Let's Grow Together!
You are invited to grow with us! Our grow challenges are open to all growers!
Our next grow challenge, the New Year's Grow Challenge (NYGC), begins on January 1. You can sign up for it now! All of our grow challenges are free to join and open to all growers.
There is always a ton to learn when dozens of friendly growers grow together! We love to compare different media, lights, nutrients, and strategies. Whether you are a new grower looking for guidance, or an experienced grower looking to share knowledge, we would love to grow together with you in our Cannabis Grow Challenges!
The Annual Coco for Cannabis Grow Challenge Calendar
- The New Year's Grow Challenge: January 1 (Sign up for the NYGC NOW!!)
- The Spring Auto Flower Challenge: April 20 (Read SAFC 2022 Journals)
- The Plant Training Grow Challenge: August 15 (Read PTGC 2022 Journals)
The 5th Annual Coco for Cannabis
New Year's Grow Challenge
About the Challenge
Our most popular grow challenge, the New Year’s Grow Challenge (NYGC), begins on January 1st, 2023. What better way to start the new year than with a new grow? Growing is always more fun when you are part of a community, and we want you to join ours and grow with us in the NYGC!
You can sign up for the NYGC today! All of our grow challenges are free to join and open to all growers, regardless of skill level. The NYGC is the perfect grow challenge for beginners!
NYGC Theme: Growing Media
Our theme for this year’s NYGC is types of growing media! We organized our challenge groups based around what media you grow your cannabis plants in. We want to emphasize that our grow challenges are not competitions! We recognize and appreciate that all growing medias have their strengths as well as their drawbacks. Our intention for choosing media types as the challenge theme is to compare different types of growing media in a fun, supportive, and collaborative way.
Challenge Groups
There will be four challenge groups in total! Read more about each NYGC group below, and decide which group is the best fit for you and your NYGC grow!
To join a group, you must create a grow journal in that group's section of the NYGC 2023 Forum. The NYGC 2023 Forum is still in development, but it will be available very soon!
Soil/Peat
Soil is a growing medium that is made up of a complex mixture of minerals of different particle sizes (sand, silt, clay), organic materials, water, air, and living organisms. The distinction between soil and peat is that the dominant ingredients of soil are inorganic materials, whereas organic materials dominate peat mixes. Loam is an easily crumbled combination of sand, silt, and clay-sized soil particles, and it is most desirable as the base for growing cannabis in soil.
Coco
Coco is a hydroponic, soilless medium made from shredded coconut hulls. Once properly buffered, coco is a largely inert media that allows the grower to have near complete control over the pH and nutrient element ratio (NER) in the root zone. One of coco’s most unique and important properties is its air-to-water ratio, making it nearly impossible to “overwater” coco.
Water
Here, we use “water” to refer to all hydroponic growing techniques aside from coco. This includes: deep water culture (DWC), nutrient film technique (NFT), wick systems, drip systems, ebb and flow, and aeroponics. Hydroponic systems are well known for the explosive rate of plant growth that they produce.
Misfits
Like all our grow challenges, the NYGC will have a Misfits group! This group is for growers who grow in a media that doesn’t fit neatly into any of the above categories, or who simply identify as a “misfit”!
NYGC Important Dates!
The NYGC Starts at Midnight Eastern Standard Time (-5:00 UTC) on January 1st
The Official start time for the NYGC is Midnight Eastern Standard Time on January 1, 2023. When the ball drops in Time Square, then you should drop your seeds or cut your clones!
The NYGC is a collaboration much more than a competition. We coordinate start times so that we can grow together and share the experience! If you can coordinate with our schedule, that is great, but if you are a little off schedule, then you are still welcome to grow together in the NYGC. If you cannot start at exactly midnight on January 1, please start your grow and your grow journal as soon as possible afterwards.
NYGC Flip Dates
For those growing photo-period plants, we have designated two different flip days to initiate 12/12 lighting. Our early flip date is February 1st. This is only 31 days after we get seeds wet or take cuttings, so hopefully it will accommodate those who need a shorter vegetation period. The late flip date is Valentine’s Day, February 14th. We hope that one of those flip dates will work for your grow! However, you are always free to flip on your own schedule if your grow demands it.
NYGC Side Challenge: One Cola Challenge!
What is a side challenge?
This NYGC, our side challenge will be a One Cola Challenge! The One Cola challenge involves growing a plant with just a single cola and no lateral branches whatsoever. One Cola plants should be started sometime in January and flipped to flower on February 14. The plant must be a single cola at the time it is flipped, and it must flower as a one cola plant, all the way up until harvest.
The PTGC is Flowering!
Our current grow challenge, the Plant Training Grow Challenge (PTGC), is in bloom! The challenge will end in December, right before we switch over to the New Year's Grow Challenge. For more information on the PTGC, please visit the PTGC 2022 Forum or the PTGC Giveaways page.
What is a Grow Challenge?
The Coco for Cannabis grow challenges are not competitions! Our goal is to bring new and experienced growers together in the spirit of collaboration. We coordinate timing to grow along together and learn from each other.
We create a special forum for each challenge where growers keep grow journals to document their grows. We organize the journals into groups for each challenge. The groups, the forum, and the whole idea behind growing together is about creating community and supporting fellow growers. We cultivate the Spirit of Collaboration along with our plants.
To be a full part of the grow challenge, all you need to do is sign up and keep an updated journal. How you manage your journal is up to you. You can document every step every day, or you can post a few pictures and a quick blurb once a week.
Sign-Up for the New Year’s Grow Challenge!
Sign-up for the New Year's Grow Challenge (NYGC) 2023 is now open! Click one of the buttons below to Register. The NYGC will begin on January 1st. We can't wait to grow with you! 🙂
CocoforCannabis.com is an inclusive and supportive community. We work to cultivate the spirit of collaboration along with our plants! We welcome all growers who want to learn, share and grow together!
