Hard PH corrections

DoubleAtotheRON

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
As some of you have heard, the method I use to correct a crashing PH in soil seems harsh, but it works.
Here’s a sick plant I had with a ph of 5.1
C29B16EF-CF50-4684-BEA8-D303B5C0C1A1.jpeg
I fed/flushed her with 10.8 ph mix with 2 times the volume of the pot. This is a few days later, and soil has buffered to 6.5
AB51275B-2AB0-4DE1-9034-B363E7711474.jpeg
Not perfectly healed yet, but is on the mend and is now able to take up nutes. So don’t be afraid to go to extremes to fix your ladies. I didn’t add anything extra to the nute mix.. just Botanicare and PH Up. I actually had a few plants that were crashing, so I just flushed them all. You can see the lower/older leaves were compromised, and the new growth is healthy
02CF8752-A794-4100-AE47-3C0C289D436E.jpegDAC86BE3-51EE-48F0-88BC-91789E73ADEB.jpeg
 
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2

2com

Well-Known Member
DoubleAtotheRON said:
Yeah, Ive defiantly been told Im crazy, and that to fix 5.1 ph, just feed in 6.5.... it don't work like that. I've done this to hundreds of plants to correct crashing PH.
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It's likely partly dependent on the media too, right? In inert media, you can just pour through the target solution pH/EC and it'll reset quite easily, there's very little buffer to that change in rockwool for example. I don't think it'd be advisable to do this with more inert substrates.

What do you think?
 
DoubleAtotheRON

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
2com said:
It's likely partly dependent on the media too, right? In inert media, you can just pour through the target solution pH/EC and it'll reset quite easily, there's very little buffer to that change in rockwool for example. I don't think it'd be advisable to do this with more inert substrates.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
I honestly don't know from experience. We use a base medium with no amendments, so its like starting with a clean slate.. the caveat is that is does tend to crash as the bark mulch in it decomposes and gets acidic... it's just my preference to know what Im putting in there.
 
Offmymeds

Offmymeds

Well-Known Member
DoubleAtotheRON said:
As some of you have heard, the method I use to correct a crashing PH in soil seems harsh, but it works.
Here’s a sick plant I had with a ph of 5.1
View attachment 4832127
I fed/flushed her with 10.8 ph mix with 2 times the volume of the pot. This is a few days later, and soil has buffered to 6.5
View attachment 4832128
Not perfectly healed yet, but is on the mend and is now able to take up nutes. So don’t be afraid to go to extremes to fix your ladies. I didn’t add anything extra to the nute mix.. just Botanicare and PH Up. I actually had a few plants that were crashing, so I just flushed them all. You can see the lower/older leaves were compromised, and the new growth is healthy
View attachment 4832129View attachment 4832130
Click to expand...
Thank you! Now I know!

I'm coming for you, peat moss!
 
Kushash

Kushash

Well-Known Member
DoubleAtotheRON said:
Yeah, Ive defiantly been told Im crazy, and that to fix 5.1 ph, just feed in 6.5.... it don't work like that. I've done this to hundreds of plants to correct crashing PH.
Click to expand...
Interesting.

I have a soil where the PH drops off and was recently doing some liming experiments with it using dolomite lime while they were in 1 gallon pots. I allowed the PH to fall and monitored 4 different strains before adding lime.

I can see how your method can work to help the plant recover in the short run. How do you treat the plant in the following weeks. Do you transplant or do you leave it in the pot for a while? If left in the same pot do you continue to PH and at what level?
Curious what happens after the high PH treatment is used. I'm assuming the soil would still be lacking a long term buffer for the soil PH and the only options would be to continue with the PH'ed water or buffer with a liming agent or transplant.
 
Wattzzup

Wattzzup

Well-Known Member
Hopefully you correct whatever cause the ph drop in the first place. So if it was over feeding you’re just adding high ph water as your correction. This is just one example
 
thumper60

thumper60

Well-Known Member
DoubleAtotheRON said:
As some of you have heard, the method I use to correct a crashing PH in soil seems harsh, but it works.
Here’s a sick plant I had with a ph of 5.1
View attachment 4832127
I fed/flushed her with 10.8 ph mix with 2 times the volume of the pot. This is a few days later, and soil has buffered to 6.5
View attachment 4832128
Not perfectly healed yet, but is on the mend and is now able to take up nutes. So don’t be afraid to go to extremes to fix your ladies. I didn’t add anything extra to the nute mix.. just Botanicare and PH Up. I actually had a few plants that were crashing, so I just flushed them all. You can see the lower/older leaves were compromised, and the new growth is healthy
View attachment 4832129View attachment 4832130
Click to expand...
How did that crash plant looks very young do you reuse soil?
 
DoubleAtotheRON

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
Kushash said:
Interesting.

I have a soil where the PH drops off and was recently doing some liming experiments with it using dolomite lime while they were in 1 gallon pots. I allowed the PH to fall and monitored 4 different strains before adding lime.

I can see how your method can work to help the plant recover in the short run. How do you treat the plant in the following weeks. Do you transplant or do you leave it in the pot for a while? If left in the same pot do you continue to PH and at what level?
Curious what happens after the high PH treatment is used. I'm assuming the soil would still be lacking a long term buffer for the soil PH and the only options would be to continue with the PH'ed water or buffer with a liming agent or transplant.
Click to expand...
Thank you for getting this thread back on track... Once I get the ph stable, I'll wait till they almost need another feeding, and then transplant into the 7 gallon pots. I'll do a small water in at 7ph and monitor it from there. Once it's stable, I'll feed in at 7.3 or so. The ph will drop as it dries out, so feeding in at 7.3, she will eat in the zone as the ph drops through the 6's
 
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DoubleAtotheRON

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
V256.420 said:
Btw, I forgot to add that I use Dyna Gro Protekt, Foliage Pro and Grow throughout the whole cycle. Nothing else.

I'm also wondering if the Promix HP CC: Promix HP CC might be better off for us to use?
Click to expand...
IDK... I just try to experiment with different mediums. It's really hard to find something out there that is clean slate, and PH stable. I know they can't produce every bag with the same exact ph. And I have found that when I go shopping for soil, I can stab all kinds of brands with my Apera and get different reading from every one of them. Maybe I should try DWC sometime.
 
DoubleAtotheRON

DoubleAtotheRON

Well-Known Member
Wattzzup said:
Hopefully you correct whatever cause the ph drop in the first place. So if it was over feeding you’re just adding high ph water as your correction. This is just one example
Click to expand...
Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier... this thread got kinda muddled up and locked. I knew going in that the soil was acidic at 5.5 My C25 soil that I had ordered wasn't in yet, and I used BM7. I sorta knew this was going to happen, but it can sneak up on you real quick. I had watered the seedlings in at 7, but seedlings don't take much water.. just a little bit, and it wasn't enough to alter the PH much.
 
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