Irrigation & Media (Coco vs Rockwool)

The P0–P3 phase model is the shared skeleton behind every fertigation program — learn shot-size-as-%VWC, 'transpiration before irrigation,' and how the curve encodes veg vs generative intent.

Dripper flow rates, stakes-per-plant, pressure compensation, and how to read the daily VWC curve off a sensor so P0–P3 becomes data-driven instead of calendar-driven.

Why raw coco steals your Cal-Mag, how CEC and buffering actually work, and how to size pots for SOG crop-steering — with a Coco Buffering SOP.

Shot size and frequency, the 10–20% runoff rule, why EC creep (not waterlogging) is coco's real failure mode, and holding pH in the 5.8–6.2 band.

Grodan slab volumes and shot-size math, the low-pH conditioning step that neutralizes native alkalinity, saturated-Hugo weight, and the flagship Slab Conditioning SOP.

How dryback concentrates slab EC, using runoff fraction to steer salts up or down, the veg-vs-generative lever table, and holding pH 5.5–6.0 with algae control.

A head-to-head on CEC/buffering, moisture curve, forgiveness, yield consistency, and disposal — so you pick the track that matches your operation's discipline and goals.

Emission uniformity (EU) and distribution uniformity (DU) as measurable numbers, the CV of manufacturing, how pressure and line length degrade uniformity, and the catch-can test that turns 'the plumbing is fine' into a defensible metric.

The three occlusion mechanisms (mineral scale, biofilm, particulate), why silica and Part-A/Part-B precipitation clog emitters, filtration and line-flush practice, and a dripline maintenance SOP that protects the uniformity you just measured.

Root-zone salt as an in/out mass balance, why runoff EC (not feed EC) is the ledger, the corrective-flush protocol for EC creep, the myth of the end-of-crop water-only flush, and how coco's buffer vs rockwool's zero buffer change the math.

The economics and risk of running a second crop on the same media, the coco reclaim protocol (rinse, re-buffer, amend, pathogen screen), rockwool steam sterilization and the fiber-integrity ceiling, and when reuse is false economy.

A symptom-to-cause decision framework for the irrigation-media stack — uneven canopy, EC drift, hydrophobic channeling, algae, and lockout — that separates a plumbing problem from a chemistry problem from a steering problem, tuned for coco and rockwool.