Can Wood Chips Be The Substitute Of Cocopeat?

Question

It is told wood chips will use soil nitrogen, if mixed with soil to grow plant, So better to use after decompsing it. In the same way, we directly use cocopeat without decompose. Cocopeat doesn’t decompose in soil or use nitrogen from plant?

Answer 1

Carbon-rich, fresh wood chips will leach nitrogen out of the soil. This is not true for cocopeat, as it is somewhat decomposed upon packaging. Since it decomposes much faster than wood, it will not have time to steal nutrients from the soil, thus is the better choice.