Bad soil has 7.2 and up pH regardless of flush!

Kind024 said:
Organic soils don't like to be flushed...vital microbiology washes out of the mix during a flush. Organic soil needs these organisms to cycle properly. When organic soil is allowed to dry out the microbes go into stasis or die. It can take 7+ days for a microorganisms in stasis to return to their full potential. Organic soil can have large pH fluctuations when allowed to dry out too much and nutrients can become unavailable or locked-out. For organic soil a consistent moisture level is best. If someone is adding chelated chemical nutrients an organic soil mix, the benefits of growing in an "organic" mix are mostly gone. Then pH adjustment, flushing and dry cycling will apply.

What kind of aeration amendment are you using? what does the bag of soil say? Probably perlite, does it say at what %?

Also, many cheep soil company's use sticks as filler. We run into problems when non-decomposed material is below the soil surface and around the roots. This can burn the plants root system.

If you think your soil is locked out the quickest way to feed a plant is through its leaves.

Bubble 1/2 cup of kelp and 1/2 cup of alfalfa (source organic to avoid concentrated pesticides and chemical fertilizers) and some ground malted barley or rye if you got it for 24 hours. Strain and spray apply after lights out or 2+ hours before lights on.
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Killer advice brother......welcome!
 
vyserage said:
Should have known better than to get cheaper soil from store lol. 1 plant of 4 looks great and healthy where the other 3 not as healthy and more lighter green. 1 plant even shows early signs of P def. Due to not being in the absorption Ph range. It has slight top leaf purple shades all around some of its leafs.

The 1 plant that is great is in 6.6 range runoff and is doing great because I used the last of my good soil from last grow, then ran out.

Suggestions? Flushing didn't help, 1 watering or feeding later and Ph is back into the 7.0 and up.

Water in is 6.3, any lower and I'll not get Calcium or Mag, I forget which one.
Water out ranges from 7.1 to 7.3
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A lot of awesome advice there but I don't remember Vyserage mentioning that they were growing in organic soil?
All I can really come up with that this point is that your soilless hot and due to the lack of information on the bag, you didn't realize it. Couple the fertilizer in the soil with decaying matter and it's a recipe for PH and nutrient problems.
My first piece of advice would be to try to locate that bag again.
 
Guy Cavallero said:
A lot of awesome advice there but I don't remember Vyserage mentioning that they were growing in organic soil?
All I can really come up with that this point is that your soilless hot and due to the lack of information on the bag, you didn't realize it. Couple the fertilizer in the soil with decaying matter and it's a recipe for PH and nutrient problems.
My first piece of advice would be to try to locate that bag again.
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Thank you for noticing lol, i've been going over this in my head the last couple days (organic? but its just plain soil right? I didnt buy any bags with the word organic on it) so i've not replied as of yet cause i've been lazy lol. After this last feeding a couple days ago it still looks the same so it hasnt worsened which is good but im sure the pH will still be in the 7.0 to 7.3 range.

I cant even find the bag that triggers familiarity so im really unsure! At this point im debating just buying a new bag of soil and replanting the 3 bad ph plants. I noticed when i killed off my 2 males it was super easy to shake all that soil off, sure i would disturb the roots but im unsure of what else to do at this point.

To give everyone a more clear idea, when i started the grow it was in 1 gallon fabric pots using planet soil which worked great and i didnt really have any issues so i never checked pH (i may have a couple times just to be safe and everything must have looked good since i didnt make a note of anything). 1 month into VEG came i transfered from 1 gal to 3 gal fabric pots and used that new soil from lowes (the stick heavy one). I had a little bit of planet soil left so i used it for plant #1 and finished it off (was out of that soil now), however for the reamining 5 plants i used the new soil, 2 of which ended up being male and were tossed which leaves 3 plants still using that stick heavy soil and those are the 3 with too high pH. Its clearly noticeable which plant is perfectly healthy (plant #1 with planet soil, perfect pH runoff and nice and green. Its clear to see its growing slightly faster and better than its 2 sisters of same strain).

At this point since i cant figure out what that soil was, suggestions? Could i knock off as much soil as possible and place into my RDWC system or would that just harm the roots from being disturbed too much? Same question for replanting/shaking off all old soil and putting in new soil.

I also want to add, this is my very last soil grow (its only my 2nd soil grow lol), my new RDWC system is already here and ready for the next grow when this soil one is over.
 
Calvados said:
I live in the UK. Any suggestions for an organic mix, and what would you suggest as resource material for a novice? Thanks for your posts by the by. I think your points are compelling.
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My suggestion would always be CC’s mix, simply because I know there’s a ton of info and support if you ever run into a problem, it’s tried and proven....however coming from the U.K you could run into 1 problem, I’m not sure if you’re able to source sphagnum peat moss in Europe, and I’m not sure what a replacement for it could be

My greatest source of info has been a member here Bobrown14...his journals full of info and he’s very helpful...to date I think Teaming with Microbes has been the most helpful book in giving an understanding of how the soil food web works....there’s also a ton of info online at various forums if you google “no-till cannabis”

Endless amounts of info available out there, I continue to learn more every day still :Namaste:

Stunned said:
oh, and guys.... don't regurgitate your waste back into the plant....
throw it away
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That’s right...because if you regurgitate it back into your plant it’ll cause problems...instead just throw it away so it can cause problems for a living eco-system somewhere else “out of sight, out of mind”

I think this is what separates organic from synthetic...is that organic thinking transcends beyond “what is better for me” to “what is better”
 
I'd re-pot them in other soil. Trying to run 2 systems side by side doesn't sound like a good idea. You will shock them, but they will recover in a few days. I did something similar on my first grow (planted in soil with slow release nutrients). I left one just to see what would happen. It's a lot easier to deal with problems when you control the variables.
 
vyserage said:
Thank you for noticing lol, i've been going over this in my head the last couple days (organic? but its just plain soil right? I didnt buy any bags with the word organic on it) so i've not replied as of yet cause i've been lazy lol. After this last feeding a couple days ago it still looks the same so it hasnt worsened which is good but im sure the pH will still be in the 7.0 to 7.3 range.

I cant even find the bag that triggers familiarity so im really unsure! At this point im debating just buying a new bag of soil and replanting the 3 bad ph plants. I noticed when i killed off my 2 males it was super easy to shake all that soil off, sure i would disturb the roots but im unsure of what else to do at this point.

To give everyone a more clear idea, when i started the grow it was in 1 gallon fabric pots using planet soil which worked great and i didnt really have any issues so i never checked pH (i may have a couple times just to be safe and everything must have looked good since i didnt make a note of anything). 1 month into VEG came i transfered from 1 gal to 3 gal fabric pots and used that new soil from lowes (the stick heavy one). I had a little bit of planet soil left so i used it for plant #1 and finished it off (was out of that soil now), however for the reamining 5 plants i used the new soil, 2 of which ended up being male and were tossed which leaves 3 plants still using that stick heavy soil and those are the 3 with too high pH. Its clearly noticeable which plant is perfectly healthy (plant #1 with planet soil, perfect pH runoff and nice and green. Its clear to see its growing slightly faster and better than its 2 sisters of same strain).

At this point since i cant figure out what that soil was, suggestions? Could i knock off as much soil as possible and place into my RDWC system or would that just harm the roots from being disturbed too much? Same question for replanting/shaking off all old soil and putting in new soil.

I also want to add, this is my very last soil grow (its only my 2nd soil grow lol), my new RDWC system is already here and ready for the next grow when this soil one is over.
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Don't trust the run-off method of testing PH in a soil situation...I haven't actually seen anything to suggest it's accurate. Google "soil slurry test" to get an accurate means of measuring your PH in soil.....it's a very simple method, in fact easier than run-off....it's used by labs/Uni's as their means for testing PH. :Namaste:
 
Calvados said:
I'd re-pot them in other soil. Trying to run 2 systems side by side doesn't sound like a good idea. You will shock them, but they will recover in a few days. I did something similar on my first grow (planted in soil with slow release nutrients). I left one just to see what would happen. It's a lot easier to deal with problems when you control the variables.
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2 systems? As in 2 different soils in 1 pot? Ya that wasnt my greatest idea but i didnt wanna waste the last of my planet soil haha. Rookie mistake. So repotting can easily be done but should i wait until the final stretch is over? Also, is it possible to just shake off as much soil as possible and place into RDWC? I beat the shit outta my 2 males to look at roots and all the soil came off except a bit deeper in, then i washed the roots to get a bit more soil off and got a damn good look at the entire root system, how bad would that kinda shock be?

GodOfPot said:
Don't trust the run-off method of testing PH in a soil situation...I haven't actually seen anything to suggest it's accurate. Google "soil slurry test" to get an accurate means of measuring your PH in soil.....it's a very simple method, in fact easier than run-off....it's used by labs/Uni's as their means for testing PH. :Namaste:
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Interesting, ill definitely look up that term and way to check pH! Thanks for that.

Thanks everyone for the excellent answers! I greatly appreciate it!
 
So yeah, that looks like a deficiency of some sort. Probably a result of the PH locking out nutrients. Just to be clear you ran 3 x the volume of water PH at ?? or lower through the soil to flush it and you are still getting PH over 7?
 
Calvados said:
RDWC and soil. 2 methods.
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RDWC and soil.....2 methods for sure, but aren't you kinda paranoid about sending sand/soil particles through your brand new system? @vyserage your girls are in flower? Id knock them off and go with something controllable til this grow ends. Take what you've learned as experience and move onto your RDWC system. If you wanna see 2 kick ass RDWC systems, check out @Rider509 as well as @Scrogdawg......those are things of beauty!
 
Calvados said:
So yeah, that looks like a deficiency of some sort. Probably a result of the PH locking out nutrients. Just to be clear you ran 3 x the volume of water PH at ?? or lower through the soil to flush it and you are still getting PH over 7?
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I ran quite a bit of water through each of the 3 plants in question back when i flushed them. I kept flushing them with 6.0 water until the ph's runoff started reading 6.5' ish range. im pretty confident i flushed 9+ gallons of water in each one cause i had lost count and stopped counting lol. I should also add i wasnt able to let tap water sit out for 24-48 hrs as i didnt have enough containers to hold the amount of water used to flush so i just used the tap water pH'd at 6.0. So it was good for that time but just 8 days later and plants were back up to lowest being 6.9 of the 3, and other 2 above 7.0

I'm keeping a close eye on them right now and figure ill have to flush them again and see what happens
 
MrFortwenty said:
Again, I would worry about the PH your putting in the soil and not so much on whats coming out.
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My healthy plant is coming out 6.5 pH and clearly shows dominance over the others in color and growth whereas the other's that have way too high pH runoff show clear signs of deficiency. That experience yells to me that its something to pay attention to. Although after this grow ill be in dwc so soil wont be an issue anymore haha.

Guy Cavallero said:
RDWC and soil.....2 methods for sure, but aren't you kinda paranoid about sending sand/soil particles through your brand new system? @vyserage your girls are in flower? Id knock them off and go with something controllable til this grow ends. Take what you've learned as experience and move onto your RDWC system. If you wanna see 2 kick ass RDWC systems, check out @Rider509 as well as @Scrogdawg......those are things of beauty!
Click to expand...

ya you make a valid point, i shouldnt get dirt in my new system haha. knock them off, what do you mean by that? To me that means kill them off and start over, but that contradicts "go with something controllable til this grow ends" so im unsure haha. I'm definitely ready for my RDWC system, cant wait to finish this grow and start using it.
 
vyserage said:
My healthy plant is coming out 6.5 pH and clearly shows dominance over the others in color and growth whereas the other's that have way too high pH runoff show clear signs of deficiency. That experience yells to me that its something to pay attention to. Although after this grow ill be in dwc so soil wont be an issue anymore haha.



ya you make a valid point, i shouldnt get dirt in my new system haha. knock them off, what do you mean by that? To me that means kill them off and start over, but that contradicts "go with something controllable til this grow ends" so im unsure haha. I'm definitely ready for my RDWC system, cant wait to finish this grow and start using it.
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I moreso meant knock off any crappy soil and transplant. Sure there will be some initial shock but by comparison to having to screw with it daily. Throw some Azos in the soil.....DONE,lol. Surely you could grab a bale/bag of Promix hp or M?
 
Some new information guys! I noticed tonight when i got off work i still did have that bag of soil left over outside under car port! Turns out, it is organic D:

I know nothing about organic, with this new info, how should i go about it?

Also keep in mind those 3 plants have half planet soil (1 gallon pot of soil worth) and 2 gallons of that organic stuff surrounding the 1 gallon planet soil.
20180307_024432.jpg

20180307_024432.jpg


20180307_024440.jpg

20180307_024440.jpg

 
Even though the source of that soils must be organic in order to be Omri listed, it looks like it's had some sort of amendments added to it hence the large " + " on the left side of the bag. Not to mention the fact that it is called "Amend"... That leads me to believe that there is something in it other than garden soil? Maybe Im grasping here but something is causing your dilemma.....
 
I don’t think that soil would cause you any problems on it’s own, but it also won’t do anything for you

That soil has nutrients available in the form of organic matter...to become available nutrients for the plant it relies on the microbiology to break down the OM into nutrients

So if you don’t have a microbe population to break it down it won’t supply any nutrients for your plants, basically it’s just acting as a filler in your pot not really doing anything
 

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