Importance of "PH"

TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

Well-Known Member
I am sure this thread may cause someone's head to explode....Anyways, here we go. I notice something people have in common, when growing cannabis, that everyone refers to their PH of whatever medium they are using to grow in. It is proven that at different levels the plant uses and locks out certain nutrients. With all that being said, I have been growing for a little time now. While I may not have the years and experience of other growers around, I have my fair share of reading and learning from some of the best. I have had quite a few successful harvests now since I have been growing perpetually. Under my current growing conditions, I have on average veg my plants for 4 weeks then flip to flower. On average I am pulling at least 4 ounces per plant upwards to 6 ounces dried. To me this is fantastic considering I am running Mars-Hydro TSL-2000's. Now I know if I allowed the plants to veg even longer and trained correctly, I can pull even more per plant. Given the strain is at least at minimum an average yielder. Anyways, to the "PH" part of this....in every single one of my grows I have used Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil along with their trio of nutrients. I follow the same pattern when it comes to germination, seedlings, up-potting, watering habits & feeding schedules. If anything changed at all was the different way I topped and trained the plants. This all depended if the strain was more known for side branching and so on. In all the grows I also never once had a plant with a real problem. Maybe a leaf here and there on various plants but I always observed if the plant showed me signs if it needed more or less of something. Never once had a plant do me wrong yet. Is it because I am acting like a robot and just following a basic pattern with each grow? I do not and have never once did a PH test on a single thing on every single one of my grows. Maybe a dumb idea but what I am doing is working. I used to use a mountain spring to get water to feed and water my plants but once tried using my tap water to see if it would work and I had no problems so I started using that instead. I am just assuming that my tap water with my feeding schedule I am just being lucky to fall in the optimal ranges for soil growers?
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
You are not lucky. The soil itself is ph balanced. If you use very heavy nutrients it can throw off the ph for a time but if you dilute them properly it shouldn't be an issue. People get hung up on ph because they don't actually understand it. They think they need to adjust the water as in a soiless grow which does basically nothing helpful. If you just keep add back active organic materials like worm castings every so often and maybe add some D-lime once or twice a year you should never need to worry about ph falling too far out of range in a soil grow.
 
TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
You are not lucky. The soil itself is ph balanced. If you use very heavy nutrients it can throw off the ph for a time but if you dilute them properly it shouldn't be an issue. People get hung up on ph because they don't actually understand it. They think they need to adjust the water as in a soiless grow which does basically nothing helpful. If you just keep add back active organic materials like worm castings every so often and maybe add some D-lime once or twice a year you should never need to worry about ph falling too far out of range in a soil grow.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I just never understood why I never had an issue with ( knock on wood ) while it just seems to be a major issue for numerous amount of growers. I guess it all breaks down that it don't matter what you use as long as you use it right....
 
Chip Green

Chip Green

Well-Known Member
70's natureboy said:
That was my understanding but that was not my experience. To me it's just over-rated Pro Mix and needs nutes.
Click to expand...
It's notoriously inconsistent, I've had some that was way hotter than other batches.
Completely strain dependant as well I would imagine.
To be honest I don't use it anymore, I prefer Roots 707.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
There are way too many posts where someone is trying to adjust the pH of their soil because they tested the runoff and it wasn't where they thought it should be. Even when there is nothing wrong with the plants they start chasing runoff pH and end up screwing up their plants by dumping buckets of pH adjusted water through the soil in order to get the runoff pH to 6.5 or whatever target they're aiming for. They fail to understand that runoff pH from soil has nothing to do with what's going on at the roots of the plant.
 
TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

Well-Known Member
xtsho said:
There are way too many posts where someone is trying to adjust the pH of their soil because they tested the runoff and it wasn't where they thought it should be. Even when there is nothing wrong with the plants they start chasing runoff pH and end up screwing up their plants by dumping buckets of pH adjusted water through the soil in order to get the runoff pH to 6.5 or whatever target they're aiming for. They fail to understand that runoff pH from soil has nothing to do with what's going on at the roots of the plant.
Click to expand...
Or the " I'm gonna dump half this bottle in the soil and grow plants the size of redwood trees."
 
CanadianJim

CanadianJim

Well-Known Member
I have a confession to make, I have never tested the ph of my soil, or my nutes.
The only time I had a problem which I would attribute to ph was when I accidentally dumped half a mug of coffee into a 1 liter container.
There are a lot of things that were/are critically important to hydro which, in soil, are pointless at best and detrimental at worst. Some of those made their way to soil growing after a while. Ph is one of them.
Not saying hydro is bad, just that some things aren't an issue until you fuck with them.
 
TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

TheSadVeryBadMadGrower

Well-Known Member
CanadianJim said:
I have a confession to make, I have never tested the ph of my soil, or my nutes.
The only time I had a problem which I would attribute to ph was when I accidentally dumped half a mug of coffee into a 1 liter container.
There are a lot of things that were/are critically important to hydro which, in soil, are pointless at best and detrimental at worst. Some of those made their way to soil growing after a while. Ph is one of them.
Not saying hydro is bad, just that some things aren't an issue until you fuck with them.
Click to expand...
Me too. Never once. I tried to Ph my tap one time but accidentally dropped the test strip into my toilet. There went that idea lol.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
I ph nutrients when growing in coco. When I grow in soil I don't bother. In fact last summer I had a couple plants growing outside. I just watered them straight from the hose. They did just fine. Whoever got soil growers to start testing runoff pH should be tarred and feathered. For one, it's not accurate, and two, people are chasing runoff pH even when there isn't anything wrong with their plants. Then they wonder why their plants start going to crap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top