Do you need to worry about pH in soil or not?

First plant I've ever grown in my 52 years. Seeds were dropped into final pot six weeks ago. My Autos are in 5 gallon fabric pots with Roots organic + 25% growstones filled to about 4 gal . My tallest plant is Northern Lights autofem at 36 inches. My shortest is my autofem white widow at about 20 inches. They were beautiful and green until about week 4. I read somewhere that that's about how long the nutrients in soil will last.

I was told not to even look at pH with soil grows but I am having serious issues with my plants.Tacoing, severe yellowing, yellow leaves falling off. One of my non auto plants has lolly popped itself.

Yellowing on the bottom leaves could be nitrogen deficiency since i didn't start light nutes till week 5. I started giving them increasingly more nutrients now but I'm afraid I will go the other way and burn them. The yellowing tops could be light stress @22" from 1000w hps but not heat stress with my cool tube and all the fans I have to cool the air under the lamp. The droop could be from both over-watering and under watering. Now that I am watering every 2 days they seem to be doing much better in the droop Department.

My Town water once dechlorinated is about 7.8 pH. I put some nutrients in at pH 6.0 this week. Runoff was 7.3. Last week I put straight water in at 6.7 and it came out at 7.6. I know this is not the proper way to test soil pH but could this possibly be a hint? Should I really care? I read some places that you want to flush with 6.0 water till it comes out at 6.5. Other places I have read that you don't flush soil because you are just flushing out all the nutrients.

All I want to do is get them to live to harvest. Don't care much about high yield but I would like some of the hundreds of buds to get a bit bigger. Is it possible they will all die and fall off? I am picking out a handful of Dead bright yellow leaves a day from 4 plants. Don't think it has enough leaves to do that for another 2 to 4 weeks till harvest.

Serious magnesium deficiency. Add some epsom salt, about half a gram per gallon, the next few waterings.

Unless the soil has been expertly pH balanced/buffered, you're going to need to pH your water. 6.5'ish works well, with slightly higher/lower once in a while.

That's classic nitrogen shortage.

At 4 weeks - you are really pushing the limit of when you want to add any additional N. Chances are doing so now will delay flowering a bit.

You'll need to feed several times a week. I have no idea about the PPM levels and what not. You are simply utilizing soil as an inert media. At this point, you need to be running what is basically a hydro style feeding regimen - look for a feed chart from what ever nutrients you purchased.

The only time you don't need to worry about pH in soil is if it soil you have made yourself and you know EXACTLY what is in it. Learn to make your own soil. It's cheaper and the quality is far superior. Not to mention, you can custom tailor it to fit your exact needs or preferences.



dank.Frank

Needs more N- strip out all the lower growth/leafs so the nutrients is going to where most needed.

Thank you so much for your responses. As a noob I am constantly second-guessing myself.

dank.frank said:

That's classic nitrogen shortage.

At 4 weeks - you are really pushing the limit of when you want to add any additional N. Chances are doing so now will delay flowering a bit.

You'll need to feed several times a week. I have no idea about the PPM levels and what not. You are simply utilizing soil as an inert media. At this point, you need to be running what is basically a hydro style feeding regimen - look for a feed chart from what ever nutrients you purchased.

The only time you don't need to worry about pH in soil is if it soil you have made yourself and you know EXACTLY what is in it. Learn to make your own soil. It's cheaper and the quality is far superior. Not to mention, you can custom tailor it to fit your exact needs or preferences.



dank.Frank

Click to expand...

I'm a little confused. If I water it more than once every other day it shows signs of over-watering . You say to feed several times a week but all the feeding schedules say I'm supposed to give it clean water in between feedings. This would be an average of one and a half feedings a week. Should I be feeding it every watering?



Big-Narstie -

Pull all the lower leaves even though they are autoflowers halfway through flowering?



Let me see if I have all this advice right.

First I flush my soil with water PH the round 6 until I have the pH about 6.5 on the run off.

Then I add (heavy?) nutrients plus Epsom salts before finishing my flush.

Then I pluck all the yellow (lower only?) leaves. (They are not only yellow on the lower levels)

Then I pray a lot.

foliar feeding will green it right up.