8 PH and herbs are growing why is that, i supposed water ph was very important

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userwords

Member
Im new to this and decided to begin with a little aerogarden and their seed kit. My idea was to learn managing ph using something organic. After failing i decided to buy a reverse osmosis filter, but while i look around for it i supposed the herbs growing in the aerogarden left with a continuous ph of 8 would not survive.

After some weeks they are still growing like there is not any issue.



Two points:

Im using gh biosevia organic nutes.

Plants growing are purple basil, italian basil, mint, thyme and dill.

While chives and parsley are not gettting sprouts still and dont know if they will.


I ask myself how important is ph if plants grow anyway.
 
batf1nk

batf1nk

Well-Known Member
All plants are different and uptake nutrients at different pH levels. Marijuana has been studied and found (in hydroponic applications) that pH 5.8 - 6.5 is the perfect point in which all micro and macro nutrients are available for uptake.
 
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userwords

Member
But then is not a matter of not surviving, is it a matter or grow rate?

could i grow marihuana on ph 8 then, just that it wont grow as fast and bushy as ppl taking care of ph?
 
batf1nk

batf1nk

Well-Known Member
Good luck with that then... lol.

Seriously pH is important!!!!!!! Get it wrong and its not that they wont grow fast, they will die!

For the cost of a bottle of pH down are you willing to spend months stressing, watching them slowly (or quickly) die.
 
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userwords

Member
no wait im not trying to torture an innocent plant, the reason i ask this is because im actually watching how some herbs that were supposed to not survive (i let the aerogarden on with lights and put nutes like every 2 weeks, but dont do anything about ph) are growing really well with a ph 8.

Look from my perspective, ive read 1000 thousand times how important ph is in soiless grows

then i fail in ph management in my FIRST indoor grow, i leave some herbs in ph 8 and they just dont seem to find any issue and grow anyway with big leaves and decent grow rate some of them.

for me it is like WTF

(i really need to buy a camera for post like this :()
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
ok so are you growing cannabis or actual herbs?? if you are growing actual herbs then there is no comparison, CANNABIS likes a ph level of 5.8-6.5 allot of other plants are more neutral and higher so you are prably not torturing anything (unless its cannabis of course). ph is absolutely critical, so to answer your question about importance well yes you would be suprised at the shitty conditions this plant can grow in, i dont know about anybody else here but im not doing this to keep a plant alive but am in fact doing this to get every last gram that the genetics of the plant will allow and this will NOT be achieved at a ph of 8.
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
Omg. Yes, yes... Cannabis and Basil are most definitely NOT the same thing. Agree with everyone.

Try growing some weed at ph 8 and see what happens. It would be an interesting lesson on 'what not to do' for everyone here.

Let's all stop for a moment to consider the immensity of the bio-diversity on this planet.

And although I don't disagree with the broad outline of 5.8-6.5, I have to point out that even within the cannabis family there are different levels of ph requirements depending on the strain. For example, with OG Kush, a strain that is notoriously stubborn in early veg, 5.7 was causing droop and leaf tip browing. It requires a strict 5.4-5.5. The roots of certain strains require a more acidic environment than others.
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
ok so are you growing cannabis or actual herbs?? if you are growing actual herbs then there is no comparison, CANNABIS likes a ph level of 5.8-6.5 allot of other plants are more neutral and higher so you are prably not torturing anything (unless its cannabis of course). ph is absolutely critical, so to answer your question about importance well yes you would be suprised at the shitty conditions this plant can grow in, i dont know about anybody else here but im not doing this to keep a plant alive but am in fact doing this to get every last gram that the genetics of the plant will allow and this will NOT be achieved at a ph of 8.
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I would offer that cannabis would not even survive at ph 8. But, like you, I'm never gonna find out.
 
U

userwords

Member
ok got it, i just thought the 5.8 to 6.5 rule was for ALL plants, so if they vary so much in ph requirements then i have my reply, then parsely and chives must be weed cousins cause they are not sprouting still XD
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
userwords said:
ok got it, i just thought the 5.8 to 6.5 rule was for ALL plants, so if they vary so much in ph requirements then i have my reply, then parsely and chives must be weed cousins cause they are not sprouting still XD
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So the parsley and Chives don't like the high PH, either, huh? That's interesting purely from a botany perspective. I think it's a worthwhile little discussion you started here.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
I've always found hydro to be blown way out of proportion. It can be made as complicated as you wish. I regularly fill up my totes with water straight from the tap, comes out around 8.5, and my plants grow just fine, from soil to hydro, they don't mind the PH (a ph of 4.0 on the other hand they do notice :p although at the same time i'm inclined to think that that issue was due to airstone placement, that is to say i found it floating on the top of the water, not too useful :p)
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
tip top toker said:
I've always found hydro to be blown way out of proportion. It can be made as complicated as you wish. I regularly fill up my totes with water straight from the tap, comes out around 8.5, and my plants grow just fine, from soil to hydro, they don't mind the PH (a ph of 4.0 on the other hand they do notice :p although at the same time i'm inclined to think that that issue was due to airstone placement, that is to say i found it floating on the top of the water, not too useful :p)
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I'm inclined to think that it's just a very hardy strain you're working with. Your situation is the exception, though, not the rule.

Userwords, based upon this assertion, if you just decide to start some cannabis seeds with ph 8.5 tap, you'll have problems straight away. I guarantee it. "But why does ph 8.5 work for him and not me?" you might wonder... Success or failure in cannabis growing is a combination of many factors, not just this one or that. He may have a hardy strain that has acclimated itself over generations in a high ph environment... or he may have something else about his method that is allowing for this high ph.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
Yes the cheese is a hardy strain, but i have grown handfuls of others over my time growing. I have always stated that people make growing pot way way too technical and complicated. I give mine ph 8 water, let them sit in a mix with an EC of 4+ and tend them say once a week if that, my plants do just great :) Yet i hear all these stories o frequent daily attention etc, i don't understand.
 
batf1nk

batf1nk

Well-Known Member
tip top toker said:
Yes the cheese is a hardy strain, but i have grown handfuls of others over my time growing. I have always stated that people make growing pot way way too technical and complicated. I give mine ph 8 water, let them sit in a mix with an EC of 4+ and tend them say once a week if that, my plants do just great :) Yet i hear all these stories o frequent daily attention etc, i don't understand.
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You sir have green thumbs, fingers and toes. I on the overhand, would be facing issues from day 1...
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
tip top toker said:
Yes the cheese is a hardy strain, but i have grown handfuls of others over my time growing. I have always stated that people make growing pot way way too technical and complicated. I give mine ph 8 water, let them sit in a mix with an EC of 4+ and tend them say once a week if that, my plants do just great :) Yet i hear all these stories o frequent daily attention etc, i don't understand.
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When it comes to living organisms, there are guidlines, but not an absolute metric. There is too much diversity between species and subspecies for a single formula to remain static in every situation with every specimen. There must be something about your situation that makes your grow unique.

I have grown a number of different strains in a compact, high-concentration hydro environment. I have seen negative reactions to PH deviating too far from the 5.5 base. 8.5 would have destroyed my grow for sure. So you're calling it like you see it, and I'm calling it like I see it... but all written literature on the matter is closer to what I have experienced.
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
i think thats whats going on then tip top, i think if you are running a very high ph in the water there is less available nutes in the water so as you stated running a ec of 4+ (like 2000+ ppm) you are forcing more into the water. i think if you where to ph your water you could easily get away with running a much lower ec with very simular results. ether way what works for you works but i can say from experience just this last run of mine actually i had not cal my ph meter in about a year, all the sudden my plants started looking yellow and droopy so i got the cal solution (finally) and sure enough i dropped it in the ph 7 solution and it was reading 8.3 so when i was reading my ph at 6.3 it was really close to 8. anyway fixed the problem and plants look 100% better in about a week. now i run a ec of about 1.7-2 throughout flower so if i was running as high as you who knows, it would prably work out:)
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
i think thats whats going on then tip top, i think if you are running a very high ph in the water there is less available nutes in the water so as you stated running a ec of 4+ (like 2000+ ppm) you are forcing more into the water. i think if you where to ph your water you could easily get away with running a much lower ec with very simular results. ether way what works for you works but i can say from experience just this last run of mine actually i had not cal my ph meter in about a year, all the sudden my plants started looking yellow and droopy so i got the cal solution (finally) and sure enough i dropped it in the ph 7 solution and it was reading 8.3 so when i was reading my ph at 6.3 it was really close to 8. anyway fixed the problem and plants look 100% better in about a week. now i run a ec of about 1.7-2 throughout flower so if i was running as high as you who knows, it would prably work out:)
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That's a thought. But if it is true that he's counteracting his ph 8 somehow by over-loading on nutes, then his plants are stressed. Just because a plant is stressed doesn't mean it won't grow. There are many different kinds and levels of stresses. A stressed plant may appear completely fine to you, but if you never see what the non-stressed plant looks like, you have nothing to compare it to.
 
U

userwords

Member
ive also read that heavy metals become available to plants under a ph of 7, and more the lower you go, , and they suck it, and apparently they are spread all over the planet, so in the article they insisted in keeping ph as high as possible.

anyway im just trying to grow some vegs but i think someone should preserve tip top toker strain cloning it (is that correct) like crazy XD

thx very much for the links batf1nk i suppose it is a combination of ph, tds and maybe other factors as temperature, who knows, im new and lordjin u may be right in that i just may not identifying that the plants are streesed even if they grow.
 
lordjin

lordjin

Well-Known Member
userwords said:
ive also read that heavy metals become available to plants under a ph of 7, and more the lower you go, , and they suck it, and apparently they are spread all over the planet, so in the article they insisted in keeping ph as high as possible.

anyway im just trying to grow some vegs but i think someone should preserve tip top toker strain cloning it (is that correct) like crazy XD

thx very much for the links batf1nk i suppose it is a combination of ph, tds and maybe other factors as temperature, who knows, im new and lordjin u may be right in that i just may not identifying that the plants are streesed even if they grow.
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That's only if you have harmful heavy metals in your water. If your ph is too high, they won't be able to absorb the nutrients, either.

The thing to do is reverse osmosis your water, removing virtually all trace elements (including materials beneficial to plants as well as harmful)... and 're-write' the water's content to your specific needs. Now let's dial that ph down to below 7... and let the plants suck up all the good stuff we put in the water... and none of the bad stuff we filtered out.
 
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