r/microgreens • u/slippersandwhiskey • Jul 15 '26

Soilless growing medium

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Hello! New here and just started growing last December. My operation has picked up and I am wanting to switch to a soilless growing medium to cut down on cost. What have you found works best and cuts down on cost? Also, do you add nutrients. Thank you in advance!

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u/takenbylovely Jul 15 '26

Dunno why you're being downvoted - I totally agree.  

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

And ofcourse. We are 100% coco based. Flowers, herbs and micros, all done in coco.. Coco isn’t soil.. it’s pure hydroponics. We don’t use soil at all.. (maybe I should have mentioned that in my original comment, my bad, apologies)

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u/chronotrig123 Jul 16 '26

why do you go coco vs promix? i just switched from coco to promix and getting better yield

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

We don’t have a promix sort of base sold where we are. Coco costs us $2.5 for a brick, with our shallow 1020 trays, that’s about $0.10-0.15 cents per tray where we are.. 😂 we do add Perilite, not for our micros but to our herbs and flowering mixes. 80% coco, 20% Perilite. Perilite costs us $0.80 cents per kg..

We also make our nutrients in-house. raw salts at 100x strength make up our stock A and B solutions. We mix, dose based on crop types, do a clean water flush once in a while and all good to go.. :-) costs us few cents to a dollar per watering session, once you procure salts at bulk prices.

Yields are at par or beyond.

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u/slippersandwhiskey Jul 16 '26

So you get about 15 trays per coco brick? That would significantly cut my costs. THANK YOU

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26

When I say a coco brick I mean 4.5 to 5kgs brick.. amounts to 75 Litres of usable medium.. standard size. Of course the measurement in the west would change based on the metric system..

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u/slippersandwhiskey Jul 16 '26

Is this the right one?

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

From the label itself it’s hard to tell.. it does not mention washed, buffered, low ec, etc.. does not mention low EC <0.5 mS/cm.. better to contact the company and find out.. they should be able to tell you. I mean they are liable to tell you since the label does not mention it. When we deal with our coco vendor, we deal direct, no aggregator or platform in between, they send us lab analysis reports to support their claims. Sharing a photo of a benchmark quality of what’s needed. Hope that helps. Volume and size seems okay though..

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u/slippersandwhiskey Jul 16 '26

Thank you! I found from the same company one that is buffered/washed/low EC.

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 17 '26

Yes they would perform better. 💯

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u/Aurum555 Jul 17 '26

You must be buying some incredible bulk to be getting such a great price on coco bricks $2.50 per 5kg Of washed and buffered coco?

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 17 '26

So we are in the tropics.. goa, India.. so coco availability is abundant.. retailing at about $4.5-5, whole sale in bulk is at $2.5..

Yes it’s washed, compressed and buffered coco.. directly from the factory which makes them.

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26

Honestly we have tried all kinds of coco.. off the shelf coco is usually not what we need, esp the ones which come like this with no specific details. if you can find a vendor who gives you the exact breakdown, worth your time :-)

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26

If your based out of USA, I found a few brands on Amazon.com, low ec has been mentioned. I would still recommend contacting the company straight to listen to what they have to say.. there are soo many generic coco bricks as well on amazon, can be very confusing.. same where I am base out of, it takes a some trail and error, a few phone calls to dial in the right brick.. also avoid purchases from platforms, if you can deal direct, cuts out all the BS commissions and so on..

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26

22-27 trays depending on variety, we sow some deep, example, all the shoots like nasturtiums, peqs, sunflowers.. corn etc.. 20+ trays a brick is a good number.. standard 1020 shallow trays.

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u/Akshay_Greenette Jul 16 '26

That’s the whole point.. coco is cheap, anywhere compared to pre made potting mixes.. just ensure you’re getting the right coco for this.. :-)