Greenethumb42
New Member
I am using fox farm grow big and fox fram big bloom I mixed my mutes and my ph was 6.7 and the run off was 6.4...is that a good ph to run
What is a good pH?
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Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
I am using fox farm grow big and fox fram big bloom I mixed my mutes and my ph was 6.7 and the run off was 6.4...is that a good ph to run
no, you are doing it all wrong... sorry. Pay no attention to run off. It is meaningless. I can't understand why so many people think it is so important... did someone write an article saying it was?
Run off is the result of your water percolating through all the soil and picking up any broken down organics that can ride along... of course it is lower. It has nothing to do with the pH in that container though.
Adjust your pH of every fluid you give your plant, whether it is water or nutes mixed with water, to 6.5 ... every time. That is how to do it... the soil follows the water and for that moment, the soil is also at 6.5, before it begins to drift upward. With you hitting the soil at 6.7, you are one tenth of a point away from being out of range and within hours you will have drifted out of the range of several important nutrients. Sorry, but this is not a good plan.
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Greenethumb42
New Member
Thank you and I will make sure i get it at 6.5...and you check it after you put the mutes in correct??
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
yes, the nutes will typically pull your water way down... nutes are acidic... Typically when adjusting your water you will have to adjust down, and with nutes added, you have to adjust up.
fanleaf
Well-Known Member
Runoff pH testing is done by MANY professional growers and some of them among the best growers in the world. There is plenty of valuable information in runoff pH.
pontiacman
Well-Known Member
I use fox farm and i run mine at 6.0 to 6.4. They do great. I dont check runoff.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
if you are building your own soils and are aiming at producing a mix that can buffer pH at a certain level, then runoff pH is important. Most beginning growers of weeds however are not going to be concerned about how much dolomite to add, or adjusting the amount of sphagnum to bring the mix to the proper acidic level or whatever else the scientists work on when they design soils for flow through, retention and pH.... they are just going to buy an already made soil and try to use it. Most of these soils work just fine, just adding 6.5 pH water to them, and to the typical layman, runoff pH is meaningless, or at least less than helpful... it confuses new growers like the OP who think that they must adjust on the front end to get this reading to where they think it should be.
For me, the pH drift rate is the most important factor in a designer soil. FoxFarm soils typically have a large drift rate, and I too found that when using Happy Frog and Ocean Forest, adjusting the pH to 6.3, right at the low end, worked best for me.
For me, the pH drift rate is the most important factor in a designer soil. FoxFarm soils typically have a large drift rate, and I too found that when using Happy Frog and Ocean Forest, adjusting the pH to 6.3, right at the low end, worked best for me.
fanleaf
Well-Known Member
I think what can also confuse new growers is suggesting that it's useless to watch runoff if using a pre-made soil. It's further confusing to add that as long as they pH to 6.5 the soil will always buffer correctly if using a quality pre-made soil...
There are many ways that a pre-made soil will fail buffering even if what goes in is pH'ed to 6.5 every time. One of the biggest issues new growers have is over watering their plants right? Well, over watering a good pre-made soil can easily cause huge pH issues even when watering at 6.5. You can saturate the Peat moss and cause it to deteriorate and decay just like you can drown your roots making the soil very very acidic. Testing runoff pH will let you know about issues like that quickly.
Ever seen one of the most mentioned soils on this site drop into the high 4's to low 5's, over 2 whole pH points with nothing but pH'ed water going in? I have, and for those who have seen the same will say runoff is valuable. Hell, any and all info you can get is valuable. There is no such thing as useless info.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
fanleaf, of course you are correct, but you are talking about some very advanced techniques and rare situations where measuring runoff pH might be useful to someone. Most people coming to forums such as this are not advanced growers and just need to figure out basics, and I would submit that a large number of these new gardeners who are convinced that runoff numbers are meaningful, try to compensate and end up using the wrong pH for their input fluids. I also will say that in my limited time growing weeds in many different commercial soils, I have never had problems with a soil dropping into the acidic... but then again I have never been tempted to use a lot of peat in my grows either. I also have never had a need to measure my runoff pH... and if I ever got in trouble like that, a good flush with properly pH'ed water would most likely clear up the problem.
While technically you are right, I write for the new grower of weeds... and I maintain that for them, runoff pH is mostly meaningless and confusing.
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Greenethumb42
New Member
Another question when you use soil can you mix soil with growing medium or would it be better to be straight soil...I am growing in containers...5 gal pucket
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
depends on the soil Greenthumb42... I build my own soils and do not add extra perlite or vermiculite, wanting to get the most actual soil and amendments that I can in there. Sometimes though, soils can be prone to compaction, making it hard for the roots to grow, and hard to get oxygen down where it is needed. In those cases, many people add perlite to make the soil more airy and others add vermiculite to make the soil retain more water.
if you are talking about mixing soil and soilless mediums, this has always seemed a little silly to me... but some people make that work too... and others get in big trouble due to the funny pH requirements this presents. I can't see me doing such a thing.
That said, there really is no rule about this... and everyone is pretty much on their own to experiment and see what works for them.
