Growing plants in coir involves preparing the medium correctly to ensure healthy root development and growth. The process primarily focuses on cleaning the coir to remove impurities and old plant matter.
Here's a breakdown of the steps involved:
Preparing Coir for Planting
Before you can successfully grow plants in coir, the substrate needs proper preparation. This is crucial for providing a clean and suitable environment for new roots.
1. Cleaning the Coir
The initial step is to gather up all the coco and remove any roots or plant matter from it. This is a vital step because getting rid of old roots will allow the new roots to have room to grow without obstruction or competition.
You might find remnants from previous crops or processing. Thoroughly sifting or picking through the coir will help clear these away.
2. Washing the Coir
Once the coir is visibly clean of physical debris, the next step according to the reference is crucial for removing soluble impurities.
After cleaning the coir, you'll need to wash it with distilled water. This step is essential as it will flush out any other roots or salts that are still in the soil. Coir naturally contains salts, particularly sodium and potassium, which can be detrimental to plant growth at high concentrations. Washing with pure water helps reduce the Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the coir to acceptable levels.
- Why use distilled water? Distilled water is free from minerals and salts, making it ideal for effectively flushing out salts from the coir without introducing new ones.
- How to wash: You can place the coir in a container and flood it with distilled water, allowing the water to drain through. Repeating this process multiple times can improve the flushing efficiency.
After Preparation
Once the coir is clean and flushed, it is ready to be used as a growing medium. Coir is typically used in conjunction with a nutrient solution specifically designed for soilless growing, as it provides little to no nutrients itself.
- Buffering (Optional but Recommended): While the reference doesn't explicitly mention it, many growers also buffer coir after washing. Buffering involves soaking the coir in a calcium/magnesium solution to displace any remaining potassium or sodium ions that might be held on the cation exchange sites in the coir. This helps prevent nutrient imbalances later on.
- Adding Nutrients: Since coir is inert, plants grown in it require regular feeding with a complete hydroponic or coir-specific nutrient solution.
By following these preparation steps, particularly cleaning and washing the coir as outlined, you create a much better environment for your plants to thrive.
