Hi G, not being fresh Im always looking to learn but what's the rational in not ph'ing? (Read an interview with Dr greenthumb couple of weeks ago and he said pH imbalance is like the biggest cause of grow problems)
I don't totally agree with him on that BUT he makes a lot of sense and i agree with a LOT of stuff he says.
PH is very important but its not something you can change in a pot of soil in a couple months time.
PH IS one of the biggest causes of problems due to over/under watering, too much food , too much ph up and down and other causes....IN SOIL.
Any "soil" and most dirt acts as a buffer so no matter what PH you feed with , the soil is going to change it to the PH of the soil itself in a very very short time.
"Dirt" on the other hand is going to need prepped before using. (due to ph unbalance) same with plain peat.
There are a lot of folks that will disagree with what im saying but im guessing those are the ones who are just stuck in that hydro world. Now if your planning on keeping a plant going for years in the same soil then amending will be necessary to keep the ph in tact but you cant just change it by adding ph up or down to the water/food. thats a COMPLETE waste of time and money.
Example: Earthjuice is a pretty decent mostly organic liquid nute. When you mix it up to feed , its going to read about 4.0 on the PH meter. Use it for your whole cycle and you will never see a problem. You cant even test it for ppm or tds because its organic and tds meters read metals/salts.