Greetings growers across North America. Welcome to California Substrates, the New Benchmark in Coco Coir. California Substrates was born out of the desire to provide growers with the very best in Coco Coir grow media. Whilst we are relatively new to the North American retail market, we are not new to growing. We’ve worked with [...]
When talking with growers we often hear the terms EC, TDS and ppm used in relation to feeding regimes. With Coco Coir, growers & retailers often ask us what the EC is?
There are a number of pathogens that are blamed for root rot - Pythium and Phytophthora being two of the primary. Root rot happens when your roots are under stress & they are weakened allowing the pathogens to attack them – much like the human body. Often the stress is caused by over-watering, leading people [...]
First of all, we love Hightimes Magazine - quality content & advice. We enjoyed this article by High Times "Bigger Plants, Better yields", as it has some good information and will help many growers think about how they plan their growing operation and then how to work their plan. We did want to add some [...]
We’ve been asked many times whether coconut coir can be used for a second crop. The first question that comes to mind is ‘How clean is your growing operation?’ California Substrates Coconut Coir can happily be used a second time or even a third because it has amazing natural capability, air fill porosity and holds [...]
Most growers, both amateur, professional & commercial often fail when it comes to monitoring & tracking data. Why is this so? Do you monitor your bank account? In the digital age, we monitor everything for performance reasons - it gives us the ability to improve & in grower terms, this means bigger & better yields. [...]
Meet Mark Wittman, Partner & Agronomist. Mark is by far the most skilled in our California Substrates family when it comes to Coconut Coir. Wisdom, knowledge and experience are the traits one finds in Mark when discussing growing of any type. He has over 30 years growing experience. He's been involved with Coconut Coir since [...]
So how green do you want to be? Coconut Coir is entirely renewable & an incredibly sustainable product. Coconut Coir is produced from the outer shell of the coconut - the coconut husk. The first step when they harvest the coconut is to extract the meat & milk which may turn out to be oil, [...]
We thought we'd post a few very simple tips for beginners when it comes to filling & preparing your plant pot. When filling pots with coconut coir don’t compress the coconut coir around the roots. Coconut coir is very spongy and will compress easily so give it some space to breathe. If you compress the [...]
In hydroponics, feeding and watering are the same operation but can be driven by different forces. A wise grower once said that "the ideal time to water is 5 minutes before the plant wilts". This theory reduces the stress on the plant from too much water (which stresses the roots), and from too little water [...]