Welcome! This will chronicle my first attempt at growing organically in coco. Goal: To attempt to grow this to finish without having to use any pre-made bottled fertilizers, bloom enhancers, etc... I have just about every amendment in the Espoma Organic Traditions line and am prepared to use them! Strain: Barney's Farm Blue Cheese. From Barney's Farm Website: Blue Cheese The famous Skunk #1 “Cheese” pheno bred through the original Blueberry line. Easy to grow. Yields maximum with a pronounced skunky-cheese aroma and taste. This plant grows short and stocky with strong side branches of resin filled buds. The effect is powerful, stony and comforting. TYPE\tIndica GENETICS\tBig Buddha Cheese X Blueberry YIELD\tOptimum indoor. 500 gr/m2 HEIGHT\t55 - 65 cm (indoor) FLOWERING TIME\t55 to 65 days (indoor) THC\t20 % CBD\t1.3 % Materials: COCOTEK® BRICK™ & BLOCK™ Organic Compressed Media CocoTek Bricks and Blocks are three different types of compressed coconut coir. These high quality, low sodium, growing medium are an environmentally friendly alternative to sphagnum peat moss. When hydrated with water, CocoTek Bricks and Blocks rapidly expand which saves you time and effort. Cocotek Bricks and Blocks can be exclusively used by themselves, blended together or mixed with expanded clay pellets, perlite or topsoil. Smartpots The Smart Pot is an aeration container. It has a unique ability to air-prune and enhance a plant’s root structure. A highly branched, fibrous root structure is the key to growing a better plant – with more flowers and fruits, and more resistance to insects and diseases. Perlite In horticulture, perlite can be used as a soil amendment or alone as a medium for hydroponics or for starting cuttings. When used as an amendment it helps prevent water loss and soil compaction. Getting Started: I decided to get the microbial life a jump start with an AACT. 2 days before brewing, I mixed 1/3 cup Oatmeal to 1 cup EWC then moistened with 2 tbsp RO water. Once it was white and fuzzy I added it to 5 gallons RO water. To that, I added 1 tsp Blackstrap Molasses, 1 tbsp Mexican Bat Guano, and 1 cup crushed/baked/dry egg shells. I let the tea brew for about 36 hours. Once it was finished I diluted the tea by pouring 16 fl oz into a gallon of RO water.(repeated for a total of 6 gallons of tea/RO water). 5 gallons of which was used to hydrate the coco. Once the coco was fully hydrated, I drained out any excess water and mixed with a hand trowel. I periodically mixed the coco in the tub throughout the day. I let the mix sit overnight to ensure any excess water was drained. The next day I started cutting the coco with perlite until I felt that the mixture "felt" light and fluffy. I know, not the most scientific description, but that was what I was looking to achieve. Turned out roughly 60% coco 40% perlite. So here is what the recipe is looking like: 60% coco 40% perlite (I have been bugging AskEd about coco and cooking up a recipe. My tendency is to underfeed, so my first recipe was too light. After comparing with Ed's recipe, I upped the amount of amendments and added by WEIGHT instead of volume.) Amendments by weight: 2.0oz Blood Meal 2.5oz Bone Meal 2.5oz Kelp Meal 2.5oz Green Sand 3.0oz Dolomite Lime 1.5oz High P Bat Guano 1.5oz Worm castings 1.5oz Dried Molasses 1/4 tsp Great White Mychyrizae Fungi added to 1 gallon RO water was poured into the coco when the clone was transplanted. I let this mix stand, and continued to mix periodically while the clones took root. Clone: The clone was taken from a maturing female and placed in a 50/50 mix of coco in a 16oz keg cup. No fertilizer was given. No dome was used. I watered when the coco looked dry, and misted when I happened to take a look at her. She was kept in the nursery under 2 23W 6500K CFLs. A brief synapsis to get everyone up to date: Clone was started as above. After 7-10 days, she was transplanted to her 3 gallon smartpot filled with the amended coco. At that point she was placed under a 200W 6500K CFL and 4 46W CFLs for side lighting. The first photo is after a week or so of vegetative growth. Shortly there after, a Calcium deficiency reared its ugly head. I made a quick slurry of using 1 gallon of RO water with 2 tbsp hydrolyzed lime. I measured out 8oz, diluted with 8oz RO water, then poured it into the coco. Calcium deficiency didn't seem to effect any other leaves after that application. I then tried my hand at super cropping. Which in the end was more topping than super. I then did a bamboo - jungle wrap tie down (yes, that is my own invention. As you can tell from the later pictures, it probably didn't do much good...). But dang it really looked cool. Wish I had a better pic... Not too eventful thus far. All the water given has been pH'd to 5.8. Today: Today she was top dressed with dolomite lime. I added 1tsp of epsom salt to RO water, then adjusted the pH to 5.8. In the pictures you will notice some discoloration appearing on the upper leaves. ANY HELP would be appreciated! Sorry this is a short update, but I am forcing myself to get this up today...
Hey, Ventoux! Great start to your grow journal! You plant is a beauty. Very cool on the all organic approach. I love the logo! I will be doing a Blue Cheese soon as well, though the Big Buddha version. Looks like you left out a key word in the second sentence of that paragraph. Hydrolyzed lime -- is that the super fine dolomite lime power that hangs like permanent cloud inside my garage ever since someone breached the bag through the careless wielding of a gardening implement? If you get a chance, a close up of the calcium damage would be nice. The photos one finds in sick plant guides tend to be of extreme cases, but naturally we all want to spot, identify and correct these issues early on. I ran into a little of what I think was calcium def very late in my last grow. It was only 10 days before chop, so I took no corrective action. I suppose, had it been earlier in the cycle, I might have done a flush followed by an increase in Cal-Mag Plus dosages. What does "top dressing" entail, sprinkling some dolomite lime on the medium surface before watering? Cool grow, Ventoux! First post!
I'm not going to be any significant help to pinpoint anything specific. But I am going to take a wag and then perhaps just stand mute and take a bashing or two. for ya. If you are talking about what appears to be the slight chlorosis look coming on with a red/purpling of the main leaf blade I'm looking at the same thing you are. Although pic 6 looks like a very healthy and happy plant to me. I'm not an organic chemist and don't pretend to be but I'm guessing that you've cooked up a non-intended and unfavorable chemical reaction. I'm guessing the result is messing up the + and - cations in the coco. If this is true then that needs to be remedied to get it back in +/- balance. This imbalance can have a significant impact on the plants ability to take up nutients and specifically micronutrients. I don't grow in coco and I do know it's a different medium than soil. a pH of 5.8 is very acidic for soil which affects micronutrient and macronutrient uptake significantly! IDK where the recommended pH range is for coco but 5.8 seems awfully acidic. That low and lower in soil stunts root growth and also makes available unwanted aluminum (which is found in all soil - IDK about coco). Al uptake is purdee poison to a plant!!! Kill it dead quick! So, I'm not being a whole lot of help but I've thrown enough wags out there that somebody will come along and kick me in the arse and give ya the answer that you need as a result of my whooping Good luck... (it is chemically related and it does have something to do with your positive and negative cations in the CeC equation for your medium. That I'm confident of be it soil, coco, or a cue ball)
Hey Alatar, thanks for stopping over! The lime is Hydrated Lime. Here is the product label... Sweetens the soil, don't cha know... View attachment 33371%20Hydrated%20Lime%20Approved%2003-30-09.pdf I will take a pic of the calcium def leaves for you tomorrow. Oh, and the LSD is hitting the chopping block this weekend. My goodness that smell is intoxicating. Mine has a very defined citrus fragrance. Not pungent in any way, but tart and crisp. Does that make sense??? Possuum... That is right. That leaf with the darkening along the veins is my concern. I can't quite find a solution or similar issue in the sick plants section. Here is what I am thinking... Not P. Isn't presenting like a typical P def. Nor K, N, or Ca... Same rational... Maybe Mg?? But that usually shows on lower leaves first... Besides, the lime/epsom salts would've cleared that up, IMO. That leaves one of the micros: Fe, Mn, or Zn... I just am not sure what to do to confirm, let alone do if it is one of those three. In regards to the pH... From what I understand, coco should be treated like Hydo in regards to pH. So I have been adjusting the pH to 5.8 as I do in my hydro set-ups... Overall, the plant seems very healthy.... But trying to be proactive and read what the plant is subtly telling me. I would prefer for her not to have to yell
Alright V, I see ya finally getting down on the journal. I should have grabbed that #2 slot up there but Alatar beat me to it while I was hashing out other business today. I am sub'd for sure! Be back in a bit to get caught up on it though. Oh...so start a journal and immediately have a harvest to post the first week? Now that is how it is done! Still chopping this weekend? I have amber foxtails on Jenna Boo!
Yep, I guess that is what ya do... Hold out on the journal until you can post harvest and jar shots I am planning on chopping this weekend. Just located the first amber trichome, so that means there are more... A few more days of cooking and she should be ready.
Ok ventoux. I'm gonna throw myself on the hand grenade here for ya, or perhaps fall on my sword...LOL. But I'm gonna let the kind folks from TX (right?) get ya straight on the coco. Coco is above my current 'grow pay grade', so-to-speak. The hydrated lime is a definite no-no! Don't ever put that stuff in your MJ grow. It's highly water soluble (hydrated) and is otherwise known as 'quick lime'. Inappropriate application of quick lime can surely do you a problem! Lime causes a chemical change in the grow medium. Dolomite lime does so gradually. Quick lime does so as soon as you add water to it. Quick lime, quick time! I am going to continue down the road of a cation imbalance (ainons and ions). Until your medium is balanced AND due to the chemical soup (sorry...) you've created you might as well throw darts at a 'deficiency chart' and go with what the dart lands on. Seriously, any one of the macro or micro nutrients can appear 'deficient' when there is actually plenty of the individual nutrients available but the medium CeC is not balanced with positive and negative charges. Therefore a 'lockout' occurs and the nutrient can not be absorbed. From the list of ingredients you provided for your mix I can assure you there is no apparent lack of any one or combination of complete nutrients and macronutrients. Micronutrients are almost never a problem. Your problem lies in the imbalance - the pH if you will - of your coco medium. When you grew hydro you had NO medium CeC. You had to create it. You might not have realized it at the time but that is exactly what your were doing. You accomplished that by constantly monitoring and correcting your pH and PPM. And, you had to accomplish that chemically using salt-based fertilizers. You've kind of messed up your coco medium with the 'hydrolyzed lime' and the dolomitic lime, and perhaps something else thrown in there. It's out of whack dude! Now, I defer to your and my kind friends, the Ed's. These folks rock with coco. Pictures prove it. Whatever it is that they do is what you should do becuase they have outstanding results. Just a thought... or two... WTH!
Hey V! Great to see you journaling man, I think I just gave you a hard time about it in another thread LOL First off I should say that I'm no organic guy, I first looked up that word only a few months ago when I saw someone asking about it & coco. Unable to find good info myself, I just plowed in with my own style of experiments. I don't recommend any of my organic growing techniques with coco as I don't have it figured out much (hell I came looking for an organic coach in this section! LOL), but I do like to discuss what's worked for me and talk shop with other adventurers Now growing with coco in general I feel pretty comfortable with, but I'm trying to learn more and improve like most people around here, so just want to put that disclaimer out there LOL I know there's some lime haters in the organics section and that's cool - diversity in opinions is important and one of the best ways to learn, the two main arguments I've heard against it is it throws ph off (raises it slightly) and causes an imbalance in calcium/magnesium levels. In my early coco runs, I had calcium defs that I never could fix, even adding 10ml CalMag to every watering (nutes or not). This happened with several strains. I added pelletized Dolomitic Limestone (2 tbsp/gal) to my coco mixes and the problem was fixed, harvest after harvest had no signs of calcium defs anymore, it worked so well that I stopped using CalMag. As I used the limestone more I decided to experiment a little more. I was concerned about it raising the ph, even added some cottonseed meal to counteract it but I found the ph really only changed with hydrated lime. CocoGro comes out the bag at 6.7 in my tests, and 4 & 8 weeks later with the DL I still got 6.7 readings. B'Cuzz tests at 6.3 and showed the same stability. Hydrated lime raised the ph by .2 in both coco mixes. This is about when I started adding amendments, and amazingly the ph didn't change very much. My last batch I made did bring the ph down to 5.6 (cocogro)! All kinds of problems! But that's another subject.... Anyhow, with the early amendment mixes I ran water ph'd at 5.2, 5.8, 7.0 (RO) & 7.2 (tap) with clones form the same plant and my early organic mix. As I understand, lime will step in if the ph is too low, soil or soiless (ahem, peat...). 5.2 & 5.8 worked like a dream (currently flowering), but 7.0 & 7.2 had major problems and had to be put down. Now I'm not defending or trying to debate the use of lime, but just reporting my experience with that & coco, it's been very pleasant with the pelletized limestone. I haven't used the hydrated enough to form a good opinion on it, but it is in my recent mix that I'm having trouble with, but I'm blaming all the amendments on that LOL Coco is so damn forgiving with ph that I'm wondering if a little off really is a concern? I've run low ph & high ph in coco (pre-lime days) with little to no trouble (I didn't know the proper ph to use at first LOL), so how much trouble can a little lime fluctuation cause? A big swing I can see being a problem, but slow release pelletized hasn't done that in my exp. Fast/medium acting hydrated lime - I think it could cause a good swing so I can't say much on that. LD has provided good info on the calcium & magnesium levels and to be careful not to not have more mag than cal. In looking at the bag of DL I use, it has 17%cal & 11%mag. I was adding epsom in addition to the DL, so I think I may have caused some issues with too much magnesium, but leaving out the epsom seems like a reasonable step so I've removed that from my formula. Too soon to speak of any results, but they just hit 12/12 LOL For now I don't have a good replacement for the DL so I still use it, but LD has given much food to think about and many options so that is on the drawing board now. OK, sorry to go on about that but it's been a long and intimate road on the DL topic and I had to give the good side of it some air time because I think it's getting a bad wrap when I've seen it work wonders in my garden. The other forms of lime I can't really speak of, and some of them may deserve the negative press, and if I had more room I'd do the tests. On your yellowing V - I see that happen with a few of mine and I don't know the reason. Poss may be on target with the CeC's, I do believe it's due to the plant not eating. My El Dorado had that problem, and my Super Skunks do as well. SLH, WW, Cali Hash, White Siberian, Lockstock, LSD all had no issues with the same coco mix. You organic purists may cringe at this (so skip if needed) - but when they do that yellowing BS I hit 'em with nutes until they green up a bit - usually a week or two. Not the organic solution I know and MrsEd gives me shit over it, but hey it let me harvest some killer bud and keep from destroying more plants. That's why I think they are not feeding, for whatever reason. The same mix got several of my plants through flowering without nutes though, just top dressings & tea - same with MrsEd's LSD - so other than strain difference I'm not sure why they would be picky like that. Maybe it was a fluke that some did work! LOL Sorry again for the wall here, I didn't realize I hammered out so much, but thanks to anyone who read all that. And I realize this helped very little with the issue at hand
AskEd, that was an awesome response. rep'ing you for that one! Let me file my disclaimer also; I ain't no expert at anything and am always open to better ways of doing routine thing more easily. If coir can help me get that done, I'm all in. I plan on adding a quality coir to my next grow or just try to source the sungro all organic - I think it's 30% coir and those soil mixes are really special. That said, here is a link that may be of interest to both you and ventoux, specifically regarding the discussion on Mg and Ca when using coir. Kind of like you were pointing out and it might make more sense to you than it does me. If you do read it all look at table 2, "plant health scores" and look at the big difference in scores based of the source of coir. I find that interesting and noteworthy...perhaps. http://www.usu.edu/cpl/PDF/CoconutCoirPaper.pdf This could be a real learning thread...for me...before it's all over!
WOW. Thanks Ed, that was a post brother... If it comes down to it, a little flushing probably wouldn't be a bad thing... And ya know, I do have a refrigerator of the latest and greatest organic bottled ferts.... So if need be... There will be buds! This is a great learning experience for me and I appreciate you stopping over. Score one for Alatar! Hey Poss, thanks for the link. I will be reading that this evening! Yep this is a learning experience for me as well... You know, I agree there should be more than enough nutrient in the coco mix for some time. I need to do some serious googling tonight... Riddle me this... I have two others clones in coco, taken at the same time as this Blue Cheese. Same mix too. They both exhibited classic P deficiencies (& Ca too, now that I think about it...) I gave them a high P guano tea and the stems seem to be going in the right direction. Could the cirrhosis on the leaves be due to stress? You know I did just chop a few clones off for the 3 oz challenge. Thanks everyone for the knowledge! I'll post an update tomorrow of any new developments! Gotta run... just finished coaching youth football and feeding the horses. Stinky business, desperately in need of a shower....
I don't think so. I keep going back to the #6 pic and everything looked so healthy. Then the following pictures. Bam! It looks like something started going south quick. I know lighting has something to do with color quality of the pics we all post with an hps background but it sure looks different! I'm not a chemist so I can't figure out for ya what happened but I can read as well. I'll hang with you for a bit and see where it might end up. I think it's worth following to see. But think about this. Don't do anything for the next 24 - 36 hours. Of course if it needs water just give it plain water - no additivies of any kind. If the plant gets worse it's probably not going to make it no matter what you do. If you add anything additional to the mix now, you might kill it anyway. IDK. I think there are a lot of inputs to consider. Just a thought.... I'm noodling.
Hey Possuum! Thanks for the link.. Its odd to me that the results of their study are so damning to coco when I have seen some truly amazing grows in the stuff... (Ya Eds & Alatar, I'm looking at you..) Rezdog (Reservoir Seeds) has a thread in another place where he gives his recipe for ferts in coco... I think what I am going to do is go through his recipe and try to determine where I am screwing this up. I think she'll pull through. I just need to not panic and try to fix it by grasping at straws. There is a lot of good knowledge in this place and I am confident we'll figure it out. Plain RO water for the next time or two is probably the best idea, if not a quick flush tomorrow or the next day...
ventoux Almost 4 years ago I began using a professional organic 'blank soil' mix from Sunshine - Sunshine Growers Organic Mix. This mix is 40% organic coir, 30% organic peat moss, 10% each of vermiculite, perlite and pumice. It's PH adjusted at the packing plant with gypsum and treated with a wetting agent (yucca extract). A 'blank soil' in the horticulture industry are those base mixes which has no humus added allowing the nurseryman to apply whatever method of feeding the plant that he chooses. I would take 3 parts of the mix and add to that 1 part of a humus mix (thermal compost, earthworm castings and Alaska Humus) along with rock dusts and a seed meal mix along with crustacean meal and neem seed meal. Recently after talking with Chunkdaddyo, I quit using this mix and switched to an organic coir product from Sunshine called 'Just Coir' The new mix is 2 parts organic coir, 1 part volcanic pumice and 1 part of a humus mix (I'm playing around with some different thermal compost products and earthworm castings and have forsaken the Alaska Humus). To this I also add the rock dusts and the (*cough*cough*cough*) fertilizer mix. IMHO, the key to successfully growing plants is the quality of the humus. It's not about this guano or that guano, this poultry excrement product vs. that poultry excrement product, Canadian butt-hairs, whatever - if the humus component of a soil mix lacks microbial activity at a viable level(s), the growing process becomes one of trying to use organic fertilizers to facilitate a weird version of hydroponics. That's the difference between a bag of dirt from Duh Dude at the grow store vs. a living soil. RE: Liming agents I think that perhaps AskEd misunderstands my comments on dolomite lime and I'd like to clarify what I intended to put forth. Dolomite lime (CaMg(CO3)2) is a fine amendment if you choose to use it in your potting soil mix. As a source for elemental Magnesium (Mg) it's probably one of the best. As a source of Calcium (Ca) it's decent as noted above in the total %. Overall, as a 'liming agent' per se it's a poor choice because of the uber high levels of magnesium vs. calcium. Products available to overcome this mythical 'cal-mag lockout' are always calcium carbonate (CaCO3) like Botanicare Cal-Mag which is 8% calcium carbonate and <.5% Magnesium (Mg) meaning that there is no Magnesium and in its elemental form this magnesium is not water soluble. Even FatBoy Mike up at AN has a solution to this mysterious condition 'cal-mag lockout' and it also is 8% calcium carbonate and a trace (literally) of magnesium in a form that the plant cannot use until it's been broken down by the soil's microbes. Limestone is almost pure Calcium Carbonate and is water soluble. It's about $6.00 for 50 lbs. Oyster shell powder/flour is also pure Calcium Carbonate and it is water soluble as well. If I were living near or (God forbid) in the state of Florida I'd opt for crushed coral shell which is also Calcium Carbonate. If you're using the grow-store schlock to fix something in your grow then reading the label is usually helpful. If the fix is calcium carbonate then buy a bag of limestone (or whatever), add a couple of tablespoons to a gallon of water, shake and pour. Not exactly rocket science in the whole scheme of things. If one wants an actual liming agent, per se, then the calcium carbonates are almost pure calcium in the preferred form. A good liming mix is equal parts of gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O sulphur & calcium), limestone (calcium carbonate) and dolomite lime. If you were adding 1 tablespoon of straight dolomite lime - add 1 tablespoon of this mix. This will give you calcium, calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate, magnesium and sulphur. This is based on organic-guru Steve Solomon's Totally Organic Fertilizer (TOF) mix that he came up with many years back. HTH LD
LD! Thanks for the input. Living soil, or coco in this instance, is what I would like to achieve. I may look into the crushed coral... I still have about 200 lbs left from my reef tank days. I did find an article regarding CeC that I found interesting. Greenhouse Grower: Understanding Plant Nutrition: Nutrient Sources: Media Cation Exchange Capacity For me, part of the joy in this hobby is creating a healthy soil microenvironment which will support healthy plants. Much like my reef tanks, the joy was in creating the microenvironment in the crushed coral/sand that would handle the filtration and decompose the waste material "naturally", allowing for clear water, healthy fish, and a mini reef of SPS & LPS corals, clams, etc... When the lights come on I will check on the leaves and see what is happening today... Again, thanks y'all for the knowledge!
morning ventoux, I may be on to something for you that might explain what is happening but I'll say up front that it really is above my pay-grade and perhaps my quantitative skills. What I don't know I'll be the first to raise my hand and declare. I have no issues being wrong. And, I think there are some interesting chemical things going on here that I really don't know how to quantify but I might be able to provide something for consideration.... IDK...we'll see. Interesting to me for sure. Anyway, got some things to do today away from the computer so it'll take me some time to get back to this. For now do NOTHING except plain water and ONLY if your plant container indicates it needs it. Otherwise, leave it alone! Peace and I'll be back.... And p.s. I personally have nothing against coir as a soiless medium. It's great stuff! There are some important considerations regarding where the coir was sourced from but that only applies to how one might use it and also how one might develop a nutrient feeding schedule for it. In large part I think the source link I provided was only trying to point that out and was not intended as an indictment against coir. It's a great product and if used in the context of the whole soil/soiless conundrum it can add significant benefit to a growers objective. Used improperly and it might just be a coir growers largest deterent to a healthy crop. I've got a mission! Yay!!!!
This is one of the paths I was headed down. Compare dolomite lime CaCO3 to hydrated lime Ca(OH)2. A significantly different chemical structure. Add the epsom salt MgSO4 and there is where I think a potential problem arose. I'm guessing. Whatever chemical reaction occurred between the hydrated lime and epsom salt may, in part, be part of the problem The one thing we haven't touched on in the discussion of the nutrients is the mobile and immobile nature of each one. We almost never encounter a 'problem' with mobile nutirents except for 'too much' or 'too little'. The immobile nutrients are usually available in sufficient amounts but because of a too high or too low pH they are unavailable because they are immobile in that pH environment. Hence, they show up as 'deficient' when it reality they are present just not 'available'. Make sense? I'm going to keep digging but I just saw LD's post and wanted to chime back in. There is at least one organic chemist amongst us here in the city; geneticengineer. You might consider pinging him because again, I think you have created a chemical challenge/problem in your medium. He would be one that could provide the chemical result of the calcium carbonate and epsom salt combination and what it might mean. And, in concert with LD but my thinking (don't want to rope him in on my perhaps errant thoughts LOL) is that perhaps one of the quickest fixes would be to remove the plant from the container (perhaps), source a known and quality humus, mix in a yet-to-be-determined amount, repot the plant, and let nature run it's course. A quality humus in the correct proportions may just take over all of the heavy lifting of 'the problem' and get your grow back on track. Might just be no more complicated than that in the final analysis. IDK
Thanks Possuum & LD! I am heading out myself for a little while today. I did sneak in a few moments before the lights came on and snapped some quick photos. Overall, the plant appears healthy. But, there are a few leaves exhibiting the cirrhosis and one with some odd speckling. Could be pH induced, but I haven't had that issue yet, so I can't be sure... Be safe y'all. Be back after tending to the horses and doing some money making... Photo 1 Cirrhosis Photos 2: Speckles V
Ah I had been looking for that thread, I remembered seeing somewhere that someone had used gypsum with coco back when I was looking for a fix, I've been meaning to try that and I think I will. I used to use gypsum with soil, but didn't have too much success and had my doubts with coco but I think it's worth trying. I was laughing at how they said liming would not work with coco, but they didn't try it! LOL I'm still trying the eggshell recipe, or I should say MrsEd is, I'm still looking for a somewhat lazy approach Hey V, for what's it worth man my Blue Cheese isn't liking my new mix that much, I transplanted her to a bigger pot with a toned down mix and she's much happier. Not as happy or as big as yours but she is coming around finally. Hopefully yours gets on track, got my fingers crossed, and I'm glad to sit through the brainstorming here and hopefully tune up my mix too! This could be a great resource for those playing with coco & organics. Very cool thread!