Ph and soil buffering

Out of the bag, FF Ocean Forest is in the right ph range. But when using Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom (especially Tiger Bloom) I notice it acidifies the water. I'd think you would use ph up in that case.

But them I'm being told the soil buffers the ph, at least for organic nutes, and ph adjusting isn't necessary.

True, rumor or bullshit?

give this a read

http://www.marijuanagrowing.com/dhtml/knowledgebase.php?faqid=13

Cannabis Clue: The pH level is much more important in organic soil gardens than in chemical hydroponic gardens. The pH dictates the environment of bacteria necessary to the uptake of organic nutrients

as jorge cervantes says in his book

obijohn said:

Out of the bag, FF Ocean Forest is in the right ph range. But when using Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom (especially Tiger Bloom) I notice it acidifies the water. I'd think you would use ph up in that case.

But them I'm being told the soil buffers the ph, at least for organic nutes, and ph adjusting isn't necessary.

True, rumor or bullshit?

Click to expand...

Im not much for worrying about PH, but I know I would be in the minority on that one. I can tell you this much though, be very careful to make sure that your meter is dead on. Thats something I've always had trouble with and the reason I dont even worry about PH, I just dont trust the numbers I'm looking at.

I always pH my water and nute fed before I water, and I always pH the runoff right after.

If you choose to not pH the water/fed, your soil pH can go north or south. In my current grow which I have in grow journal thread, can go to my profile and click on my latest threads started and find it, I have 4 different strains all in a FFOF mix with perlite, dolomite and worm castings, and each strain has read a different pH runoff each watering even though the soil is all the same.

My black widow soil was at 5.5 in week 3, my great white shark was at 7.6 week 3, even though all were fed about 7pHed water. Tested with soil kit a day later and readings were just a little off at black widow 5.8 great white shark at 7.4.

So I have to disagree with my old thoughts of organic soils not needing to be phed. I have all my girls at 6.5 now but I got there by using ph up and down and adjusting pH waterings according to pH of runoff.

BUT. Once nutes are introduced, and I also use FoxFarms entire lineup plus extras, and big grow and tiger are not full organic, pHing is a must. IMO

I also ran the earth juice line a few times and currently with the fox farm, it's suppose to be all organic and I didn't pH and those girls are half the size and half as healthy as the fox farms ones which were phed every watering.

I use the EJ line of pH up and down.

i know that fdd2blk always liked to say he has never owned a ph meter.. good enough for me...

obijohn said:

Out of the bag, FF Ocean Forest is in the right ph range. But when using Grow Big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom (especially Tiger Bloom) I notice it acidifies the water. I'd think you would use ph up in that case.

But them I'm being told the soil buffers the ph, at least for organic nutes, and ph adjusting isn't necessary.

True, rumor or bullshit?

Click to expand...

Sorta, kinda, maybe.

FFOF pH is right, at first. They use (IIRC), oyster shell flour for both pH and a Ca source.

The problem is, they don't use enough to get you through an entire grow and it seems to get depleted after 6 weeks or so and the pH plummets.

Easy fix though and cheap too. Just add some dolomite lime or calcitic lime to your mix. 2tbl/gallon of mix, or 1cup/cf of mix. Best added before use, but you can top dress with it if the plants are already in there. ~$4 for a 40 lb bag. Plenty cheap.

It will keep your soil buffered in the proper pH range and no need to pH water, or nutes, or anything. I haven't checked my soils pH in about a year. No need, and I certainly don't pH my water or nutes.

Wet

So if the ph last for about 6 weeks, most the grows will start going wrong in week 1-3 in flower because of the ph being off, an less you hope that adding the right amount of dolomite lime which will get you through the full 14-18 weeks that most growers need for veg and flower time

think i stick with the ph pen to be safe

DOl lime 4$ fo fity pounds. yep i came to my own conclusion i have not used my pH pen in 3 months now. top feed some dol lime every now and then, cause if theres microbes its gonna get acidic naturally.

hat off to you wet saved me some typing

I've hear ph up and down are bad for soil. When I have grown I just used tap water and not worry about anything, but my last grow a year or so back, I started having issues, especially when I started using Tiger Bloom. Hydro shop sold me up/down so I adjusted whenever I fed. My tap is very soft and very alkaline, but it would have taken me hours to adjust each two gallon watering can and get everything adjusted. (outdoors btw) I used a hose to get the containers moist, then ph'ed each waterer full with nutes. Still a pain and time consuming, but ya gotta do what you gotta do

If your water is very alkaline, but your bloom nutes tend to sour the soil ... can't the two effects be brought into cancellation? Also, FF use peat moss, which does slowly sour. You might be seeing a superimposition of two effects.

I've always heard and accepted as true that admixing dolomite to soil (real soil, with its phase-transfer buffer sites on a few square miles of clay) means no pH worries ever. I'd add some of that (the dolomite also provides magnesium, as opposed to a purely calcitic lime) to the soil before use.
Finally, there is a very interesting product by Xtreme Gardening: ultramicrofine calcite dust intended as a foliar spray to mimic high CO2. I'm not sure I buy into that claim, but i was thinking a suspension of it would make a wonderful penetrating lime "milk" that could adjust a sour soil without unhealthy pH excursions or modifiers. cn

Wetdog said:

Sorta, kinda, maybe.

FFOF pH is right, at first. They use (IIRC), oyster shell flour for both pH and a Ca source.

The problem is, they don't use enough to get you through an entire grow and it seems to get depleted after 6 weeks or so and the pH plummets.

Easy fix though and cheap too. Just add some dolomite lime or calcitic lime to your mix. 2tbl/gallon of mix, or 1cup/cf of mix. Best added before use, but you can top dress with it if the plants are already in there. ~$4 for a 40 lb bag. Plenty cheap.

It will keep your soil buffered in the proper pH range and no need to pH water, or nutes, or anything. I haven't checked my soils pH in about a year. No need, and I certainly don't pH my water or nutes.

Wet

Click to expand...

I politely disagree.

I've ran the EJ and FF nute lines in FFOF soil with dolomite and ect. The two EJ runs the EJ girls, which I did not pH at all ever, produced much less bud and were more unhealthy overall.
The FoxFarm nuted girls, which I always pH every fed, ended up yielding twice as much and were much healthier throughout the grow.

I admit I only ran EJ twice as an experiment and I've ran fox many times but I don't think helping your plants go in the right up or down direction referring to Phing hurts them as much as it helps them.

In the water only phases in veg I had plants with pHes from 5.5 all the way up to 7.5 in FFOF mix, tested with both a meter for the runoff and a soil kit, they were very similar and accurate. The FFOF was not in the proper pH ranges with some plants and those plants showed it. With an adjustment in ph with the water/fed going in it helps me to get the pH where I want it.

I almost want to do a no pH with the FF lineup on a plant or two to either prove you or me wrong. Would you contribute to this experiment?

Are you claiming no pHing is necessary in FFOF period, with both organic and chem nutes?

I just don't dare not pH. The EJ girls sure didn't like it. Granted, I may have failed the learning curve of Earth Juice, but they were fed properly as far as I know and both EJ grows were shit when compared to the ff grows which were always phed.

Thanks Wet.

obijohn said:

I've hear ph up and down are bad for soil. When I have grown I just used tap water and not worry about anything, but my last grow a year or so back, I started having issues, especially when I started using Tiger Bloom. Hydro shop sold me up/down so I adjusted whenever I fed. My tap is very soft and very alkaline, but it would have taken me hours to adjust each two gallon watering can and get everything adjusted. (outdoors btw) I used a hose to get the containers moist, then ph'ed each waterer full with nutes. Still a pain and time consuming, but ya gotta do what you gotta do

Click to expand...

Well if consistent half pound indoor plants where potency's are through the roof is bad then I guess my EJ up and down is bad.

I imagine if anything there is some salt residue but the small amounts one uses it shouldn't matter, and a veg to flower flush would help with that. I use Great White and other products that help with mycorrhizaes and the ph up and down, mostly down for straight tap, had no effect on those.

Tell you what, go to any straight gardening site and see if gardeners, farmers, or even container grows go through all this pHing nonsense.

They don't.

You get your soils pH right before the season starts, dirt or container mixes, and that's it for the season. Then it's just feed and water as necessary. I just use water from the hose outside, tap inside.

You don't need to add more lime till you recycle the mix or after the gardens done for the following year.

Wet

Wetdog said:

Tell you what, go to any straight gardening site and see if gardeners, farmers, or even container grows go through all this pHing nonsense.

They don't.

You get your soils pH right before the season starts, dirt or container mixes, and that's it for the season. Then it's just feed and water as necessary. I just use water from the hose outside, tap inside.

You don't need to add more lime till you recycle the mix or after the gardens done for the following year.

Wet

Click to expand...

Well are all those gardeners(some I know definitely prep their soil for ph, and more then once a season), farmers and others growing mary? Probably not.

Do you have any journal pics of your indoor plants that you've never pHed. I'd like to get a look. Because the ones I didn't pH in FFOF and a few other mixes sure didn't turn out well.

Just trying to learn more. If I didn't have to pH it sure would free some time up for me every fed day.

Well this is how my plants turn out when i used a ph/ec pen
but i do know i would find it hard to get the yeild without my ph/ec pen
so i will carry on growing like this

JASON79 said:

Well this is how my plants turn out when i used a ph/ec pen
but i do know i would find it hard to get the yeild without my ph/ec pen
so i will carry on growing like this

Click to expand...

I love the ruler in the pic, a lot of folks use pop cans or other objects you can create trick shots with to make their buds look bigger.

I agree. I can't see not using a pH meter. I've experimented with one line of nutes doing this and it didn't turn out well, still getting 4-5 ozs but I'm use to 8-9 and these particular strains are suppose to be big yielders.

Wetdog said:

Tell you what, go to any straight gardening site and see if gardeners, farmers, or even container grows go through all this pHing nonsense.

They don't.

You get your soils pH right before the season starts, dirt or container mixes, and that's it for the season. Then it's just feed and water as necessary. I just use water from the hose outside, tap inside.

You don't need to add more lime till you recycle the mix or after the gardens done for the following year.

Wet

Click to expand...

Veg is just is not a lot of money compaired to weed
how much would you pay for a pound of carrots?

And nobody would buy a pound of dryed cured weed for them self to smoke

So that's why farmers will not put the extra effect in,


They want to use min time they can and get a good crop

Just like you can with weed if you want to
Stick some seeds in a wima system and change the water every week

And you should get a good yeild but over time will be able to improve your yeild if you put the extra time

thehole said:

Well are all those gardeners(some I know definitely prep their soil for ph, and more then once a season), farmers and others growing mary? Probably not.

Do you have any journal pics of your indoor plants that you've never pHed. I'd like to get a look. Because the ones I didn't pH in FFOF and a few other mixes sure didn't turn out well.

Just trying to learn more. If I didn't have to pH it sure would free some time up for me every fed day.

Click to expand...

Actually, I was replying to obijohn and you posted just before I did. That reply wasn't directed at you. We aren't in any real disagreement.

I don't do journals or pics of any kind. Never have, never will. I have been growing *stuff* for better than 40 years and have made just about every mistake there is and killed a boatload of plants. Not as many dead plants or mistakes now, but that's called experience.

*I* have never used FFOF, or any bagged mix for that matter. I traded sweat for knowledge when I first started out (Platycerium ferns and orchids), and was shown how to make my own mix. Been making my own since 1971.

The FFOF comes from hearing the same problems over and over, usually a few weeks into flower and ~6 weeks from starting/planting with the mix. Usually, it's a low pH and a lack of Ca. Usually a bit of dolomite took care of it.

I've only had to add lime to my tomatoes ~2 months in. Not so much the pH but to replace the Ca. They are real calcium hogs, especially in containers.

I have 2 small raised bed gardens and ~35-5gallon containers. Not all in use at the same time, but at least 20+. I'm too old to pH that much water.

Of course I recycle my mix and I actually have better results with used re-amended mix than with freshly made and cooked. Some of those organic amendments are really slooow, but last for years.

BTW, I ran into problems with EJ also. Good stuff but it does have a learning curve. I don't use it any more and get most of my 'nutes' in 50lb bags at the feed store. Another learning curve, but simpler and cheaper in the long run.

It's just been my experience, that when growing in a peat based medium, even if it says there is lime added, adding more seems to keep a lot of problems from ever starting.

If you grow without it and get good results, great! Whatever works in your particular situation is correct, not what I say or what anyone else says.

Wet

ideally you would NOT want to try to pH the soil for multiple seasons because a) you want the ratio of dol lime to soil acidity to balance each other and slowly turn more acidic during the later stages of life IE flowering. B) this could lead you to have a higher pH in flower thus lower yeilds.

you want to pH for one growth cycle, so the pH will slowly lower by the end of flower and top feed if you are vegging plants for a long time.

i learned he hard way, i pHed my water everyday steadly for a long time then started having some serious lockout issues that i could not figure out( ive been reusing the same soil for 3 years) until i added dol lime.

Wetdog said:

I actually have better results with used re-amended mix than with freshly made and cooked. Some of those organic amendments are really slooow, but last for years.

It's just been my experience, that when growing in a peat based medium, even if it says there is lime added, adding more seems to keep a lot of problems from ever starting.

Click to expand...

yep agreed.
a lot of people use the fresh right out the bag stuff none of that stuff is really designed specifically for cannabis i could never just buy a bag of FFOF or roots or whatever and not amend it thats foolish, MJ is a weed it need a low nutrient content soil.. just my piece..