Coco Peat Brick Durability
Envelor Home and Garden Coir Grow Discs Potting Soil Coco Discs Seed Starter Pellets Coconut Peat Pellets Indoor Outdoor Garden Plants and Vegetables for Plant Trays and Pots 2.6 out of 5 stars 4 $19.99 $ 19. Royal coco peat offers wide variety of Coconut coir garden products for your. From high quality coconut husk that is wet and dry for a month to improve fiber strength. Royal Coco Peat is successful in producing coco bricks exactly to the.
.There’s a lot of discussion going on over which soil conditioner is best for your garden: sphagnum peat moss or coconut coir? Sustainability is part of the discussion. Effectiveness is another.Truth is both are great additions to garden soil. Both are natural and plant based.
Both help break up heavy, clay soils and improve water retention in sandy soils. Each has its own list of beneficial nutrients it adds to the soil. Both encourage natural beneficial microbial populations.Both, also, have drawbacks. And that’s where the discussion comes in, on both the small drawbacks that can be compensated and the larger ones that can’t.Coir, in, is the relative newcomer to the garden. Long popular with hydroponic growers for its water retention, its deterrence of fungus gnats and certain diseases, and its root-supporting structure, it carries these positives into the garden where it functions much like sphagnum moss. $11.95 $6.12Made of 100% pure compressed coconut husk fibers, Roots Organics® Coco Peat is a terrific addition to your planting mixes, possessing a near perfect natural pH level of 5.2-6.3 for ideal nutrient plant intake. Available in compressed 5kg blocks — makes around 2 cubic feet or 16 gallons (65-70 liters) of expanded media.Indoor coir growers have long recycled their much-used hydroponic coir into their outdoor vegetable gardens and compost piles.
It’s as good outside as in.Coir and both take up a lot of water. Coir retains water in the long run better than such growing mediums as perlite and rock wool, which suggests it will retain water longer in the garden as well. Both are excellent in trapping air in the soil, air that will benefit plant roots.Coir pH usually runs 6 – 6.7, close to neutral.
Adding coir will pretty much keep the pH of the soil you’re adding it to the same. Sphagnum tends to be acidic and is frequently used in potting of acid-loving ornamentals. Slight adjustments might be required. Of course, sphagnum makes only part of a complete soil mix, — rarely as much as a third as recommended in Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening soil formula — making small increment pH adjustments not so difficult.Coir can be high in salts. Grown in ocean climates, it often picks up additional salts after harvest. Some growers recommend washing even brands that are pre-soaked to rid them of salts.
Some, making for more balanced mineral delivery.It’s been found that the high potassium content of coir can interfere with calcium uptake. Again, addition of calcium amendments can take care of this problem in garden soils.A study (link no longer active) from Utah State University found that in straight hydroponic growing situations (soilless, just peat or coir, both combined with perlite for drainage, and nutrient solution) found “poor plant growth in coir,” a result that’s contradicted by the success of all sorts of indoor growers using coir.
“No brand (of coir) performed consistently better than sphagnum peat,” it concludes.While we suggest a little care before it’s used and certain supplementation to boost calcium levels, if necessary, we don’t think, as the study recommends, the differences it discovered between peat and coir suggest coir be used “in great caution.” Here great caution seems to mean without amendment or supplementation.Hydroponics is one thing. Mixing it with garden soil makes for a completely different proposition. The one drawback that’s difficult to get over is one regarding peat moss and its sustainability. Peat moss is harvested from bogs that have taken hundreds, if not thousands of years to form as dead plant material piled on dead plant material.
Once harvested, it’s not coming back anytime soon. Coir comes from the shell and fibers of coconuts. It’s renewable.And this is where the heart of the discussions lay. If coir is renewable, and peat is not, why not use coir, despite its minor drawbacks? After all, peat has drawbacks — its acidity and ability to “trap” water in outdoor soils, making them mucky — as well. $19.50 $11.45A natural, organic soil conditioner! Black Gold® Organic Peat Moss is an excellent all-purpose potting mix ingredient and soil amendment. Contains a unique cell structure that helps regulate moisture and air around plant roots creating an ideal growing environment.Not everyone considers peat unsustainable.
The Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association, in it’s from 2014 makes an argument that peat is a resource they’re protecting. In a well-circulated piece (among peat lovers anyway) that used CSPMA’s figures, Jeff Ball at Garden Rant made a case that peat is renewable:Here are the simple facts: Canada has over 270 million acres of peat bogs which produce peat moss. Each year the peat moss industry harvests only 40,000 acres of peat moss mostly for horticultural use. If you do the math that comes to one of every 6,000 acres of peat moss is harvested each year. And here is the cherry on top.
Peat bogs are living entities. The peat bogs grow 70% more peat moss each year than is harvested. With that data I consider peat definitely a renewable resource.On the other side, the Oregon State University Extension Service makes, based on sustainability, for using coir instead of peat. It quotes other studies that examined the effectiveness of sphagnum peat and coir:Researchers at Auburn University and University of Arkansas compared peat and coir as soil amendments for horticulture. They found that coir performed on par with peat.The third way here is to use less sphagnum moss if you’re using it at all. Square-foot gardener Bartholomew states that his efficient, small space gardening methods justify the use of peat in his soil formula. The peat industry has looked at combining sphagnum with other products in ways that maintain its effectiveness in smaller amounts.
Sphagnum peat moss is.We’d be curious to hear what you think. Do you think peat can be wisely managed, renewable or not? What’s been your growing experience with coir? Let’s us know here, or over at our. I sell retail annuals and perennials, My grower uses pretty much just peat moss in her containers and baskets. A major switch from my previous grower who retired and moved to Hawaii, that used compost and perlite and a small amount of Peat.
The reason many growers switch to peat moss is due to the neglect by your bigger retail stores having knowledgeable gardeners caring for and taking the time to water the plants they house, especially when some stores don’t pay for their plants until their sold (which I won’t mention any marts). I got many complaints from customers of their baskets getting root rot over the last 3 years. I am located in Northern Idaho, and our spring mostly starts out beautiful then turns cold and rainy for a week sometimes two which causes no drying of the plants. I experienced the same thing in flats and baskets that didn’t sell right away, and sat there, because of the increased humidity inside the greenhouse and outside.
I used Coir alone 15 years ago when I first started out, with 90% WOW I LIKE IT. With very few draw backs.
For 2016 I am going to mix my Coir with Peat and Compost at a ratio of 2/3 Coir, 1/6 Peat, and 1/6 compost, or reduce Peat and Compost down to 1/12 and use a completely seasoned, dry hardwood sawdust, which is excellent as being lightweight, wet or dry, allows the roots lots of oxygen, ease of growth and spreading. So its possible to even up the sawdust amount and leave out Peat moss completely, in the ponies and small containers. It should prove out to be a great soil that is all renewable from products that are being discarded anyway. Oh the sawdust can be obtained from any cabinet builders shop, usually for free. As for using straight Peat Moss I don’t like it and wouldn’t recommended it in the area I live, and was born and raised. I have grown many different plants types in just about every media type available. I’ve settled on a 50/50 coco/peat blend with 10% perlite and 15% vermiculite added (similar to Pro Mix).
I use fabric pots (plastic pots require more perlite) in a flood/drain table, cycled 3-4 times per day depending on temp/humidity and plant size. Only deep water culture compares to this method in plant growth vigor. After a few uses I send the coco/peat mix to the compost pile and in a year or two (I have a couple large compost piles) it gets redistributed to my soil gardens as top dressing.
I forgot to add that there are other differences in peat vs. Coco besides calcium, PH and salinity. If you are trying to build a high performance growing media or very fertile soil, then look at the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) of the individual components you are considering adding. The higher the number, the greater the nutrient holding capacity.
Good humus can be as high as 300 meq/100g. Peat falls in the 100-200 meq/100g. Vermiculite 100-150 meq. Coco is somewhere around 50-80 meq. Many fertile garden soils fall in 15-40 meq range.
Coco Peat Brick Durability Sheets
I recently bought 20 yards of a decent “Garden Mix” (Southern Nurseries ‘Holy Cow’) and they say it has a CEC of 25ish.IMHO, both products are sustainable. What matters most is that we as humans moderate our consumption.