growing or as a soil amendment.
Naturally, coco coir has an ideal pH for cannabis, plus its the perfect consistency for water retention, while still offering enough aeration for roots to thrive. As a final bonus, coco coir for hydroponics is reusable! Saving money and reducing waste. There is nothing not to love about this growing medium.
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