Why is the pH coming out of my pots 5 when I pH adjust my water and nutes at 6.5?

[Jonny Fly]

The soil I use is supposed to be buffered between 6.5 and 7.0 but when I test the water coming out of the bottom of the pot it is often 5.0. I adjust the water and nutes going in to 6.5. Is this an issue I need to be concerned with?

 

[TorturedSoul]

No, most likely not. Especially since you are doing the "organic" thing. That's not how you check the pH of soil, anyway. Do a web-search for:

soil ph slurry test

 

[bobrown14]

Test your water input for pH that's about the best you can do.
Soil pH should be tested in a lab in laboratory conditions.

Slurry tests are not very accurate either. Remember the difference between 5pH and 6pH is 10x.
So a small amount of variation could be a huge amount of pH difference.

Water quality is way more important than the pH. Your water pH can be anything between 5-7pH and you will be fine. Once you go outside that range, over time you will have a problem with lockouts.

If you using fertilizer - read the label they all say how to adjust pH and they are all different.

When you say your soil is supposed to be buffered between 6.5pH-7pH what that means is they have the soil mix tested in a lab and that is the soil pH between 6.5pH - 7pH. Which is perfect so now you know your soil is good. Now you can concentrate on getting your watering right.

Nothing coming out of the btm of the pot is going to tell you anything other than maybe you're over watering and/or you dont have enough soil.