Soil testing.

[Erick31876]

if your running true living organics, you shouldn't be pH'ing water, or testing run off! Ever!

if your pH'ing your water, then your killing microbes!

I tested it only after having major problems. First i thought i had way too much n because of plants clawing, very dark leave, and extremely stunted growth. Nodes were growing , just stacking on top of each other. And this is a strain i grew many times, and clones i have been growing for a while, so i know its not due to running a new plant/genetics.

 

[TheSpaceFarm]

if your running true living organics, you shouldn't be pH'ing water, or testing run off! Ever!

if your pH'ing your water, then your killing microbes!

If you're using something like GH ph up or down then yea that will def kill microbes. But there are safe options for ph'ing like earth juice crystals. I have a pretty healthy micro herd now but when i moved it took a while to get back up and running. my soil got pretty dried out. I usually never ph and didn't even think about it so when i started back up i was watering with a ph of close to 9 and there wasn't enough micro life built up yet to buffer. Caused some issues and i had to use the earth juice ph down for a while till i got the microlife back up. But yea once you have established a good soil food web, it has some serious ph buffering ability.

 

[Erick31876]

Good detective work man, narrow down the issue to solve it. So how are they doing by now? Back to health and vigor?

Most of them are. Some.of the ones i have in solo cups arr still like that. Im kind of using th for an experiment. The black domina plant i just flipped to flower a week ago still didnt show any pistils or start to stretch yet. It is still stacking nodes right on to of each other. I have been giving it nutes to ph 5.2 and the runoff being 6.4 . Im gonna run some clearex through it . I also think im gonna take it out of the pot and completely was all of that vad soil off of the roots and put it in new soil.

 

[SSGrower]

if your running true living organics, you shouldn't be pH'ing water, or testing run off! Ever!

if your pH'ing your water, then your killing microbes!

Yes, No, Maybe.
Or more accurately No, No, and Maybe.
pH is critical, knowing what is going on in the feed and the soil is critical regard less the media. Yes organics is more tolerant of feed and water that is off in pH, but you can still have a pH issues in organics.

It depends what you use to pH with the phosphoric or sulfuric acids for typical pH can have an adverse impact on microbial life. But fish emulsion which is commonly made with those acids and will acidify a feed mixture is perfectly acceptable to push the feed pH down a little.

 

[Erick31876]

The ph of the bad soil i had was 8.0 , i flusged it a few times anf fed it with fresh nutes ph'ed to 5.1 or 5.2 , and it got my run off down to 6.3 or 6.4 after a week of that the majority of plants that were in it took off. There is 2 or 3 left that still wont grow

 

[Erick31876]

Yeppers, it sure does matter. Lol.
A couple ph dropping things I've done before that work well for a ph drift in the soil, or for amending the soil prior to planting in it. Neither will hurt the microbes in the soil.
Elemental sulfur made into a tea or added to soil also does well for a ph drop naturally.
Soaking unbuffered peat in water to make a tea is also a good natural one, or adding it to the soil mix as a ph lowering amendment.

Where can you get elemental sulphur from? @Jesselikes2Grow . I need to lower the ph in that soil . I still have a half of a tote full of it. Im thimking of throwing it out and starting over, or am gonna use it to learn about organics and soil ammendments

 

[IrocZ]

I'll throw my 2 cents in about ph'ing the water in my "organic" soil.

Yes, people say the soil buffers and you don't have to ph the water. IME if I throw some city water with ph that can go over 8 in the plants don't like it. If I feed heavy with ph much below 6, the plants don't like it.

So I grow mostly organic, but I do ph. I'm not a freak about it like the hydro guys, but my plants don't like extremes in one direction or the other. Rainwater is usually PH 6.5 or so I've heard, so I just try to stay between 6 and 7.

I suppose my ph'ing may kill a few microbes, but my city water has fluoride and whatever other random contaminants, so I figure I might as well just keep the plants happy.

 

[Erick31876]

Epsoma brand is carried at most home depots, and lowes, and ace hardware.
Called soil acidifier
Any garden center should have some available.
It does take a bit of time to take full effect though, has to be digested by the microbes. Lol.
Cottonseed meal
Neem meal
Those are a couple other acidifying amendments also.
Or cut the soil mix by half with peat. Then add in some npk amendments as needed.

I cut it numerous times with peat and coco coir. I also mixed in so d.e., i wpnder if that made the ph go up

 

[Erick31876]

DE is a liming agent, has alot of calcium to it.

Would it raise the ph . I put ir in as a preventive maintenance for bugs

 

[Erick31876]

Was the coco buffered and or washed for ph and or salts?
I'd do the sulfur addition then if peat didn't work.
About a 1/8 cup to a 1/4cup per gallon of soil for one point of ph drop roughly.
So rough math a ph of 8 wants to go to say 6.5, would be around .5 cup to .75 cup to a cubic ft of soil.
Then let the microbes do their thing for 4 weeks minimum.

Im not sure. It was a bag of coco i got off a guy on offer up, i brought a whole storage unit full of grow equipment last summer for cheap. I forget the brand, its a popular brand i just cant thinl of the name right now. There was 2 1/2 bags of it. I used thr open bag pn my last run when i mixed my soul up and had no problems. This run i mixed 1/3 bumper crop compost mix, 1/3 peat,and 1/3 coco and worm castings, but i poured way too much worm castings in. I also put in some mykos, seabird and bat guano, bone meal, and de. Its basically the same as i make every run, execpt this time i put too much worm castings in and added de, i usually sprinkle it on top after watering

 

[Erick31876]

Yes it would very likely have a big difference. It acts as a buffer. Any acidity has to overcome it's alkalinity before the soil would alter it's ph. If that makes sense. View attachment 6282
Here's a few links.

Diatomaceous Earth - Manic Organic

manicorganicsa.com

Diatomaceous Earth

As the largest online seller of diatomaceous earth and the only brand to be an official supplement, we provide DE you can trust

www.diatomaceousearth.com

Ouch... thats where i went wrong. Would you throw it out and start over or try to fix it.

 

[IrocZ]

Yes, DE definitely raises the ph up. I've used it when needed for fungus gnats, and it threw the ph for a loop.

I learned to use it sparingly, only when needed.

 

[IrocZ]

Would you throw it out and start over or try to fix it

I wouldn't throw it out, I finished my run after the DE messed up the ph and had the plants looking quite sickly. Threw some coffee grounds in, not positive it helped, and then I kept feed at a lower ph, and it seemed to work itself out.

 

[Erick31876]

I wouldn't throw it out, I finished my run after the DE messed up the ph and had the plants looking quite sickly. Threw some coffee grounds in, not positive it helped, and then I kept feed at a lower ph, and it seemed to work itself out.

The plants i have in it have the claw very bad, dark leaves and are growing , but only growing nodes on top of each other. I have 1 pineapple express clone in it, its been in it for over a month or so and grew about a total of 1 or 2 inches, but put about 10 nodes on. Its weird because some grew out of it, ans a few didnt. Im basically keeping that one in that solo cup to see what it does

 

[Erick31876]

Here is the first plant i put in it, i flushed the shit out of this thing for about a month
This is about 1/2-2/3 of the plant, my flower room is way overcrowded. It began its life in the cloner for about 3 months. I put some clones in there and forgot about them,lol. When i took it out, the stem was about a 1/2 inch thick and looked like a bush. I vegged it for another month or 2 so i could flush the soil problem out of it, and gave it a major lollipopping to get all of the nodes of of the branches, and let it start with what i left on, after a week recovery it took off and i flipped it to flower and it looks like a bush again. I have about 30 more clones of it from the lollipopping i did.
Today starts week 3or 4 of flower on it