I've read that CHCs are a great pH for citrus, but I've also read that CHCs are a neutral 7, and citrus like it on the lower side.


??

I think Millet said that the CHC is below 7. Optimum pH is 6.5 for citrus.

Benny, where is the cheapest place to buy CHC?

Benny, you've had some real nice-looking plants for awhile now & I hope this plant thrives in your new chc's. You said you did it "just as Millet says", but Millet also said he soaked & sprayed all the soil off. That is what Laidback did & for some reason it's not working for him.
My leaf curl & drop happened just this month after transplanting last Dec & Jan. It normally won't happen within 5 or 24 hrs. except a little shock.
None of my plants EVER suffered from transplant shock.
In my case, my limequat HAD NO SOIL in the roots. It was how it came - totally rootbound. I thought the roots would spread & grow into chc but they didn't. They weren't getting enough water or nutrients.
Almost all my plants are perky & leafing out with fruits & blossoms --it's that time of year! Have a very fruitful season!!!
Patty

I bought mine 1 bale a long time ago. They were just in a corner in my backyard because I was not successful the first time I used it. I did not believe what they were saying then. Now that I know the right way to do it I am starting over.
I already forgot where I bought them but I found this in my file.
Coconut husk whereto buy

I just got some CHC from an Orchid place called Roberts Flower Supply (orchidmix.com). It was $16.95 for a 3 cubic foot bale + around $10 for shipping. They shipped really fast. They also sell 6 cubic foot bales for $29.95.
I found them on an orchid site. It recommended them and the Crystal Company as the only two places to buy from. They say that quality varies a lot and those companies sell high quality material. I called the Crystal Company and they seemed too expensive.
Stuart The Crystal Company has a toll-free number 800-845-4777
I just spent several hours on Google looking at sources and they definitely have the best overall deal.

The Crystal Company has a toll-free number 800-845-4777 coco husk
314-966-5999)to see what I paid for the coconut husks. a 7-cubic foot compressed bale was $23.00 and the shipping via ups was $15.
Benny

Thanks. Another CHC source is actually sold under the gro-brix brand. I'll dig more info and compare them weight for weight basis assuming the same moisture content. The volume in cubic ft are oftentimes misleading and is not a good basis for comparing prices. Sometimes they ship to you compressed, like half a cubic ft, but then they advertised it as 6 cubic ft, that is, after adding water and having it expanded. For me, weight and moisture content are the best common denominator for comparing prices. I'll tell you which ones will be cheaper. I already ran out of gro-brix 2 years ago and have new seedling citruses to pot.

Patty:
Millet's recent reply was to leave some of the soil intact for beginners like us.
So that's what I did. I am just a beginner to this.
The way I look at it, if I were a plant I want to be as comfortable as I can.
For me when I take a shower I want a lukewarm water so I won't get chilled and sometimes when I swim in the swimming pool and the water is cold I leave my T shirt on to keep my body warm. To heck whatevery body says. I want comfort. Same thing in citrus, I give it warm water so the roots will not get cold and leave the original soil on so it can keep on breathing and eating their food. The roots must have a contact with the soil to do this. Common sense. So if you take ALL the soil out, how can the plant take in water for the leaves to breath or sustain the turgidity?
For example, if you cut a flower, in an hour or 2 the flowers and leaves droop but if you put the stem under water it will stay turgid and fresh.
So I think like if I am a plant when I transfer them. Heh-heh. (just kidding).
Soon I will experement: I am going to soak the old pot under water and remove all the soil and I will transfer the plant to CHC. Once transferred I will submerge the pot again in water maybe for about 5 hours or so to keep the intake going I don't know yet for how long because the roots must breath also or it will soffocate if left too long.
But I'll wait when I have a plant that I can experement with. and when the tempt go higher.

Thanks Benny, I agree with all you said. Like I said, my quat had nothing clinging to the roots when I checked. I since gently shoved soil down & inside the middle of them & hope the roots take & then spread to chc's.
I just feel bad for Laidback because he did what Millet suggested (months ago) & people are telling him he shouldn't have ..that's all.
I myself have rinsed off the roots in past yrs & plants were fine.
JoeReal,
Here's a link to where I bought CHC's. It says 3 cu ft but that is compressed, & maybe expands to 6-7 cu. ft. It came in a very large bag & its $21.?? Forgot how much for shipping.
http://www.growstuffplus.com/IBS/SimpleCat/Shelf/ASP/Hierarchy/0403.html
Just checked it myself & it says "will expand to 3 cu ft" but I'd say it was a misprint. One bag - dry, would at LEAST fill three 5 gallon buckets.
Doesn't hurt to shop!
Patty

This is all there is to it in Citrus culture- experement and do what you think is best. And with good guidance who can fail? Learn from your mistakes. I did for sure.
I think Laidback citrus will come out of it and live. And comeSpring time it will come out with a vengiance.
Sometimes you have to give citrus some push or some hunger in order for it to wake up.
That's what I do to my plants.
I neglect them.
So they tell me hey guy I am thirsty by having their leaves folded or sometimes showing off to you how happy they are.
Just like my kids- they try outdo each other to show me who is better in school. Much to my delight. If only I can tell you how happy they make me.

I buy all of my CHC only from the Crystal Company in Saint Louis MO. Their chips have a very high and uniform quality. As far as I know the Crystal Company, and perhaps Roberts Supply, (I am not really sure about Roberts as I have never purchased from them) are the only two companies that pre-soak and then afterward press the chips to remove the water and excess salts. Many suppliers of CHC do neither. My advise is to only buy chips that have also gone through the pressing process after they were soaked. Pressing not only squeezes the water and salts out of the CHC, pressing of the chips also importantly opens up the fibers in the chip's which gives the chips the sponge like quality. This openness of the fibers is what allows the coconut chips to be rehydrated almost instantly when the citrus grower waters his container. Like I said, I am not sure about Roberts, so if you should purchase from them, ask if they condition their product using both the soaking AND importantly, the pressing. - Millet

The soaking process is done like how you remove salts from the cation exchange chambers of water softener.

Roberts is great and shipped quick. He was funny when I called, said lots of folks have called asking for them for citrus, he thought he must be listed on a website somewhere
Ive barely scratched the surface of my bale. I got a big one. Its more volume than ME I think!

None of my plants that have recently changed to CHCs seem to have any more grief right now, I just think there was some learning to be done on my part. Now if I could just get all the @#!%@$#^% spider mites under control.

I don't have a water softener in my house so I don't know that.- the cation exchange bit. Would you eleborate Joe?

I'll try to explain this in layman's term if at all possible, so there are a lot of technical ommissions and oversimplification of the actual processes:

The cation exchange chamber of most water softener is the one big rigid tube that is fixed inside the softener. Inside that tube are billions of tiny diameter beads, with the aim to increase surface areas where minerals can stick into. Let us say you have a mix of cations selenium, calcium, sodium, potassium, lead, etc. Now if you soak the beads in very concentrated salt solution, practically all the other cations will be displaced by sodium cations. This is done automatically by your softener (if you did not program it, by default this starts at 2:00 am in the morning and the whole process is done by about 4:00 am) by dissolving the salt inside the softener, then pump it up and soak the cation exchange chamber. After a while it drains the chamber and then rinse it several times with fresh water to dislodge the sodium cations. After which it becomes mostly clean to be ready to trap the cations of all your incoming water agaim, and this is done by routing those automatic valves to pass the city water through the beady cation exchange chamber and trapping all the other cations that happens to be in your city water. After awhile, depending upon how hard is your city water, the water softener will undergo the rinsing process again, without us knowing anything about the whole process. Thus we minimize calcium deposits that often clog up our faucets or washing machines and showers. Also it minimizes the corrosive effects of other reactive cations which can eat away some pipes and build up of various kinds of rust.

Some of the beads also trap anions, depending on type and how expensive your water softener is, but generally, the main target are calcium and other heavy metals are what makes the city water hard, by removing them, the water becomes "soft". If it targets both anions and cations, then it effectively becomes deionizer, producing deionized water instead of just plain soft water.

That principle is over saturation of one type of cation to flush out other cations and then rinsing it off with fresh water, in the case of water softeners, sodium is the cheapest cation that can be used. The same principle is used for determining the Cation exchange capacity of potting media or soil, and in those cased you measure the input and output solutions as well as volume, weight, and other soil parameters, but then you would have used distilled deionized water for better accuracy.

Of course we cannot use sodium to flush out the salts from our potting media. Residual sodium is bad for citruses, but not for coconuts. Instead, manufacturers use epsom salt, in this case magnesium to flush out the sodium. It seems like a matter of exchanging the sodium with magnesium, and magnesium is essential to citruses. Rinsing is always necessary after soaking with epsom salt, we don't want toxic levels of one micronutrient either. There are also other cations that are micronutrients which can be used, but we want to keep our costs down, so epsom is relatively cheaper than others except for the real salt which is bad for most plants at the get go.

oh-oh, I made a boo-boo.
I did not rinse the epsom salt in my coconut mix.
I let the CHC soaked overnight with the mixture of epsom salt, nitrates and STEM before I used the mix to tranplant my plants.
So I guess I will have to soak all of them with running water first thing tomorrow morning.