PH & Soil Growing

[captainkirk]

I use happy frog soil and want to know , do you ph the water before feeding even if the soil has PH correction in it ?
I have tested water run off at 7 weeks into flower and it is around 7.1
What is your experience with soil and Ph ? I would like to know how opinions in the area

 

[Jedthedog]

re: PH & Soil Growing

Soil PH ... If your runoff is 7.1 you are fine . You do want to PH the water after you have added your nutes to about 6.2 . Usually anywhere between 6 - 7 you are good .

 

[The rooster]

Ph and Soil Growing

I use happy frog soil and want to know , do you ph the water before feeding even if the soil has PH correction in it ?
I have tested water run off at 7 weeks into flower and it is around 7.1
What is your experience with soil and Ph ? I would like to know how opinions in the area

Hey man glad to see your looking at ph as an area of importance as in my opinion soil ph is more important that nutrients because if the ph isn't correct then the roots won't even taken certain nutes up.

With that said your soil medium is fine. Happy frog is okay stuff. Dolomite lime is key. It will stabilize soils ph.
My soil mix is like this
2 gallons promix
1 gallon fox farm oceans forest
3 tablespoons dolomite lime
2 tablespoons bone meal (organic phosphorus for extra weight boost)
3 tablespoons garden tone (little bit of everything that keeps them charging in between feedings)
2 tablespoons kelp meal (added potas)
1 tablespoons myko's (micronutrients for root development)

I mix all this up and it will give me 3 gallons of soil. Then I mix another 3 on top of the previous 3 and so on. I do 3 gallons at a time. Because anymore becomes hard to stir around by hand in my big tote.

Then I feed a shit load of nutes throughout my grow cycle. The sweet dolomite lime will stabilize ph in your soil so you can hit them hard with nutes without getting lockout. If you are going to hit them hard do it before week 5 and 6 so you can use the remaining weeks to scale back your nutes and use up the remaining stuff that has stored in your soil.

Good luck man

Also i should mention ph'ing water is pointless in a soil based grow. Which is why it's so important to get the ph of the soil correct. The soil is the medium and the medium absorbs the water. The medium has a ph than although can fluctuate it is very hard to do so. So even when you ph water to 8.0 if you put it in a soil whose ph is 6.5 the result will be a runoff of 6.5 because the water has passed through a medium of greater volume.

In hydro and coco grows the roots are sitting essentially in the medium of water. Which is why you have to correct the ph in your hydro and coco grows. But with soil go ahead and give them straight water skip the added steps of adding ph up and down and using a meter. It's all for nothing my friend. Just make sure you prep your soil in the beginning of your grow and you will hit few if any problems

 

[Marzbadrock]

re: PH & Soil Growing

Hey man glad to see your looking at ph as an area of importance as in my opinion soil ph is more important that nutrients because if the ph isn't correct then the roots won't even taken certain nutes up.

With that said your soil medium is fine. Happy frog is okay stuff. Dolomite lime is key. It will stabilize soils ph.
My soil mix is like this
2 gallons promix
1 gallon fox farm oceans forest
3 tablespoons dolomite lime
2 tablespoons bone meal (organic phosphorus for extra weight boost)
3 tablespoons garden tone (little bit of everything that keeps them charging in between feedings)
2 tablespoons kelp meal (added potas)
1 tablespoons myko's (micronutrients for root development)

I mix all this up and it will give me 3 gallons of soil. Then I mix another 3 on top of the previous 3 and so on. I do 3 gallons at a time. Because anymore becomes hard to stir around by hand in my big tote.

Then I feed a shit load of nutes throughout my grow cycle. The sweet dolomite lime will stabilize ph in your soil so you can hit them hard with nutes without getting lockout. If you are going to hit them hard do it before week 5 and 6 so you can use the remaining weeks to scale back your nutes and use up the remaining stuff that has stored in your soil.

Good luck man

Also i should mention ph'ing water is pointless in a soil based grow. Which is why it's so important to get the ph of the soil correct. The soil is the medium and the medium absorbs the water. The medium has a ph than although can fluctuate it is very hard to do so. So even when you ph water to 8.0 if you put it in a soil whose ph is 6.5 the result will be a runoff of 6.5 because the water has passed through a medium of greater volume.

In hydro and coco grows the roots are sitting essentially in the medium of water. Which is why you have to correct the ph in your hydro and coco grows. But with soil go ahead and give them straight water skip the added steps of adding ph up and down and using a meter. It's all for nothing my friend. Just make sure you prep your soil in the beginning of your grow and you will hit few if any problems

Yes! Finally someone that gets it!

 

[The rooster]

re: PH & Soil Growing

Yes! Finally someone that gets it!

Lol it took a while bro lol

 

[Marzbadrock]

re: PH & Soil Growing

It frustrates me when I see people ph their water n feed using organic soil. If ya wanna ph and use synthetic nutes then grow hydro, hempy, coco....

 

[Kip22]

It frustrates me when I see people ph their water n feed using organic soil. If ya wanna ph and use synthetic nutes then grow hydro, hempy, coco....

I disagree. That is one of the easiest most reliable ways to get a decent harvest for a noob. I had all kinds of issues starting out and I finally settled on 3 gallons pro mix, 1 gallon organic compost, and a 3 tablespoons of lime. I use the flora trio for nutes and ph to about 6.5 with zero issues. Running straight organic it a heck of a lot trickier and hydro even more so. Some guys run just the pro mix herb and veg which is simpler but I doubt you'd get the yield without extra nutes.

 

[Marzbadrock]

To all their own. For myself using ocean Forrest or happy frog and nature's nectar nitro, phosphorus and potassium without ph I've had by far the best success. No deficiency and pulling over 2 lbs on a 1000w .

 

[TipsyTrichome]

Good soil should not need to be PH'd, in fact it can ruin the soil bacteria which feed on the soil and release its nutrients for the plant to use. It is this bacteria which controls the PH to one in which it and the plant thrives. Soilless hydro on the other hand has no such bacteria so the PH is not controlled any other way then by the grower. Unless you have very bad soil, PH should not be causing any problems and changing the PH will be futile.

 

[The rooster]

PH & Soil Growing

Good soil should not need to be PH'd, in fact it can ruin the soil bacteria which feed on the soil and release its nutrients for the plant to use. It is this bacteria which controls the PH to one in which it and the plant thrives. Soilless hydro on the other hand has no such bacteria so the PH is not controlled any other way then by the grower. Unless you have very bad soil, PH should not be causing any problems and changing the PH will be futile.

I would absolutely beg to differ!


I've heard a lot of funny things but not correcting soil ph is crazy. Lol have you ever farmed anything?

 

[The rooster]

You don't know what your talking about kid.

 

[TipsyTrichome]

Of course I have farmed, I have a MSc in Green Leaf Science . I can assure you if you have good soil you should not have to mess with PH.

 

[TipsyTrichome]

PH & Soil Growing

Of course I have farmed, I have a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Green Leaf Sciences, I can assure you if you have to correct soil PH you are using the wrong soil to grow cannabis.

 

[spintowin]

So use RO water and never ph? what if runoff is out of optimal range? I'm so confused. I thought it was crucial to ph your water...* scratching head

 

[The rooster]

So use RO water and never ph? what if runoff is out of optimal range? I'm so confused. I thought it was crucial to ph your water...* scratching head

We are talking about 2 different ph's.

If you are growing in hydro or coco then yes it is the utmost important to ph your water. But in a soil grow your medium maintains its own ph value. The ph value of the soil will not be affected by a changing ph of the water value. Meaning if your ph of your soil is 6.5 you can dump 20 gallons of water through it with an initial ph of 8.0 and the resulting run off will be 6.5.
When your roots are sitting in water the water needs to have an accurate ph. But what happens in a soil grow is you water and then the soil absorbs the moisture and the ph of the water automatically adjusts to that of the medium because the medium is of a greater value and harder to change than the water. So the waters ph becomes inferior and it just conforms to whatever the soils ph value is.

You do not need to ph your water in a soil based grow at all. You do not want to use RO water either. In a soil grow you are perfectly fine just adding nutrients to your water.
With that said I wouldn't recommend using water that's way out of ph however it doesn't really matter.

The soils ph is the important part in a soil grow. Not the water. To change a soils ph you can do it with either dolomite lime, silver, wood ash. There may be a couple other ways but I've found that dolomite lime is the easiest way and keeps it right where you want it.

 

[The rooster]

Re: PH & Soil Growing

Of course I have farmed, I have a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Green Leaf Sciences, I can assure you if you have to correct soil PH you are using the wrong soil to grow cannabis.

Please show me your soil and plants almighty one.

Also let me know how you plan on making a super soil without changing the ph value.
Like I said before you don't know what your talking about.
One of those guys with a week on the forum and 2 years in a college class trying to tell the rest of us who live on experience and knowledge of others that we're all doing it wrong lol. Please let's see work of yours. Don't talk about it be about it.

 

[The rooster]

Dude must think there's a whole yard full of perfect soil out back of everyone's house with the perfect nutrients and ph. Lol

You do know that some people have to add multiple ingredients to make a ready to go soil mix right? We don't all have 20 year old compost piles that have burned up and degraded into a nutrient rich stabilized soil. Lol

 

[Jfault20]

Dude must think there's a whole yard full of perfect soil out back of everyone's house with the perfect nutrients and ph. Lol

You do know that some people have to add multiple ingredients to make a ready to go soil mix right? We don't all have 20 year old compost piles that have burned up and degraded into a nutrient rich stabilized soil. Lol

When or where would you add the dolemite lime

 

[The rooster]

When or where would you add the dolemite lime

When would be before transplanting. The lime would go into the soil mix and then mix it all up. Plant in it afterwards. Lime is like preventative maintenance. If you use it your chances of running into problems pretty much turns into 2% if you don't use it your chances of wishing you had it is about 80%

Once your soil ph is wrong it's too late to correct for that grow. You can chase ph problems in soil with expensive products if you want. But success will be limited. Best to just add the lime pre grow and be set for the duration.

 

[Jfault20]

When would be before transplanting. The lime would go into the soil mix and then mix it all up. Plant in it afterwards. Lime is like preventative maintenance. If you use it your chances of running into problems pretty much turns into 2% if you don't use it your chances of wishing you had it is about 80%

Once your soil ph is wrong it's too late to correct for that grow. You can chase ph problems in soil with expensive products if you want. But success will be limited. Best to just add the lime pre grow and be set for the duration.

I run into problems with soil often and it appears alot of it has to with my ph but it sounds like im always chasing the problem vs preventing it... How much would be sufficient for just a soil and dolemite mix