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Ph in Organic soil?

dank.frank

ef.yu.se.ka.e.em
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Yes. If the right balance of materials are there to begin with. If not, you have to amend and adjust.



dank.Frank
 
U

Ununionized

The food grade hydroponics people use sulfuric acid. You get lots of acidity without dumping aluminum into the root zone.

When you put elemental sulfur in you're stimulating the bacterial Sulfur Cycle to start.

They make: you guessed it - sulfuric acid.

Sulfuric acid is pretty pure: if it wasn't, it would interfere with battery operation.

If you've ever eaten food from any supermarket or restaurant in the United States or Europe for the past 30 years, you've eaten food, and lots of it, whose origin plant was acidified using sulfuric acid: right out of the 55 gallon drum.
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EDIT:
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You buy it at Auto-Zone as battery electrolyte at about 30%. If you cut that in half, you have acidity that's almost identical to most soda pop and you pour that in. Obviously you're cutting it with distilled water.

It's not evil magic or the devil, it's the shortest most cost effective, most plant-nutritious way to add acidity without adding other metals to drive up salts content.

A quart of it at Auto Zone is about U.S. $7.50.

This makes many gallons total, of pH down because each time you mix ferts or add water, you only have to add a little of it.
 
Last edited:

Limeygreen

Well-known member
Veteran
Generally commercial hydroponics use phosphoric acid or nitric acid, sulfuric acid can cause problems on metals and diaphragms in irrigation equipment, sulfur is easy to get in nutrient solution with Epsom salts and potassium sulfate and phosphoric acid to adjust pH often times will give you all the P that you require, if using well water nitric acid can provide extra N while killing things like iron feeding bacteria. Nitric and sulfuric acid are nasty things to use and caution must be used while using and handling them, phosphoric acid can be dangerous as well but generally much safer to use.
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
Just wanted to give an update, the mix that I used that had a lower PH did not do any better in fact growth went to a complete stand still, so I think it was more of an issue of too much woody/sticks stuff added, not properly ammended - maybe a calcium issue. Here is my new recipe, wanted to share it and open to approval from you guys before I mix it and let it sit for 1 month and then run some side by side tests again.

Super Duper Soil
1 Cubic Foot = 7 Gallons

BASE
[ ] 3G PRO MIX HP (Recycled) (30% Perlite)
[ ] 2G Perlite
[ ] 1G Compost
[ ] 1/3G Guineapig Droppings
[ ] 1/3G Horse Manure
[ ] 1/3G Earthworm Castings

AMMENDMENTS

[ ] 1 Cup Bonemeal
[ ] 1 Cup Kelp Meal
[ ] 1 Cup Oyster Shell
[ ] 1 Cup Dehydrated Molasses
[ ] 1/2 Cup Alfalfa Meal
[ ] 1/2 Cup Blood Meal
[ ] 1/2 Cup Glacial Rock Dust
[ ] 1/4 Cup Azomite
 

Americangrower

Active member
Veteran
wow you guys put a lot of work into your soil. My recipe is
2 bags bar harbor
1/2 bag lobster composted
hand full of blood/bone meal
2 handfuls of Hollytone
1 handful of Dol lime
Thin layer of Warm casting over the top.
add perlite and mix
if to heavy add more perlite and mix

I don't measure additives don't even have a measuring cup lol
then again I don't measure nutes either just a splash of this and that
after almost 30 years you get a feeling for what a plant wants or needs
 

Limeygreen

Well-known member
Veteran
hugelkultur Uses logs in raised type of bed (not so much a raise bed as a berm) Might be wary of what type of hardwood you use and careful you don't put too much carbon to sap your nitrogen out.
 

h.h.

Active member
Veteran
The pH of your soil is not important. The pH of your amendments is.
A slight swing in values is desirable. Spikes in value are not.

With highly carbonated water, an occasional flushing (yucca extract?) will keep salts from accumulating. A squeeze of lemon may help and is good for the roots.
 

FunkBomb

Power Armor rules
Veteran
Thats a nice sounding soil mix Americangrower. How long can you run that before adding fertilizers? Do you ever run into potassium deficiencies?

-Funk
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
wow you guys put a lot of work into your soil. My recipe is
2 bags bar harbor
1/2 bag lobster composted
hand full of blood/bone meal
2 handfuls of Hollytone
1 handful of Dol lime
Thin layer of Warm casting over the top.
add perlite and mix
if to heavy add more perlite and mix

I don't measure additives don't even have a measuring cup lol
then again I don't measure nutes either just a splash of this and that
after almost 30 years you get a feeling for what a plant wants or needs

Thanks for your mix. I wish I had 30 years experience I would definitely have a feel for it as well. Im in my first year, so all I can do to ensure sucess is follow instructions precisely. Hence the precision I need to follow or I can screw it up royally.
 

Bmac1

Well-known member
Veteran
Hi Paulie, i am no guru by any means and am on the low end of the learning curve as i have only made the switch to the organic side over the past couple years. I think the best advice i could give you would be to keep it simple. Start with a basic, proven recipe and adapt from there as you learn and observe what the plants are telling you.

You mention needing precision and I believe you are putting too much pressure on yourself. Soil is very forgiving, much more than hydro and will give you a chance to correct any issues that arise.

I did my first run or two with a preset, basic mix and it did well. I then made a couple of additions and have just put together my first mix from scratch and hope it works well again.

Good luck.
 

hyposomniac

Active member
Just wanted to give an update, the mix that I used that had a lower PH did not do any better in fact growth went to a complete stand still, so I think it was more of an issue of too much woody/sticks stuff added, not properly ammended - maybe a calcium issue. Here is my new recipe, wanted to share it and open to approval from you guys before I mix it and let it sit for 1 month and then run some side by side tests again.

Super Duper Soil
1 Cubic Foot = 7 Gallons

BASE
[ ] 3G PRO MIX HP (Recycled) (30% Perlite)
[ ] 2G Perlite
[ ] 1G Compost
[ ] 1/3G Guineapig Droppings
[ ] 1/3G Horse Manure
[ ] 1/3G Earthworm Castings

AMMENDMENTS

[ ] 1 Cup Bonemeal
[ ] 1 Cup Kelp Meal
[ ] 1 Cup Oyster Shell
[ ] 1 Cup Dehydrated Molasses
[ ] 1/2 Cup Alfalfa Meal
[ ] 1/2 Cup Blood Meal
[ ] 1/2 Cup Glacial Rock Dust
[ ] 1/4 Cup Azomite

Your base mix is
2g peat/3g perlite/2g compost and poo.
First how old are the horse and guinea pig poo, sorry if I missed this info.
Second that's lot of organic matter and a full cup of kelp. You could have way too much K in there.
Thirdly, your calcium is calcium phosphate from the bone and carbonate from the oyster. Combined with the carbonate water. I think you might be setting yourself up for high ph and insoluble Ca.
My friendly advice would be more peat, less compost, add gypsum. Or just keep killing it with promix and pbp
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
Hi Paulie, i am no guru by any means and am on the low end of the learning curve as i have only made the switch to the organic side over the past couple years. I think the best advice i could give you would be to keep it simple. Start with a basic, proven recipe and adapt from there as you learn and observe what the plants are telling you.

You mention needing precision and I believe you are putting too much pressure on yourself. Soil is very forgiving, much more than hydro and will give you a chance to correct any issues that arise.

I did my first run or two with a preset, basic mix and it did well. I then made a couple of additions and have just put together my first mix from scratch and hope it works well again.

Good luck.

Thanks BMAC, your right, I should start off with basic proven recipes and go from there. I decided to use Lavendar cowboys Mix as it was super simple and had a lot of the ingredients I already had bought.

All that I adjusted was:

A)instead if 1/2 cup of blood meal I split it into 1/4 cup of bloodmeal and 1/4 cup of alfalfa
B)instead of 1 TBSP of dolomite lime per Gallon I used 1/2 cup of oyster shell per 1 Cubic Foot as I don't want to raise my PH,I will need to add epson salts into my water if I need some magnesium.
C) I added 1/2 Cup dehyrdated molasses to feed microbes
D) Added Azomite and glacial rock dust for micro nutrients. This is still in a lot of other recipes for "basic beginner" mixes for example the coot mix

LC’s MIX (slightly adjusted)
1 CUBIC FOOT BASE MIX
[ ] 4 PARTS PRO MIX
[ ] 2 PARTS PERLITE
[ ] 1 PARTS WORM CASTINGS

AMMENDMENTS
[ ] 1/4 CUP BLOOD MEAL
[ ] 1/4 CUP ALFALFA MEAL
[ ] 1 CUP BONE MEAL
[ ] 1/2 CUP KELP MEAL
[ ] 1/2 CUP OYSTER SHELL
[ ] 1/2 CUP DEHYDRATED MOLLASSES
[ ] 1/2 CUP GLACIAL ROCK DUST
[ ] 1/4 CUP AZOMITE 1

Your base mix is
2g peat/3g perlite/2g compost and poo.
First how old are the horse and guinea pig poo, sorry if I missed this info.
Second that's lot of organic matter and a full cup of kelp. You could have way too much K in there.
Thirdly, your calcium is calcium phosphate from the bone and carbonate from the oyster. Combined with the carbonate water. I think you might be setting yourself up for high ph and insoluble Ca.
My friendly advice would be more peat, less compost, add gypsum. Or just keep killing it with promix and pbp

I have taken your input and made a new recipe. see above.

I reduced my organic matter. I will do a side by side experiment where I add guineapig droppings to the mix for just 1 or 2 plants as opposed to mixing it into my full batch. But as well I realize that its better to take my regular compost, and my manures and put it into the worm bin first, and then just use those worm castings as my organic humic matter only as part of the mix.

I cut my kelp amount into half as per Lavender cowboy mix.

The calcium I am a bit confused about still. I don't want to raise my ph that is why I used oyster shell instead of dolomite lime. I was of the understanding it does not raise ph. My pro mix is 6.3 PH, my Tap is 7.3, and my worm castings is probably between 7-8.

Why do you say my calcium will become insoluble? I have 3 different sources as you said. I also lowered oyster shell to 1/2 cup, to hopefully not overdo it. I am wary of buying an additional calcium source of gypsum as you have mentioned.


P.S. Im not "Killing it" with pro mix! thats why I want to switch so I have healther plants, and don't need to ph everything and buy bottled nutrients.
 
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