pH adjusting in completely organic grows will kill your plants!!!

Posted this to give my two cents on phing in organic grows. Never had problems except my last run where I was phing with a citric acid organic pH down. These compounds will ruin plants by locking them out from the organics when growing in soil!!! Dolomite lime on your soil mix homemade or pre bought is plenty of your using ro water. Also learned you can't adjust true ro water out of a good system. Lesson learned hope this helps others.
 
Sidenote this post is for people using highly filtered water if your not start filtering and stop phing unless your doing a complete bottle nutrient setup
 
I ph'ed my organic grows for the past two years using Citric acid and had zero problems. I'm thinking it was something else like your soil was too hot maybe. It wasn't the citric acid unless you were using way too much. Hope you find a system that works for you, that's what really matters.
I had everything going great for some yrs tried phing and everything went to hell and it was simply because I was using ro water and dry amendments only , are you using ro water if not this is probably why it's working out as I just found out a month back that you can't pH ro without a crazy high tech pH pen that's beyond the tech of most growers pH devices. Are you using ro just interested?
 

FirstCavApache64

Well-Known Member
No. I'm on well water that's 7.3 ph and 145-150 ppm's with a good bit of calcium. If your running organics there really isn't a need for RO water unless your tap is just really bad. The microbes in your living soil should be able to adjust to most any tap. I switched to Jack's for this current grow after 2 years of running Dr Earth dry amendments and Recharge. Just wanted to try something different.
 
I had everything going great for some yrs tried phing and everything went to hell and it was simply because I was using ro water and dry amendments only , are you using ro water if not this is probably why it's working out as I just found out a month back that you can't pH ro without a crazy high tech pH pen that's beyond the tech of most growers pH devices. Are you using ro just interested?
No. I'm on well water that's 7.3 ph and 145-150 ppm's with a good bit of calcium. If your running organics there really isn't a need for RO water unless your tap is just really bad. The microbes in your living soil should be able to adjust to most any tap. I switched to Jack's for this current grow after 2 years of running Dr Earth dry amendments and Recharge. Just wanted to try something different.
I run happy frog amendments with recharge so pretty similar and your exactly right I have to go to ro water because my tap water here is absolute shit , so the well water must be a hell of a lot more pure there city style tap water! But if you ever move to densely populated city do ro water no pHing or you'll be screwed lmao , that's awesome though that you have a well system.
 

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
You need to pH your soil itself doing slurry tests then adjust your feed accordingly, the same thing applies in soilless systems that don't have frequent fertigation with runoff. Rootzone will be telling another story than your input water. My guess is you were accumulating citric acid in the rootzone and created an overly acidic soil/rootzone.

I've had this happen in coco where I wasn't doing runoff, I would have to regularly check my rootzone pH & EC (PPM) to make sure things weren't toxic, now that I have heavy runoff in soilless (coco) my EC & pH stays pretty balanced through the whole grow. To adjust an acidic pH of for example 5.0 I would have to feed a couple times with a 7.0 solution to hit 6.0 at the rootzone. You could do a slower adjustment but I haven't noticed a benefit waiting to solve the problem.

Mix 1:1 soil:water and stir, let sit, have a smoke, check the pH of the dirty water. That's what your roots are actually living in, not what you pour into the pot, also, Reverse osmosis water or distilled water will always be neutral or 7.0 pH, this is because there is nothing in it, assuming your filtration system is working properly and your meter is calibrated.
 
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Week4@inCharge

Well-Known Member
How would one adjust a high pH soil? My current method is a earth worm castings tea which levels it out, but 2 or 3 weeks later the pH rises to 7.2 again. I have plenty of Sulfur in there and am wondering if the biochar I added (prior to potting) has something to do with it. Ph the water will do nothing to what's in the soil. Really tough to do in the middle of a grow, or maybe not but for now i guess the EWC teas will have to do.
 

pahpah-cee

Well-Known Member
How would one adjust a high pH soil? My current method is a earth worm castings tea which levels it out, but 2 or 3 weeks later the pH rises to 7.2 again. I have plenty of Sulfur in there and am wondering if the biochar I added (prior to potting) has something to do with it. Ph the water will do nothing to what's in the soil. Really tough to do in the middle of a grow, or maybe not but for now i guess the EWC teas will have to do.
Isn’t your water chock full of cac03?
 

Week4@inCharge

Well-Known Member
Isn’t your water chock full of cac03?
Tap, yes. I'm under the impression that adding some apple cider vinegar would break that down while it's breathing in the reservoir. But now that you mentioned it, maybe it's not breaking it down fast enough? I mean the pH is up for a reason. Might have to go back to RO for a bit and see what that does these next couple weeks. Good question.
 

pahpah-cee

Well-Known Member
Tap, yes. I'm under the impression that adding some apple cider vinegar would break that down while it's breathing in the reservoir. But now that you mentioned it, maybe it's not breaking it down fast enough? I mean the pH is up for a reason. Might have to go back to RO for a bit and see what that does these next couple weeks. Good question.
I just know you and I are plagued with crap water so that’s where I would start.

on a side note; I finally got around to setting up my living soil beds. I didn’t reamend any lime like Kratos suggested. So far I’m using half tap and half RO/Dehum water. It’s only been two weeks but so far so good. The real proof will be if I get a good harvest without issues.
 

Week4@inCharge

Well-Known Member
I just know you and I are plagued with crap water so that’s where I would start.

on a side note; I finally got around to setting up my living soil beds. I didn’t reamend any lime like Kratos suggested. So far I’m using half tap and half RO/Dehum water. It’s only been two weeks but so far so good. The real proof will be if I get a good harvest without issues.
We're about to hijack this thread... Lol .. I'm half on the water idea, I mean I'm not saying it's not the water here, I'm being open minded about it. I only know what I don't know. But the vinegar should be a viable solution with the hard tap water. It's common use with the Korean Natural Farmers. And the Internet is full of topics on the use of vinegar. Like this one https://www.aosmithindia.com/4-simple-hard-water-solutions/#:~:text=Vinegar is very effective in,treat hard water at home.
But it does raise suspicion with my history of issues and the use of hard tap water. If you do see something happening, it's most likely the pH of the soil. I had a soil sample done and my soil is full of calcium magnesium and phosphorus. The high pH is blocking it. And at 7.2. I saw this in veg and the earthworm casting tea fixed it. My soil pH dropped to 6.5 after a day or two. And things fixed itself on its own with no inputs other than the ewc tea. I'm confident the tea will do this again for me.
 
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