Y’all all sound really smarter than I does!
Do we need to pH adjust our nutrient solutions?
- Thread starter InTheShed
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Did he, or you, happen to talk about what is better N for the plant? Or does it really make a difference when nute hunting?
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- #63
He didn't make recommendations like that. I'm sure it's different from species to species as well. He was strictly talking about what makes substrate pH rise or fall over time.
Thanks. I was curious and I guess I need to read up about about the differences of ammonium or nitrate based to understand a little more what is going on.
I know I’ve read that the different forms do different things and both are required, for all plants, not sure in what ratio it at what time tho.
Thanks Amy..that's a step in the right direction for me as I didn't even know both played a part. I assumed most nute manufacturers used one method (if that's the correct term) or the other.
I’m sure that’s right
I’m not sure they have to both play a part, but I know they can (so maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘required’ earlier). One is more readily available and the other requires certain things in place for availability but is then much more efficient for the plants’ purposes. I can’t remember which is which tho. I think it’s the nitrate form that is the less easily available one that is more efficient - but don’t quote me on that.
We had discussions on the correct way to check the pH of soil or soil-less medium (none involved checking our nute runoff). I'll post the various methods he sent me in a different thread and post a link here. I don't want to distract from the info above!
Are we ready now?
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- #69
Soon, I'm working on a spreadsheet project first. Oh, and for some reason I had work today!
Thanks Shed! 
You know my opinion lol.....it's not for me till I get better at growing. No matter what the science.
You know my opinion lol.....it's not for me till I get better at growing. No matter what the science.
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- #71
Don't sweat it Lowded, you're in coco, which is considered hydro here.
I believe that the company that makes MSU Orchid Fertilizer will custom blend fertilizers based on medium and water samples you provide them, but that's for like big green house type volume of fertilizer.
There's 5 article links at the bottom of THIS PAGE that speak to a lot of what has been discussed. Good reading but somewhat technical. I'd do a better job on the links but I'm training someone and busy at work.
Outrageous!
Interesting!
high-Brix hobby gardening is the same in that it’s taking a system of principles and measurements designed for large scale agriculture and applying it to hobby growing. That could surely be done with this company. Take a lot of R&D to work out what the balance needs to be at each stage of a cannabis grow... but it’s not impossible. The general science is already there - Thread starter
- #75
IKR!
How ya doin', lol? I'm going to do something I rarely do and post a reply after reading ONLY the first post (it's late and if I start thinking, I'll be up all night
) - but I'll read the remainder of the thread in the next day or three, when I get time.What you posted in post #1 - insofar as (I think) I understand it - agrees with other things that I have read (insofar as I think I understood them). I think everyone has heard or read something like "soil has buffers."
Yeah, municipal water quality reports (everyone who pays a water bill should get one of these once a year or so) sometimes mention this. They don't always mention pH
.I knew that stuff was closer to a hydroponic media than it was to actual soil, lol. Well, some of it. Turns out they have a range of products, and some seem to be... closer to soil than others. (If I'm not mistaken - which is certainly a possibility here.)
At that point, did you find yourself thinking, "But alkaline water has a high pH...?"
Some of this stuff appears to be counterintuitive . At least it does to me. Especially when it's past my bedtime.
Who was it that did the "electroshock therapy" plant experiment a while back, Emilya? I wonder if any positive results that she might have experienced could have been chalked up to the process helping out a plant that happened to be in a less than perfect environment? (NOTE: A less than perfect environment... can still be pretty good; I am not trying to infer that it was bad.)
Well, a lawyer might, if you asked him, "Is it necessary to put a coat on before venturing outside when it's below 32°F?" say, "No." After all, lol, you wouldn't have been asking if it is a good idea to do so, or whether you might eventually regret not doing so.
I don't know if that's the same mindset that he answered your question from, though. We add lime to soil if that soil is too acidic (for example), but I don't know if we then proceed to add (in the process of feeding / watering) stuff that has a (too) low pH for the next several weeks... if we are, by doing so, "using up that lime." I'm just way too ignorant to know one way or the other, as you can no doubt tell by the general wording of this post. I have grown in soil(ish) before, but I don't consider myself to be a "soil guy." Which is ironic, because I've been in a bit of a panic trying to buy some without having to call Guido the Knife's boss for one of his "special" loans
; I saw that Amazon had "FREE" shipping through the end of the month, so I hit their website to buy a 2 cubic foot bag of Fox Farm Happy Frog - and noticed that all their $13.50 bags are now suddenly $39.95 "for some reason." #@%&ing fraudsters, lol, that's like when a local grocery store (since gone out of business) used to jack the prices on its "sale" items (and quite a few other items, too) 25% immediately before their "10% off" sale circular showed up in the Sunday paper. But I digress.We had discussions on the correct way to check the pH of soil or soil-less medium (none involved checking our nute runoff
Did he happen to use the words "slurry test," lol? Because that's how I've always heard ( / read / stated / typed) one should test the pH of a soil(ish) substrate.
Interesting topic, and thank you for posting this thread. BtW, there was an article about pH, ions, et cetera some time ago in that advertisement that Advanced Nutrients publishes. I think the publication is called Maximum Yield. I don't remember the title of the article, but it has also been published on the Internet, so I've probably got it bookmarked. If I don't forget, I'll try to hunt it up when I return to properly read this thread. It might be an aid in understanding some of this stuff (or it might not, lol, since I cannot swear that I am correctly remembering what it was about).
Okay, I lied - I read the second post, too.
All the countless growers who never bothered to check the pH of anything throughout the history of growing cannabis and still managed to get a harvest from their efforts?
All the countless growers who never bothered to check the pH of anything throughout the history of growing cannabis and still managed to get a harvest from their efforts?
From the source provided by Farside:
“The primary problem associated with low alkalinity water is a tendency for substrate-pH to drop over time, which can cause micronutrient toxicity problems. Usually, low pH problems are a result of fertilizer selection. Fertilizers high in ammoniacal nitrogen are acidic, and without any alkalinity in the water to balance the reaction (resist lowering of pH), acidic fertilizers will tend to drive the substrate-pH down over time.”
“The primary problem associated with low alkalinity water is a tendency for substrate-pH to drop over time, which can cause micronutrient toxicity problems. Usually, low pH problems are a result of fertilizer selection. Fertilizers high in ammoniacal nitrogen are acidic, and without any alkalinity in the water to balance the reaction (resist lowering of pH), acidic fertilizers will tend to drive the substrate-pH down over time.”
When I was researching this topic heavily about a year ago, I noticed a lot of nute companies seem to balance the amout of Ammoniacal Nitrogen (drives pH down) with Nitrate Nitrogen (drives pH up) in a 1:3 ratio. It's probably not a coincidence that ratio seems to occur often, across several companies.
parnelli
Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the work on this research. It will help me determine a course of action to ensure my soil is within the correct pH range.
