Fox Farm Ocean Forest Soil and Ph?

Bublonichronic said:

EARTH and sea, they can use both if they want lil bro, ahha

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Apparently the oyster shell just seemed to go along with the whole 'Ocean Forest' theme... along with the fish emulsion, crab, shrimp and kelp meal... big-headed bro, hehe. Personally, I think the only reason why it is "Earth and sea" is because guess what the Earth Juice motto is: "A blend of good things from the land and sea".

For the last time; no lime is going to lower pH. I guess making the font bigger doesn't help get it through to people, either.

Soil/humus/peat has CEC or cation exchange capacity. This means it has all these little 'exchange sites' with a negative charge that attract and hold onto cations, which are positively charged ions. Sphagnum peat moss for instance, has lots of 'reserve acidity' which is primarily the result of H+ at these exchange sites. Lime neutralizes the H+, which reacts with the CO3 or carbonate as the lime dissolves, and ultimately those exchange sites become saturated with Ca++ and Mg++ cations.
Various things affect the pH of the soil solution. Even the plants themselves as they absorb cations like Ca++, Mg++, K+, Fe++, NH4+ and many others by exchanging with an H+.

http://soils.tfrec.wsu.edu/mg/chemical.htm
http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/soil_buffer_ph.htm
http://www.greenhousegrower.com/magazine/?storyid=47

so....your telling me if i put 8.0 water in with the neutral lime it wont effect it.......

I don't believe lime itself has a neutral pH, although the goal of using a liming agent is to neutralize pH. You use enough lime such that it does neutralize the pH. If you use copious amount of lime you could end up with a pH higher than 7. Otherwise I am not sure what exactly it is you mean by "wont affect it".

If you have highly alkaline tap water because of mineral content (hard water)... guess why this is? Chances are the aquifer/water supply is very near or runs through natural deposits of calcite and dolomite limestone. That means calcium carbonate... and therefore the following equilibrium reaction: CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O <> Ca2+ + 2HCO3-

Fuck this i'm taking a plant biology class....

IMO If the FFof run off was coming out 5.8 like i read earlier.peat is tends to lean the acidic side and even fall.Dolomite lime in correct proportions Will bring that up (couple weeks). or since you are into testing runoff values compared to what ph you put in,and read what comes out.IMO WITHYOUR NUTES OR WITH OUT if you ph your water slightly higher, and pour thru that medium.you can gradually raise your soil ph this way. than when you get it where you want it (takes awhile).just keep your ph stable while feeding should b alright . if it creeps down to critical levels and it will. Just throw in my 2 cents worth.I fianlly got my troubles to go away useing lime and watching ph closely(on fox farm grows).now on my only organic side(the easy way) hardly ever worry or think about it. NULLIS has good advice

YES I think the ph of the soil is the root of all evil (when its too low) lol, I'm guessing that's why alot of people have problems and don't even realize why they are having them.. From now on I am gonna add lime to all my mix's. About to flower 2 ladies of BBxNL that were transplanted into FFOF about a week ago. I sprinkled some lime (lightly) over the top of the soil. I'm Gonna post pics on this thread everyday and info on what i'm doing to them. This is the ladies about a week after planting them into my bigger pots from the rooting cups.. Gonna feed them once more next watering with 2 tsp's FF GB and a pinch of big bloom and then into my flowering room.

I know he isn't talking about "you know what" but you get the general idea..


[video=youtube;koGQ8hXIQ3c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koGQ8hXIQ3c[/video]

I just want to make this as clear as possible here, because I am always hearing how lime has a near neutral pH, or whatever. It just goes to show that you can't rely entirely on Internet forums for real knowledge. Sure, lots of people here grow weed but for most their singular purpose is always getting the plant grown as quickly as possible and/or yielding as much as they can. Too few seem to have the dedication or take the time to actually figure out how it all works from the perspective of the plant and soil; the science of it. Real science on Internet forums is few and far between. Sure, when I first started it was just about getting a plant grown; but now it's about perfection, which will only come from understanding, organization and experience.

Enough rambling, now, let's do an experiment! Take roughly two cups of water and pour that into a small bottle. Next up, half a teaspoon of dolomite. Add that to your bottle and shake it up.
Now pull out your pH testing drops, strips, meter, etc. (here drops are used) and test accordingly. If using drops, you should see something like this:



Looks pretty fuckin blue! According to the pH testing drops bottle the result is upwards of 8.5; if you add a full teaspoon of molasses to the water in your bottle, mix up and test again you'll have a near neutral pH or between 6 and 7.

max your plants aren't looking too bad. One small suggestion I can make based on the photos is to fill your containers up completely (to the rim) with soil when transplanting. Hard to tell but it looks like in one of the photos there could be several inches from the actual rim of the container to the soil surface. It's good to allow the plants to utilize all available space in a container (more space for roots, more abundant/increased access to nutrients).

Have you considered foliar feeding?

I foliar feed once and a while, Tried to straighten out my fucked up flowering plants but didn't have much luck with feeding that way, I hit my veggin ladies also from time to time just to give then a little boost. In my opinion and from what I have read is that the lime nuturalizes the peat in the soil which is very acidic? I could be wrong but that's what I have been reading ( not on grow forums either lol) And yessir you are correct about my pots, I usually leave 1-2 free space on top

in a total newb move, i couldnt resist but to call up fox farm and talk to a "specialist" on the subject of addin more lime into the soil for peak performance....he claims that if your pH correcting your water b4 you water ur plant, obviously the pH bufferer has to do less work and will then last longer, and should then be able to handle a full 2-3 month flower cycle with "no problem", then he went on to say "DO NOT" add anything into the soil especially if using FF nutriens, cause that will cause problems ultimately....

I recently called them too a couple of different times and talked to a couple of different people. Ive asked the same exact questions and gotten completely different answers.. So which fox farm employee should I listen too? And let me make this completely clear.... I cannot say that I have had any problems in the ff yet because I just switched from promix to ff, so I really cant comment on that yet but one thing i know for sure is that you have to supplement lime with promix bx because I AWAYS ph my water and the promix ph was still at 5.3 (think due to the peat)

max316420 said:

I recently called them too a couple of different times and talked to a couple of different people. Ive asked the same exact questions and gotten completely different answers.. So which fox farm employee should I listen too? And let me make this completely clear.... I cannot say that I have had any problems in the ff yet because I just switched from promix to ff, so I really cant comment on that yet but one thing i know for sure is that you have to supplement lime with promix bx because I AWAYS ph my water and the promix ph was still at 5.3 (think due to the peat)

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i couldnt make out what he said his name was but the guy i talkd to sounded like a azn dood, sounded like he knew his shit, he went WAY more into detail than i even cared to hear, but i guess thats what i get for callin after smokin a J, ahha

hehe, believe me If the ff works as well as people claim then that's all i'll be using from now on.. But at least I learned a little bit about lime and the use of it.. So far my test cuttings are looking nice and lush... so far so good (fingers crossed).

And believe me in NO way am I putting down Fox Farm, I have been using GROW BIG for almost 10 years without a single problem.

I've mentioned this before about fertilizer phone representatives (et al.): these people are paid to answer phones, and again, they probably don't even grow legal plants. Who the hell knows if they know what they're talking about, or if you were able to fully understand what they were trying to say assuming the did know. You would probably have much better luck if you e-mailed the company instead. This way at least if the person responding to the e-mail doesn't know what you're talking about they can do some research and ask the appropriate personnel within the company.

Plenty of people come off as "sounding like" they know their shit; don't I sound like I know what I am talking about most of the time? It's still up to you to determine.

IMO the way Fox Farm labels their products and tells people to use them is a bit fucked. They label some products 'Organic-Based' which they recommend for use in their soils/mixes, but which contain various chemicals contra-indicated with the soil biota (more appropriate for hydroponics). "Fox Farm soils are never steam sterilized!" because that would kill the very beneficial micro-organisms in the composted humus, earthworm castings and other ingredients they put into the soil. But, the full liquid trio and synthetic pH Up that people use along with it sure isn't doing anything for the micro-herd. It's almost as if they figure well people can't really see the things so what does it matter to them if they're actually thriving-alive?

Fox Farm's dry granular 'Peace of Mind' fertilizers seem way more compatible with the soil and soil biota than their liquid nutrients.

I think you know what your talking about and if not your a great bullshitter lol I just wanna quit having this problem and I'm sick and tired of trying to figure promix out.. Don't know if this is true but I just read that ff has 2 different plants EAST COAST AND WEST COAST. And someone stated that the east coast plant was having some type of problems with their soil?? Don't know how true that is but that's what I read

max316420 said:

I think you know what your talking about and if not your a great bullshitter lol I just wanna quit having this problem and I'm sick and tired of trying to figure promix out.. Don't know if this is true but I just read that ff has 2 different plants EAST COAST AND WEST COAST. And someone stated that the east coast plant was having some type of problems with their soil?? Don't know how true that is but that's what I read

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Thats what ive been reading about the past couple months on various forums. Dunno how true it is, but being on the west coast, never had any probs with them.

i was under the impression that they only had the one facility in CA..thats why people on east cost were payin like 20-25$ a bag...

ya my bag was 22 bones and I'm in the great state(NOT) of NY, I have also read and don't know how true this is but some people are saying that the quality of their soil has slowly went down over the past few years??

max316420 said:

Ok so here is my situation, I recently switched from promix to foxfarm ocean forest soil and I planted 2 clones in the soil I decided to run some water that was ph'd to 6.8 thru it to see what my run off ph was and it was like 5.8... Now I know that 5.8 is way to low for soil and wondering why and the hell its so low? Has anyone else that has used ocean forest experienced this? Now I have 2 more questions, How do I get the soil to the optimum ph and how do I prevent this low ph in the future? Thanks in advanced.....

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5.3 to 6.5 is a safe ph range