All foliar sprays should pH at 5.7
Ahoi, Rootsruler! Ah! Finally! THANK YOU! A serious answer! (Even though the rest has been fun and interesting.)
Yes, what is your source for that info, that ALL foliar sprays should pH at 5.7? And that's a serious question, please. This was my genuine original question, and I am REALLY wanting to learn and know.
I am a first-time grower - started near the end of April this year (April being the second month of Autumn in my part of the world - we're almost through the worst of winter now - officialy 11 days into Spring, even though it's still cold). So pretty much everything has been a case of research, trial and error, trial and error, and slowly making progress in the right direction.
And my first main big problem has been powdery mildew (PM). And what doesn't help in my country is that we have something called Load Shedding, where we have times during the day and night, never the same times each 24-hour cycle, where our power is off for 2 (and sometimes 4) hours at a time, two or three times per day. Yes, fun and games. And I'm a small-scale home-grower on a small budget - no big power-backup systems for me. So when the power goes off, my inline fans, ciculation fans, heaters and lights all go off.
I bought LED rechargable lanterns to stand in for my lights, butt my first errir was neglecting to consider or realise that I desperately also needed some kind of backup circulation fans for my tents during these power-out times. So when my HPS and MH lights and inline fans are off my humidty shoots right up, temperatures drop, and there's no extraction. I eventually clicked and made a plan with USB fans to run off the rechargeable lantern ports, so thatt has helped (and have rechargeable oscillating fans coming soon) but I am still fighting the PM.
I tried two other products before this current one. The first one wasn't strong enough, the second didn't do a really good job, even though it gets such good reviews and is one most commonly used by so many gardeners and growers, and then I stumbled upon this latest product, that I am so happy with, and my ladies seem to love it, and it does a really good job with the PM, but would just like to make sure I'm using it right to get optimum performance from it and so it doesn't possibly hurt or damage my plants by using it incorreclty.
Which is why I am so surprised that the label (or website) doesn't mention what to pH it at. So one can, I suppose, only presume to pH one's water to what one would maybe pH one's irrigation water to , add the product and then use as it comes out? Or what? I could go in circles with what one's supposed to presume one should do.
For example, when I was trying potassium bicarbonate and an emulsifying, surfacant agent, it shot the pH of my water up to +-8.3. I was most alarmed, immediately got on the line with my grow-shop dude, who told me, no, it needs to be at that high of a pH for it to work, it needs to change the pH on the surface of the leaves to kill the PM, and to leave it like that and use! And hey, my plants were okay with it! So that was interesting.
Then, with another product, my pH came out at 3.8, so I tried it on just one plant, and hey, my plants were okay with that. So. Interesting.
When I used the All Per Plus last, the recent batch I made of it, I pH'd it to 6.5, just to use a sort of common-ground number, and the plants were happy. So, well, ya. I'd just like to know what it works its best at, you know.
I have read that the leaves absorb and assimilate different nutrients better at certain pH's and for a pesticide or fungicide at an even different pH. (And every site or article or forum answer by a grower says something slightly different - or vastly different. Which confuses matters immensely.)
So wondered what it should be for a product that contains essential oils. That's all.
I wonder why the manufacturer of this particular product doesn't state what it should be? We all know the effects of wrong pH on our plants, which is why we go to so much trouble to pH our irrigation or nutrient waters.
The guy at my grow shop didn't know regarding the All Per Plus, and also said he'd write to the supplier to ask, but in the meantime he said he would suppose that the essential oils would do their work regardless of the pH, so at the most just to pH it to neutral, 7 (which is what Bluey ending up also saying in one of his last comments in this thread) and before adding the product, which brings it down by about 1.0, which would make it about 6. So. Hmm. I don't know. I'd love to know! Feel desperate to know!
Oh well, hey ho, I gotta go.
Love and light, peace out
Best wishes and kind regards to all
Key Lime Pie