ph, explain something?

[Beard-o]

I grow strictly indoors. I'm a real stickler for ph. Have a Blue Lab ph gauge, and test my ph every watering and feeding. Always recalibrate between grows.
Out of the tap my water runs around 7.5 to as high as 8.

My neighbor grows weed outside. Huge plants, 6.5-7' all the time. His water supply, his garden hose. Same water I'm using. He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mentioned ph.

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

 

[formularacer]

I know what Ph is I was raised by organic chemist.
Feed my outdoor plants and indoor plants strait from the tap. I grow in soil both in and out so that I believe acts as a filter.
If you growing in non soil directly feeding the roots they be more sensitive to proper Ph
My outdoor plants were all 8 to 14 feet tall and I max out my four foot tent and get no complaints from my testers except can I have more.

 

[420AD]

I grow strictly indoors. I'm a real stickler for ph. Have a Blue Lab ph gauge, and test my ph every watering and feeding. Always recalibrate between grows.
Out of the tap my water runs around 7.5 to as high as 8.

My neighbor grows weed outside. Huge plants, 6.5-7' all the time. His water supply, his garden hose. Same water I'm using. He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mentioned ph.

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

Might wanna have a smoke and a friendly chat with your neighbour about some things.

 

[Star Dog]

Afaik in soil ph doesn't have the same importance as hydro, in hydro the ph is important for plants to have access to a range of nutrients, if you're too far up/down you remove the availability of key nutrients to your plants.

I just googled the graph for example!

 

[tstick]

I grow strictly indoors. I'm a real stickler for ph. Have a Blue Lab ph gauge, and test my ph every watering and feeding. Always recalibrate between grows.
Out of the tap my water runs around 7.5 to as high as 8.

My neighbor grows weed outside. Huge plants, 6.5-7' all the time. His water supply, his garden hose. Same water I'm using. He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mentioned ph.

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

pH in outdoor "dirt" soil is typically buffered by all the micro-fauna that lives in it. Soil-LESS mixes, such as Fox Farm, Roots Organic, Etc., do Not have all that stuff in them. They are basically an inert substrate after about a month. You then have to add fertilizers and maintain the pH. The problem is that, since the soil-less mixes don't have all the "critters" in them, and some growers who add organic fertilizers, will have a longer wait for the ferts to be absorbed by the plants -because there's nothing (or not enough) of the creatures to break them down. That's why I always advise using a synthetic fertilizing system such as Jack's 321 or Master Blend, with soil-less mixes, because they are instantly available to the plant.

As far as pH gauges.....I've never had any luck with them. I use the General Hydroponics drops to do my pH tests.

In soil-less mixes, I shoot for an input of 6.5pH and I also check the runoff to make sure it's in that same range.

 

[VaSmile]

Growing indoors you will have a stable enviourment, this will allow your plants to be healthy as possible, the downside is that since they are never face difficult changes they have no tolerence to certine stressers, outdoor plants are constantly exposed to enviourmental changes and almost never in ideal conditions for 48+hrs at a time so they must addapt to servive. Weed has a fairly high range of "safe" ph levels 5.6-8.5 or so. If you got a plant that always has its water ph'ed to 6.5 it will always expect that if you one day throw some ph8.0 water on it halfway though its life cycle you'll lock her out. If you got an outdoor plant that takes 7.2 from the tap at the begining of the month 8.0 at the end 5.7 from rain from the east 6.5 from rain from the west from the begining she will adapt to that varience and not care much unless it gets way high/low.

Think about it like how humans adapt, kids that go to daycare are sick af all the time but almost never get sick as adults, kids raised in a bubble grow up stronger and healthier but have no built up ammune system and catch every seasonal cold that gose around their community later in life

 

[1212ham]

I grow strictly indoors. I'm a real stickler for ph. Have a Blue Lab ph gauge, and test my ph every watering and feeding. Always recalibrate between grows.
Out of the tap my water runs around 7.5 to as high as 8.

My neighbor grows weed outside. Huge plants, 6.5-7' all the time. His water supply, his garden hose. Same water I'm using. He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mentioned ph.

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

The short answer is it depends on the grow medium and the nutrient source.

Healthy living soil can buffer and maintain a stable ph. Other mediums require the grower to controll it.

 

[1212ham]

pH in outdoor "dirt" soil is typically buffered by all the micro-fauna that lives in it. Soil-LESS mixes, such as Fox Farm, Roots Organic, Etc., do Not have all that stuff in them. They are basically an inert substrate after about a month. You then have to add fertilizers and maintain the pH. The problem is that, since the soil-less mixes don't have all the "critters" in them, and some growers who add organic fertilizers, will have a longer wait for the ferts to be absorbed by the plants -because there's nothing (or not enough) of the creatures to break them down. That's why I always advise using a synthetic fertilizing system such as Jack's 321 or Master Blend, with soil-less mixes, because they are instantly available to the plant.

As far as pH gauges.....I've never had any luck with them. I use the General Hydroponics drops to do my pH tests.

In soil-less mixes, I shoot for an input of 6.5pH and I also check the runoff to make sure it's in that same range.

I was exasperated with meters when I started. Then I started reading.

After my cheap meters went in the trash I bought a good one and did more reading.
I've been using that same meter and probe for about 6 years now.

 

[Absorber]

Afaik in soil ph doesn't have the same importance as hydro, in hydro the ph is important for plants to have access to a range of nutrients, if you're too far up/down you remove the availability of key nutrients to your plants.
View attachment 5439849
I just googled the graph for example!

I agree ,heres another good chart

 

[1212ham]

I agree ,heres another good chart View attachment 5439898

I never trusted those charts...

PH'ing tap water

Won't hurt I can't really say for sure if ph makes a difference I'm Going to start some clones tomorrow with tap water no adjusting ph see how they do I just read that plants only uptake certain nutes at different PH levels, I have no idea myself, but I got this info from several different...

www.rollitup.org

 

[Absorber]

I never trusted those charts...

PH'ing tap water

Won't hurt I can't really say for sure if ph makes a difference I'm Going to start some clones tomorrow with tap water no adjusting ph see how they do I just read that plants only uptake certain nutes at different PH levels, I have no idea myself, but I got this info from several different...

www.rollitup.org

I run a style of flood and drain and have an automated pH controller from Growee and i have it set to float between5.8 - 6.2 and they seem very happy in that range .

 

[Gemtree]

More area = more microbes = more self adjusting ph

 

[Delps8]

I grow strictly indoors. I'm a real stickler for ph. Have a Blue Lab ph gauge, and test my ph every watering and feeding. Always recalibrate between grows.
Out of the tap my water runs around 7.5 to as high as 8.

My neighbor grows weed outside. Huge plants, 6.5-7' all the time. His water supply, his garden hose. Same water I'm using. He doesn't even know what I'm talking about when I mentioned ph.

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

How important? I would say "somewhat".

A year ago, I bought a doser because I wanted to not have to keep adding Up or Down and because I wanted to nail it at 5.8.

The owner of this site is a Ph D in chemistry, a Bugbee coauthor, and the author or Hydro Buddy. In short, he knows his shit. I found this posting quite interesting. Yeh, they're all the same but different.

A couple fo months ago, I came across the video below:

Is there a problem with pH rising to, say, 6.2 for a while? Maybe yes, maybe no because the rates at which chemicals are taken up out of the reservoir are different, so it's impossible to tell which chemicals are still in the nutrient solution. 6.2, or whatever, could be OK at some point in time and it could cause an issue at another. For me Dr. B says to run with 6. That works for me.

 

[Absorber]

A year ago, I bought a doser because I wanted to not have to keep adding Up or Down and because I wanted to nail it at 5.8.

What doser did you end up getting ? I went with growee

 

[Delps8]

What doser did you end up getting ? I went with growee

I got a Bluelab about a year ago so it's not the WiFi version.

[Googles growee]

Wow, they're all expensive.

Until AC Infinity add a peristaltic pump accessory.

They have a new controller and will have a hydro sensor for it in a few months. The pump is the missing piece of the puzzle. As I see it, it's a no-brainer.

 

[Absorber]

I got a Bluelab about a year ago so it's not the WiFi version.

[Googles growee]

Wow, they're all expensive.

Until AC Infinity add a peristaltic pump accessory.

They have a new controller and will have a hydro sensor for it in a few months. The pump is the missing piece of the puzzle. As I see it, it's a no-brainer.

Yea i saw the ac infinity stuff the other week ,about time someone has made a reasonably priced kit

 

[Poltrack]

So, based on the above, how important is ph?

Next round, choose a single plant and don't regulate since the start.
You can be surprised ^^

When not in hydro, i just grow PH free.

 

[conor c]

I don't pH jack but I use organics and soil tis self correcting unless you mess it up bad so that's why your neighbours plants still turn out good if I was using synthetics id worry alot more about ph

 

[curious2garden]

Afaik in soil ph doesn't have the same importance as hydro

You're right, in soil you rely on the microbes in your substrate to feed your plants. They take care of buffering pH to make the nutrients available for your plants. So you focus on feeding your microbes to feed your plant. Hence why direct carbs can help.

In a soiless medium and full hydro without a buffer substrate you don't have those microbes so you have to make the nutrients available to the plant yourself. That's why pH is an issue.

 

[formularacer]

in the 90's I was raising Koi. Had 10,000 gallons of water in backyard ponds. Some of my koi were in the thousands of dollars. I had lab grade PH meters, standards a chemist on the team. Spent hours trying to make Ph perfect. Daily testing set out to water quality labs. Went about in circles. The fish were fine, plants were doing well.
Picked up a translated book on Japanese Koi and the secret to keeping a Koi (carp) live for a hundred years was to have a fresh water source a drip from a hose.

So I did my time playing with Ph, very happy just to plant in dirt.
For the last two years I ran my sprinkler every day for an hour, next year planing to use drip irrigation.