Steve,

Believe me, that wasn't "too" much info! I just potted some geos in it
today and I was so amazed at how well it held water and how quickly it drained!
I ordered a few more bricks right afterwards, now I'm regreting it!

I'll give it a good bath and we'll see what happens, I just dont want to
risk losing any of my plants, I usually only have a plant or two of each species
that I collect and to lose one isn't worth it!

Josh
Indiana

________________________________
From: Steve Marak<samarak@gizmoworks.com>
To: Pacific Bulb Society<pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, July 28, 2010 7:06:31 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] What Do You Think Of Coconut Coir?

This is a subject that seems to be coming up on a lot of lists I'm on.

There's some confusion because there seem to be several closely related
products. I'm aware of three: fibrous coir, coconut husk chips, and coir
peat (obtained usually from the dust generated when producing the other
two). All are obtained from the husks of coconuts, and the stories I hear
about them seem to be similar, but they're rarely interchangable in use.
Fibrous coir has many non-horticultural uses, too.

With good quality bark becoming more expensive and harder to get, many
orchid growers are looking at coconut husk chips as an alternative, and -
since even among fanatic plant-growers few groups are as fervant as
orchidists - I've done a lot of reading in those circles (plus I'm an
orchid grower too, and I hate repotting). Some are also using fibrous coir
as a substitute for long-fiber sphagnum.

Most people seem happy with the water-holding qualities of all three
products, as well as their stability in use (less repotting). The question
of salt, and how to remove it, is always the big one - there are many
reports of people losing plants after moving them to a coir-based medium,
and it's always blamed on salt, though I don't know how many people
actually test to be sure. Salt content is reported to vary widely
depending on source.

At any rate, it's always recommended to thoroughly wash the fibrous coir
and coconut husk chips, soaking them for at least several days and
changing the water regularly, before using it. If you're going to use a
lot of it, I'd recommend buying a cheap "Total Dissolved Solids" meter. It
won't produce lab-quality measurements, since they measure using
electrical conductivity, but it's good enough to give you a baseline on
your tap water (or whatever the source of your rinse water is), and to
compare that to what's shown after the coir has been soaking. When the two
numbers get fairly close together, we assume that we've done all we can do
just leaching with our tap water.

Some have looked into it much more deeply - Bob and Lynn Wellenstein, at
Antec Laboratories, suggest that after water-soaking the coir, you soak it
in a solution of calcium nitrate and magnesium sulfate, to help remove
sodium and potassium ions which may be adhering to the surface (and which
may not be removed by just a water soak). Here's a link:

http://ladyslipper.com/coco3.htm

I've tried soaking coir peat, too. As you'd expect, it's a dirty,
unrewarding task which leaves you with a sodden glob of muck. I've read
that coir peat is much more thoroughly washed by the time we get it, and
that additional soaking isn't necessary, but can't verify that. We haven't
used that much of it. So far, we're happy with the chips we've used for
orchids.

Probably more than anyone wanted to read or know ...

Steve

On Wed, 28 Jul 2010, Mary Sue Ittner wrote:

...

-- Steve Marak
-- samarak@gizmoworks.com
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