Soil grow pH question (fox farms)

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sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
what’s the ideal pH when watering young plants that aren’t yet on bottle nutes?

once I start feeding nutes, I usually pH to 6.0 but I’m currently just watering and relying on the nutes pre-mixed in the soil to feed the plants. Would running a more neutral pH allow for more efficient nutrient uptake of the cooked in soil nutes?

There’s nothing wrong with my plants but the idea just popped into my head.

edit: this is just a general question. Not necessarily specific to my current grow.
 
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xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
6.0 for soil? That's pretty low. You can typically run tap water without adjusting the pH as the soil will buffer. I remember not too long ago when the only people worrying about pH were hydroponic growers. It seems as the years go by people make thing more complicated than they need to be. I never pH when growing in soil. Unless you have some really high pH like 8.0+ there isn't any need to pH in decent soil mix.
 
S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
xtsho said:
6.0 for soil? That's pretty low. You can typically run tap water without adjusting the pH as the soil will buffer. I remember not too long ago when the only people worrying about pH were hydroponic growers. It seems as the years go by people make thing more complicated than they need to be. I never pH when growing in soil. Unless you have some really high pH like 8.0+ there isn't any need to pH in decent soil mix.
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I pH 6.0 when I start mixing in bottle nutes. I normally run hydro nutes which need a lower ph. I don’t actually know why, it’s just what I’ve read based on other more experienced growers have posted. I had problems before I dropped my ph based on another growers rec.

my question is about watering before I start using nutes. Seems to me that pHing right now is probably a waste of time
 
Wattzzup

Wattzzup

Well-Known Member
I use plain tap in my organic soil/Fox farm.

Hydro nutrients or bottle nutrients doesn’t matter. Ph to 6.8 for soil, when/if you do ph at all. Most the nutrients I mix are usually ~6.8 when I’m done.
 
Wizzlebiz

Wizzlebiz

Well-Known Member
PHing in veg probably isn't needed.

pHing during flower is more realistic. And 6.0 is super low. 6.2-6.8 is the range. I would suggest moving up and down that range as well with feedings as different pH values allow for different nutrient uptake.
 
S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
Wizzlebiz said:
PHing in veg probably isn't needed.

pHing during flower is more realistic. And 6.0 is super low. 6.2-6.8 is the range. I would suggest moving up and down that range as well with feedings as different pH values allow for different nutrient uptake.
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that’s what I figured. Gonna stop pHing for now.

I’ll mess with it when I get to flower. Dunno if it makes a difference but I’m giving FF CocoLoco a go during this run. I’ve got a few plants in happy frog so I can compare the 2. Will be interesting to see if they require anything different. All of my research suggests treating the cocoloco like regular soil.
 
Wizzlebiz

Wizzlebiz

Well-Known Member
sf_frankie said:
that’s what I figured. Gonna stop pHing for now.

I’ll mess with it when I get to flower. Dunno if it makes a difference but I’m giving FF CocoLoco a go during this run. I’ve got a few plants in happy frog so I can compare the 2. Will be interesting to see if they require anything different. All of my research suggests treating the cocoloco like regular soil.
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I've never used ff cocoloco. So I can't really advise on that one. My bad.
 
S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
Wizzlebiz said:
I've never used ff cocoloco. So I can't really advise on that one. My bad.
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Me neither. It was kind of an impulse buy. I was at the store grabbing happy frog and saw a pallet of cocoloco. I had intended for this to be my last soil grow before switching to coco so I figured cocoloco would make a good stepping stone. I wasn’t able to find a ton of info on using it so it’ll be a fun learning experience.
 
Wizzlebiz

Wizzlebiz

Well-Known Member
sf_frankie said:
Me neither. It was kind of an impulse buy. I was at the store grabbing happy frog and saw a pallet of cocoloco. I had intended for this to be my last soil grow before switching to coco so I figured cocoloco would make a good stepping stone. I wasn’t able to find a ton of info on using it so it’ll be a fun learning experience.
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Got a pic of the back of the bag?

Ingredients list? I'm wondering if it's similar to what I use.
Screenshot_20201226-213258_Office.jpg

This has coco, peat, fur bark and all the microbes wanted and needed.

If it's like this I can help lol
 
S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
Wizzlebiz said:
Got a pic of the back of the bag?

Ingredients list? I'm wondering if it's similar to what I use.
View attachment 4825076

This has coco, peat, fur bark and all the microbes wanted and needed.

If it's like this I can help lol
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Based on the ingredients and from what I’ve read, it’s fairly similar to happy frog but instead of using peat, they use coco coir.
 

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S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
Wizzlebiz said:
I got nothin for ya lol. That's soiless which I just dont have enough knowledge in.
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From my research, when you use it as your grow medium you treat it exactly the same as you would an organic soil like Happy Frog.

I'm asking this as a general question, not specific to my grow. Plus I've got some plants in soil as well.
 
Wizzlebiz

Wizzlebiz

Well-Known Member
sf_frankie said:
From my research, when you use it as your grow medium you treat it exactly the same as you would an organic soil like Happy Frog.

I'm asking this as a general question, not specific to my grow. Plus I've got some plants in soil as well.
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I get it. I just dont know anything about it. So I just dont want to give misguided advise.
 
S

sf_frankie

Well-Known Member
Just in case anyone was curious, I did some research and found more than one forum poster stating that they contacted FF regarding pH and this was the response:

"Thank you for contacting FoxFarm! I would be happy to help you.

We recommend adjusting the pH of your nutrient solution between 6.3 and 6.8. For Coco Loco please keep in mind that coco coir tends to retain salts more than peat based soils- so be sure to flush your soil according to the feeding schedule.

Thank you for your support and please let us know if you have any other questions!

Happy gardening!"

I know I asked about just pHing waterings but I'm gonna try this rec for now. I'm not running nutes now, just a root enhancer additive and some CalMag. I will keep my pH in that range and see what happens. I don't intend to start adding nutes until the end of week 4 or later.
 
getogrow

getogrow

Well-Known Member
sf_frankie said:
Just in case anyone was curious, I did some research and found more than one forum poster stating that they contacted FF regarding pH and this was the response:

"Thank you for contacting FoxFarm! I would be happy to help you.

We recommend adjusting the pH of your nutrient solution between 6.3 and 6.8. For Coco Loco please keep in mind that coco coir tends to retain salts more than peat based soils- so be sure to flush your soil according to the feeding schedule.

Thank you for your support and please let us know if you have any other questions!

Happy gardening!"

I know I asked about just pHing waterings but I'm gonna try this rec for now. I'm not running nutes now, just a root enhancer additive and some CalMag. I will keep my pH in that range and see what happens. I don't intend to start adding nutes until the end of week 4 or later.
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I would treat cocoloco just like soil. You are correct , its a "soil based product" .....it has 40-50% aged forest compost , thats the best soil you can get. Plus it has all the microbial love in there too. Never used it but im sure its a great medium.

Wizzlebiz said:
Ingredients list? I'm wondering if it's similar to what I use.
View attachment 4825076

This has coco, peat, fur bark and all the microbes wanted and needed.
Click to expand...
This appears to be good shit! I wanna try this out or maybe the cocoloco or both. Great mediums here. FFOF is fine but i think both of these look better on paper.

I was curious as to why they aint using lime or oyster shell but i look closer and its got more bark and coco then it does peat so the ph should stay in range always.
 
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