What's new
By:
GrowWeedEasy.com
You're browsing as a guest. Sign up to join the conversation, share your grows, and get help from thousands of fellow growers — it's free and takes less than a minute.

SOIL soil PH/run off 5.1

L

lifelong

New member
i have been correcting our rainwater ph to 6.9 all season and the girls have started showing distress. on a hunch i flushed the soil with 8.1 ph water from the rain tote last evening. the run off was 5.1ph. i have been feeding on the low end and cal mag also again on the low end. The same thing happened last year but we weren't as attentive to the ph. i suspect the rain water has little to no buffer and as a result ph can fluctuate like in a koi pond. does anyone have knowledge of a buffer (not for koi ponds) that can be added? would a good flushing 2 or 3 time a season be in order? for now i will keep watering at an elevated ph and monitor the run off. thanks every one and look forward to finding out more about the process
 
Rain water is not buffered. Consistent watering at pH 6.9 will cause problems. What kind of soil are you using? You flushed with 8.1 pH water - how did the plants react? Are they in shock? Flushing is traumatic, avoid when possible. It seems you have a severe pH imbalance.
 
Morning of day 3 after watering Strawberry field soil (second time) with the 8.1 water (flush was kind of an over statement only about a quart ran out of 7.5 gal pot). hard to tell this soon if they are doing better or not, I'm leaning towards maybe. I had a cup of water (PH8.2) tested the run off (evening day 2 it was 6.1 I placed the pen back into the cup and just what was left on the pin changed the cup of water to 7.6 This should give you and idea how fragile the PH is and why i would like to figure out how to buffer it. I am in central Oklahoma growing in a polycarb greenhouse 12X20 this year we have 12 plants Acapulco gold, Pinchers creek, Hawaiian snow, Snoop dog and Granddaddy purple
 
Morning day 5 they seem to be doing better, much less yellowing like 1 leaf per plant instead of 5 per plant. i picked up a bag of garden lime and will run it through a ball mill to grind it to a fine powder and add to them.
This after noon i will be taking 2 water samples (same amount) add a given amount of lime to 1 and and nothing to the other. after the lime has dissolved and settled I will add to each sample drop by drop ph up or down (maybe do the test 2 times 1 with up and 1 with down) and check the "rate of change" . this should answer the question "is lime a buffer or does it just raise PH"
I still don't understand why i water at 6.9 and soil drops to 5.1 Logic tells me, there is a ph value of the water going in that will maintain soil ph in the 6.2 to 6.9 range and apparently it its over 6.9. I am a scientific lab kind of person and will figure this out before I die, heck I figured out how to melt and cast iron in the back yard and did it on the first try.
 
Purpose: Test of buffering affect lime has on rain water.
Procedure: Two 60 mL samples of water were taken, one sample had 1 Gr of garden lime added and mixed, the sample with lime PH went up from 8.2 to 9.0 while the water only remained at 8.2. Next one drop of PH down was added to each sample. The lime sample PH dropped 2.7 to 6.3, the water only dropped 3.8 to 4.4. Lastly one drop of PH up was added to each sample, The with lime sample went up .5 to 6.8 and water only went up 1.6 to 6.0.
Conclusion: While lime will raise PH of water (as advertised) it may well act as a buffer to resist fluctuations in PH as indicated by the data.
 
Lime is a good choice, wood ash added to the soil is also good, these combined with pelleted sulfur will buffer the soil PH. Also Potash can be used as a PH up, and feed the flowers at the same time.
 
Although the run off is still low about 5.7 they are looking much better the buds are growing at an explosive rate and the yellowing has almost stopped. from what i have seen in the last week and a half our 4 pound yield last year would have been doubled had I corrected it then.
I dissolved .8Lb of lime in water and used that amount on 13 plants PH was 9.1 and all water has been 8.2. now if I can figure out how to keep it from going low in the first place that would be good but 12 ft tall plants in a 8 ft greenhouse has it's own set of problems. Over the winter i am going to lower the floor 16 inches and raise the roof 8 with concrete blocks, or jack the entire house up and add 2 feet to the walls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top