ph, how important is it.
- Thread starter DracoRincewind
- Start date
If you are going organic, then pH is irrelevant.
ridgedogs
Member
It's important to a plants health. If you are on city water you probably don't have to worry. If you are on well water check it. I know for me it matters what time of year it is also. In summer as the water table drops way down I've seen it as high as 9.Winter it stays between 6 and 7. A friend of mine in a different area has ph 4-5 water.
richirich_99
Member
Red-Thanks for the great info! I just bought a cheap aquarium pH test, but it only reads between 6.0-7.6. I just checked my tap water, both out of the tap and that has been sitting. With nothing added they are at least 7.6 or higher. As soon as i add anything it drops the pH to below 6.0.
My question is, should i add ph up to bring it back up after mixing my nutes? I am currently using alaska fish emulsion 5-1-1 for veg, and alaska morbloom 0-10-10, CalMax, and molasses. I grow in ffof, and plan to switch to all ff products for veg and flower.
My question is, should i add ph up to bring it back up after mixing my nutes? I am currently using alaska fish emulsion 5-1-1 for veg, and alaska morbloom 0-10-10, CalMax, and molasses. I grow in ffof, and plan to switch to all ff products for veg and flower.
To some - it's not important.
MOST gardens benifit from carefull attention to details - and pH has to be right for the plant to thrive.
MOST gardens benifit from carefull attention to details - and pH has to be right for the plant to thrive.
lmao duder dig your avatar
porper PH is important to me i'm quite anal about it
heres a excerpt from mynamestitchs sick plant guide thx for being such a sweathart and compling this info for us.
I have been doing a lot of research on sick plants and also helping out others a lot on sick plants!
Most of the stuff I have learned is from others and keeping up to date on there problems they are having. Some I have learned on my own, the sick plant troubles I have had was ph troubles! I didn’t really think the importance of how ph plays a role with your plants being healthy or dead.
I honestly think one of the most important parts of your growing is having a good solid ph tester, a digital one is the best to have. There are other ones you can buy as well, liquid ph test kits are inexpensive and get the job done if you can't afford a digital ph meter, STAY AWAY FROM SOIL TESTERS, they don't do the job and are not very accurate at all. Ph test strips work well, even if you are on a budjet! So if you rely on a soil tester and its tell you your soil is 7 and your having problems, 9 times out of 10 it's going to be your water ph that is messing up the soil ph check the water you are using. Unless you are using additives in your soil mixture like blood bone meal, and Peat moss those will throw your ph off too.
Adding nutes to your water can cause the ph to get low as well, so its best to test your ph of your water before and after you add your nutes. Nutrient deficiencys are mostly caused by human mistakes,along with to much or to little of the amount of nutrients available. The best range for nutrients to be absorbed is between a pH of 5 and 7 and a (TDS) range of 800 to 3000 PPM.
Having these conditions will help making nutrient deficiencys alot easier to overcome.
yea baby
S
sparkjumper
Yea I've grown for years in both promix and ocean forest and find nutrient and soil PH to be important in my grows,especially with promix.Its always good to add dolomite lime to the flowering container especially with promix,I only use about a teaspoon per gallon with ocean forest.When I started out growing with promix and neither liming my soil or checking nutrient PH,the results were not admirable.I never thought twice about using tiger bloom in my promix without concern to soil or nutrient PH,and the grows showed it.I'm not quite as anal as I used to be but still check nutrient and water PH with General Hydroponics Ph test kit.I think its great for checking nutrient PH
G
Greyskull
i've seen organic, non ph'd plants growing, and organic ph'd plants growing.... the ph'd plants look much better. HUGE DIFFERENCE
ph'ing means checking the ph, and adjusting if its needed. some folks have good source water that when mixed with their nutes brings the ph levels to an optimal range.
when you serve your plants their food, checking the PH is like checking the temperature of the food you are feeding a baby. the baby will eat whether or not its hungry, but if the food is too cold the baby won't eat very much and will not grow up optimally.... if you serve the food too hot the baby will burn its mouth stop eating and will not grow up optimally. if you serve the food just right, the baby grows up nice and healthy and optimally.
thats how i feel about it...
igrowwitmatches
Member
off ph = dead plants.... if your not testing you better get lucky
weediscool
New member
i dont test ph growing in soil and have 0 problems. just use RO water, ff soil, ff nutes, molasses and follow the chart.
ive done hydro in the past and obv with hydro is a huge huge factor.
ive done hydro in the past and obv with hydro is a huge huge factor.
G
guest 77721
Do you have a better one?
Is there anything wrong with the basic information in the chart?
I had another chart that showed all the elements tapering over a larger range but in general the info is still the same as this chart and the big point to the grower is to keep the pH stable at 6.5 for soil and 5.8 for hydro.
bostrom155
Active member
For the most part it's not important and really only becomes so when nutrients are limited. If you look at the back of the GH bottles it says 5.0~7.0. People who say, "You're ph is 0.3 points to high or too low" have no idea what they are talking about.
Take a look at your graphic again. Does it show that the nutrients are not taken up at other values? No it doesn't. As long as your nutrients aren't limited it doesn't matter. It's like saying people with a small mouth are underfeed.
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sparkjumper
A PH of 6 is 10 times for acidic than a PH of 7 and 100 times for acidic than a PH of 8 so in the scheme the small variances do add up to a lot of difference.I keep my nute ph between 6 and 7 in my soil grows and they are happy.I wouldnt use something like tiger bloom with R/O water without some PH up though many think its not necessary with soil acting as a buffer,I'm not dumping nutes that are too acidic in my soil pots
moonymonkey
Active member
take into account the drainage properities,u can run a higher ph in a larger volume of soil cuz of drainage....think about envirment,and how soil dries,afecting ph...along with diff. nutrients...hey spark u ole dog...hope all s well+ peace
G
guest 77721
So your solution to any nute lockout or deficiency is to feed and keep feeding until it goes away?
igrowwitmatches
Member
i cant believe people are even argueing this
Yellowmoon
Active member
Ditto.
Of course it matters, unless you grow outdoors -- isn't rain water's ph 7? I'm really not sure...
A friend has tried to grow cannabis this winter using just tap water, which according to my tests, has a ph of 8.2 or so. After four months of vegetation his plants were still like 15cm tall.
