DWCgrower406
Well-Known Member
Doing a few outdoor this summer, actually my first time growing in dirt, always been indoor dwc. I bought a few bags of dirt, glacier gold growers blend. Really popular stuff around here (montana, flathead valley), everybody seems to swear by it. Started a few plants in pots. They are doing ok but not perfect, maybe a bit overfed. I am not feeding anything but ph'd water but i figured the new dirt might be a bit hot for young plants. Watered and checked runoff, pretty high, 2000ppm and pretty acidic at 4.5ph. I ph'd some water to 8 and flushed pretty good, got ppm down to 1000 but ph barely budged, still 4.6. Just to make sure im not dealing with other factors i took a fresh quart of dirt straight from the bag and mixed up a slurry with ro water. Same acidic result, 4.5ph.
Why is the dirt so acidic? Did i get a bad batch or would there be a reason for this? Maybe local water is typically alkaline and they are trying to account for that? Even if that was the case, i couldnt get it to rise by flushing with 8.0 water. Any thoughts? I can buy different dirt, i just dont understand because everyone loves this dirt. Plants do look better since flushing the ppm down, but if 8.0 water resulted in 4.6 runoff, the root zone must be terribly acidic. Am i missing something?
Why is the dirt so acidic? Did i get a bad batch or would there be a reason for this? Maybe local water is typically alkaline and they are trying to account for that? Even if that was the case, i couldnt get it to rise by flushing with 8.0 water. Any thoughts? I can buy different dirt, i just dont understand because everyone loves this dirt. Plants do look better since flushing the ppm down, but if 8.0 water resulted in 4.6 runoff, the root zone must be terribly acidic. Am i missing something?
