Soil pH problem or not?

If FF does put "minimal" oyster shell or domolite lime to stabilize pH you have to think about the pH going in remember to stabilize pH its all about Ions so if your putting in Basic water (pH higher than 7.5 ) than the ions in domolite and other elements get to work to stabilize the pH. Jack is correct test your soil pH every month and adjust accordingly instead of saying its a nute deficiency because a lot of people tend to do is increase nutes and have salt build up and start encountering other issues and than start blaming pH.

Even if FF does put minimal whatever the pH is still going to adjust according to soil buffer because thats what the soil is rated for... Theres a lot of variables like Jack said most Sat dom have an increase uptake of Cal/Mg so its going to try and search for that just like any other living thing to survive and domolite is made up of Calcium Maganesium Carbonate so the plant will take that if need be to survive depleting its buffer capability. Every should test soil pH monthly and adjust accordingly IMO.

Hey Jack, measured soil pH not sure if i put to much water in the soil but was reading 6.1... this is Happy frog soil... maybe too much water to soil ratio i did to run the test.

instead of saying its a nute deficiency because a lot of people tend to do is increase nutes and have salt build up and start encountering other issues and than start blaming pH.

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How could it be salt build you havnt even fed it yet, now feed it or it will keep getting yellow. Why would the ph be out in new good quality soil?
Come on bro have a think about it.

*BUDS said:

How could it be salt build you havnt even fed it yet, now feed it or it will keep getting yellow. Why would the ph be out in new good quality soil?
Come on bro have a think about it.

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It was an overall statement wasn't referring to my grow.. I have fed before if you read first post was using FF Grow Big... but I know I don't have nute burn and my leaves are not yellowing they are getting necrosis and brown spots in the older leaves, the new leaves where also turning..its not because of lack of nutes as you said im using " good quality soil which should supply the plants with nutes for at least 3 weeks give or take. Its a lock out issue either pH or to much of something locking out other micro nutes. Was water with tap water which contains plenty of micro nutrients...

Edit: my photo looks yellow due to lighting... not actually yellowing like that on plant..

So ........ Did you ever add the dolomite for the simple fix, or, you doing the convoluted pH'ing of any liquid that goes in?

Just wondering.

Wet

did a 6.5 pH flush 2x and necrosis has not occured and leaves of new growth seem to be responding well..

another happy ending

jojo2002 said:

It was an overall statement wasn't referring to my grow.. I have fed before if you read first post was using FF Grow Big... but I know I don't have nute burn and my leaves are not yellowing they are getting necrosis and brown spots in the older leaves, the new leaves where also turning..its not because of lack of nutes as you said im using " good quality soil which should supply the plants with nutes for at least 3 weeks give or take. Its a lock out issue either pH or to much of something locking out other micro nutes. Was water with tap water which contains plenty of micro nutrients...

Edit: my photo looks yellow due to lighting... not actually yellowing like that on plant..

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If you use a balanced, well formulated, and proven nutrient regimen in combination withy properly mixed and limed soil, you will NEVER have an issue. Start "experimenting" and deviating from that regimen and you'll have issues every time!! If you're using a good soil, if you do in fact have lock out issues, then it will most definitely be a lock out due to over abundance of something else, NOT pH.

Wetdog said:

So ........ Did you ever add the dolomite for the simple fix, or, you doing the convoluted pH'ing of any liquid that goes in?

Just wondering.

Wet

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Too funny!! But true!!

Im thinking it was my tap water i flushed with RO water and use my FF nutes with RO water... everything seems to be looking good.

RO is gonna cause more probs in the long term. The plants need the mineral content of tap water.

I believe it was the high calcium in my tap water that causing the lock of Mg the soil contains oyster shell and domolite lime should be enough Ca and Mg in soil my FF grow big also contains other micro nutrients such as calcium, zinc, boron, iron etc... the plants are improving if i see any other def. ill post it up and let you know how i adjust to them, but from what i read the majority of def from not using tap Ca/Mg...

so i have had a pretty similar problem that i thought was for sure ph lockout, but after reading this thread i would have to say its probably nutrient buildup as well. i'll just do a flush on my girls and see how that goes. very good information in here

ThunderBlunt said:

so i have had a pretty similar problem that i thought was for sure ph lockout, but after reading this thread i would have to say its probably nutrient buildup as well. i'll just do a flush on my girls and see how that goes. very good information in here

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its either pH or too much of something blocking other nutes or too much nutes... pH issues in soil only occur with shitty soil and is most likely last thing, but fox farm feeding schedule does recommend pH water with nutes between 6.3-6.8 http://www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/feedingfox.html... best of luck

thanks jojo. theyre in 3 gallon pots and i gave them each a full gallon of water last night. i know thats 1/3 of the reccommended "flushing" amount, but i flushed my first girl and it ended up robbing her of too many nutrients and i lost turgor pressure, causing her to droop completely.

i checked them tonight and it looks like the deficency is still progressing. do you think i should give another gallon or 2? or just go straight to a transplant so i can get them out of that soil? the problem with that is that most of the soil will come with the roots when i pick her up.

what did you do for your flush? it has to be too many nutes in there because my soil should be a buffer to 7.

Obviously what you're doing aint working, at least on your timeframe, so I'd do the deed and transplant. Be aware that the plant is already stressed, so recovery isn't gonna be an overnight thing.

Too many of the threads like this are like the blind leading the blind. So much conflicting info being tossed out for a newbie to sort out, no wonder so many are confused.

thanks for the response jack. i already gave her another gallon to filter more buildup. the run off had a yellow tint to it so there quite a bit. i'll transplant tomorrow when the soil is dryer.

Thank goodness for people like jack =)... although if you are indeed having similar issues as I was i would flush completely to make sure you dont have lockout due to high volumes of other nutrients which is what I did with success as my girls are looking great now... Even if you did transplant your still going to have all those nutes in the soil when you bring it over.. When you transplant TYPICALLY the plant has 2-3 response to shock.
1. Day one i flushed with water = alot of run off from the bottom
2. Let the soil dry - in my setup took about 3-4 days
3. Repeat steps 1 -2
4. Returned to regular feeding.

Jacks main emphasis is that good quality soil is already prep'd to buffer any type of water you pour into it. So most likely for all soil growers pH lockout does not occur our rarely occurs due to pH lockout issues, unless the soil is not of good quality. There are compounds such as oyster shell and domolite lime that can be added to help improve your buffer in your soil.
These are the top 3 things that I think most people encounter when dealing with soil.
1. Over/Under watering
2. Over feeding
3. Bugs

Now when we use tap we do not know how much micro nutrient content is in your tap so it is wise to get it tested. My theory was my water was extremely hard which contained high amounts of calcium which lead to the lock of Mg. So i switched to RO water and NOW keep in mind im replacing the nutes lost in my HARD water not found in RO with my nutes which contain Ca, Mg, Br, Fe, Mn etc...

Hope that makes sense.

Jack Harer said:

If you use a balanced, well formulated, and proven nutrient regimen in combination withy properly mixed and limed soil, you will NEVER have an issue. Start "experimenting" and deviating from that regimen and you'll have issues every time!! If you're using a good soil, if you do in fact have lock out issues, then it will most definitely be a lock out due to over abundance of something else, NOT pH.




Too funny!! But true!!

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Yup as I stated it was not due to my soil pH issue as we both already know i understand that concept... great soil = great buffer... the issue at hand was the over abundance of Ca which was in my Tap, in my nutes and in my soil leading to lockout of Mg. My home does not have any type of filtration system RO or Water softner, you know when you shower you have "white" build on tile or by shower head and you need CLR to remove it... yup you guessed its Calcium build up... i think its just as important to test your tap as it is to test you soil quality...

hows things going jojo?? is this your usual grow thread??

No its not this was just a great conversation on soil pH and what are the important issues when growing with soil... I had a journal stop'd doing entries might update it soon