Buffering coco

[Allthegoodstuff1]

Am onto my next grow and have decided that despite what it says on the bag I am going to wash and buffer the Canna Pro Coco this time as I have had Cal Mag issues every grow so far - no matter how much extra cal mag I give the plants they spend the start of every grow seemingly locked out.

So how exactly do I buffer - I plan to put the coco in a big plastic box with holes drilled in the bottom, wash it with water until it runs clear.

Then I need another box to soak it in cal mag solution - but to what EC strength should that solution be, and do I have to PH the solution? Does anyone know please?

[CityDweller]

I am not a coco expert so please wait for someone else to confirm. When I grew in coco I buffered with a 0.3 ec and a 5.8 PH.

[Deku Nut]

It takes me a good long while to get my coco flushed to my satisfaction, while some people don't seem inclined to do it at all.
I start with boiling water and just saturate the coco as well as I can, I do this to kill any bugs that might have made the coco coir their home. I then dump water through the coco until in runs clear, the coco I keep in buckets with holes in them so the water can drain out.
The last step I do for my flush is to make a large batch on nutrient water at .8 EC 5.8PH (i like to add calmag first and get my ec to .3 before adding the nutes) and water the coco with it until the runoff is reading the same as the solution I pour into it.
That's about it, it takes me a few hours but it's not particularly labor intensive so I go through it every time.

[Allthegoodstuff1]

Ok thanks! I am going to do this too.

[barney_b]

Here's how I do it:

Rehydrate coco with boiling water
Put coco in pots
Take 1/2 strength nutrient solution and flush through
Plant seedlings in 24 hours

I have spent the hours buffering and rebuffering. I have done it the easy way above.

Both worked. I'm not sold on buffering coco. My betters told me to do it so I did. Wasted plenty of time and materials doing it.

YMMV
B

[Jingo]

I never needed it when I was using general hydroponics coco blocks. I just put in barely enough water to rehydrate the coco and watered the pots with one mil of Cal mag per gallon of water.

After that I planted my seeds and started feeding as soon as the Coco was getting light in weight. I used Cal mag in every feeding from then on.

Unless you know for a fact that you have salts in your coco, I believe you shouldn't mess with it.

Whenever I have seen people having problems in Coco what they really needed to do was check, recheck and check again their pH meter.

If you are not calibrating your pH meter with two solutions then you're doing it wrong. I always chose to use 7 pH and 4 pH for my meter calibrations.

Calcium is something that drops off dramatically as your pH goes below 5.8. I always used to let my pH drift up, sometimes as high as 6.3. but I never let my pH drift down.

[IceCalibur]

I've read many times that buffering coco is a good thing, and whilst I don't doubt it works for those growers..in my experience it didn't really make any noticeable difference.

When I grow in coco, I use the canna range, it doesn't need hydrating, and I know of a few growers here still wash and buffer it, but as I say..I just never noticed any difference.

Always worth a shot though, that way growers can see if it works for them

[Allthegoodstuff1]

Thanks all for the input.

I have a blue lab ph pen and recalibrate it every couple of weeks using the two solutions, so am pretty sure it is reading correctly and my issue isn't a PH issue.

I am hand watering and the PH I am feeding at is usually 5.8 - 6.2. The base EC is 0.2 so there is feck all in the tap water here.

I have always got to harvest (well after the first disaster in DWC haha!) but the plants seem to still scream for magnesium in the veg stage (I think!), even after a flush to reset, even after regular sprays with epsom salt foliar spray.

I don't know what else to try so am going to try washing and buffering the coco (Even though it is the Canna Professional stuff and says it shouldn't need it) and see if that helps this run.

[4 fingered Fred]

Am onto my next grow and have decided that despite what it says on the bag I am going to wash and buffer the Canna Pro Coco this time as I have had Cal Mag issues every grow so far - no matter how much extra cal mag I give the plants they spend the start of every grow seemingly locked out.

So how exactly do I buffer - I plan to put the coco in a big plastic box with holes drilled in the bottom, wash it with water until it runs clear.

Then I need another box to soak it in cal mag solution - but to what EC strength should that solution be, and do I have to PH the solution? Does anyone know please?

2 to 3ml of calmag @ PH5.8 works fine, i do it twice soaked overnight. Old coco always needs rebuffering or your probably gonna run into calcium def issues at some point and very slow growth. Adding a little perlite each time you reuse it will help especially if your reusing the finer stuff like Canna`s which cant be used for many grows because it starts becoming clumpy and mulchy as begins to break down.

If you wanna reuse for quite a few grows look at the really stringy stuff that comes in blocks, the chopper blocks may need buffering straight out of packet though.

I've never used a zyme product like Cannazym, it will break down the coco much faster. Don't worry about removing all roots either just break it up remove root ball and all big bits you can see, no sweat.