This is my fourth harvest and I am still only just learning to appreciate the vast repository of knowledge and experience required to grow great herb. And that is my long-term ambition. I live on the periphery of Europe where there isn't really any tradition of growing so I've been learning the hard way, making mistakes all along but I've still grown some great herb and opened my mates' eyes up to what they should be doing - which I'm sure we'll all agree is a good thing.
I've had one recurring problem with all of my efforts, from the earliest harvest to the latest experiment - my ladies' leaves tend to droop down near the tips and the older, lower leaves yellow out and become brittle much too quickly. From what I've read recently I am almost 100% sure that this is a pH-related issue causing nutrient lock-out in the plant, specifically nitrogen.
This has opened my eyes to the crucial part that pH plays in nutrient uptake in soil. I really want to understand more on this subject as I would like to move to organic growing as soon as possible.
When I started pH balancing for this grow, (first time I've ever bothered pH balancing) I began adjusting water to 5.5 wrongly assuming that this value suited both Hydro and soil. Noob mistake I know. So I'm left with very acidic soil after 3 and a half weeks and nute deficiency problems.
I know now that the ideal soil pH is 6.8, ensuring optimal uptake of nutrients. My question is this, given that most peat-based commercial soils will have a low pH value, (I'm growing with BioBizz Light-Mix, pH 6.2), wouldn't a neutral-ish pH water-feed end up contributing to a soil pH well below our target of 6.8?
I'm not just speculating, I've been conducting some admittedly basic experiments designed to get a better understanding of my soil's pH and even when adding water with a slightly basic value of 7.2 pH, soil samples and run-off tend to read in the low sixes. For example one experiment I conducted involved taking 10gm of soil and making a dilution with 50ml of pH adjusted water, measured at 7.2 pH. After shaking and leaving to settle for ten minutes I used my electronic meter to take a reading. Result? 6.4
I conducted a similar experiment with run-off from the plants. Now given that they're still recovering from being fed pH 5.5 water I'm loathe to saturate them in order to get a good dark run-off. Still I watered with a pH around 7.2 and the resulting run-off read 6.0 pH Okay, maybe I ended up flushing out some more acidic moisture but still...
I've read somewhere that 6.5 is the ideal pH value to adjust to when watering but when added to a slightly acidic soil (in the low sixes), wouldn't that just end up with a soil pH around the roots that stays in the low sixes?
Given the information above if we're growing in soil and aiming for a soil pH of 6.8 wouldn't it be best to water with a high pH feed? Something like 7.6 at the least?
I've had one recurring problem with all of my efforts, from the earliest harvest to the latest experiment - my ladies' leaves tend to droop down near the tips and the older, lower leaves yellow out and become brittle much too quickly. From what I've read recently I am almost 100% sure that this is a pH-related issue causing nutrient lock-out in the plant, specifically nitrogen.
This has opened my eyes to the crucial part that pH plays in nutrient uptake in soil. I really want to understand more on this subject as I would like to move to organic growing as soon as possible.
When I started pH balancing for this grow, (first time I've ever bothered pH balancing) I began adjusting water to 5.5 wrongly assuming that this value suited both Hydro and soil. Noob mistake I know. So I'm left with very acidic soil after 3 and a half weeks and nute deficiency problems.
I know now that the ideal soil pH is 6.8, ensuring optimal uptake of nutrients. My question is this, given that most peat-based commercial soils will have a low pH value, (I'm growing with BioBizz Light-Mix, pH 6.2), wouldn't a neutral-ish pH water-feed end up contributing to a soil pH well below our target of 6.8?
I'm not just speculating, I've been conducting some admittedly basic experiments designed to get a better understanding of my soil's pH and even when adding water with a slightly basic value of 7.2 pH, soil samples and run-off tend to read in the low sixes. For example one experiment I conducted involved taking 10gm of soil and making a dilution with 50ml of pH adjusted water, measured at 7.2 pH. After shaking and leaving to settle for ten minutes I used my electronic meter to take a reading. Result? 6.4
I conducted a similar experiment with run-off from the plants. Now given that they're still recovering from being fed pH 5.5 water I'm loathe to saturate them in order to get a good dark run-off. Still I watered with a pH around 7.2 and the resulting run-off read 6.0 pH Okay, maybe I ended up flushing out some more acidic moisture but still...
I've read somewhere that 6.5 is the ideal pH value to adjust to when watering but when added to a slightly acidic soil (in the low sixes), wouldn't that just end up with a soil pH around the roots that stays in the low sixes?
Given the information above if we're growing in soil and aiming for a soil pH of 6.8 wouldn't it be best to water with a high pH feed? Something like 7.6 at the least?