Stop blaming "issues" on pH people! aka "ah cant take no mo'!

Uncle Ben said:

............
................ and/or extremely high TDS like my well water - 690! For organic growers, nothing beats rain. It is about as pure as pure gets, has N in the form of nitrates, has microbes and is free!

...............

............
UB

Click to expand...

UB,

Only 690? I took a sample of my well water to the local Culigan store a couple weeks back and the report said my TDS was 1480! You can dam near walk on this stuff with out being the son of god.

I've been pack'n all my plant watering water from the Culigan machine in the local Wally World in 5 gallon bottles.

I think I'm gonna work at rigging something up to catch the rain (and snow melt) off of the roof.

Jack in the Bud said:

UB,

Only 690? I took a sample of my well water to the local Culigan store a couple weeks back and the report said my TDS was 1480! You can dam near walk on this stuff with out being the son of god.

I've been pack'n all my plant watering water from the Culigan machine in the local Wally World in 5 gallon bottles.

I think I'm gonna work at rigging something up to catch the rain (and snow melt) off of the roof.

Click to expand...

1480! I guess you can walk on it. There are alot of folks around me collecting rainwater, but you really need a "tin" roof to do it right. For small collections, it's hard to beat Brita's salts removal ability. If you have water that is high in carbonates, then you could always install a water softener and charge it with potassium chloride.

Uncle Ben said:

1480! I guess you can walk on it. There are alot of folks around me collecting rainwater, but you really need a "tin" roof to do it right. For small collections, it's hard to beat Brita's salts removal ability. If you have water that is high in carbonates, then you could always install a water softener and charge it with potassium chloride.

Click to expand...

If by "tin" you mean one of those painted metal roofs I've got that. I've looked into installing a water softening system but being as I rent this old farmhouse I didn't want to put that kind of money in it. Figured that money would be better off kept in savings toward buying my own place some day.

I've been using that well water on my regular house plants and out door vegetable garden for 6, 7 years now and they seem to do O.K. with it.

Next grow I probably ought to pick one or two pot plants and give them just the well water as opposed to what I've been packing from town (or the rain water I rig up to catch) and see what difference it makes.

Its so true...anytime ive posted something problem related im always getting told check PH

I grow in organic Bio-Terra & my nutes even say on the packet, no need to adjust PH

Blah blah blah. growing cannabis is an art and it takes time to perfect this art. Patience is a virtue a wise person once said. Everybody just help out each other here. each strain is different but there are basic knowledge that people need to start off with the rest comes with experience unfortunately. I f i could grow the best cannabis in the world i show someone else how to do the same not hoard my thoughts to myself.

If you're PH (parts Hydrogen) is wrong your nutes can get locked out.

The real noob question that's seen too far often is "I have a nutrient deficiency". Do you know how unlikely it is, that a weed is suffering from a nutrient deficiency?

Proper PH for soil is 6.7 - 7.2

For Hydro it's lower.

I also see a lot of hoopla on this board extolling the virtues of Molasses, but it's so acid that it's probably the course of more harm than good.

Break down and buy a PH meter if you want to grow serious bud.

I also think PH is over-rated, at least for soil. Never checked it on my first grow, and it turned out spectacular. I just mixed in a lot of everything, lime, blood meal, coffee grounds, compost, old manure, etc.

Second time, I mixed it up pretty much the same, but decided to test it before planting. Then, I realized there could be variable readings depending on where I took the test sample. So fuck it.

I saved my soil recipe, and will use it again, unless there are problems with the plant. Right now, it looks incredible. Full and bushy and dark green.

I made this mistake in the beginning.And I'm sure others do the same.You get high go buy a ph meter and think boy I'm getting my shit together now.Now I can test all my shit.A spike is not for reading ph in water.If your adjusting your ph in water with a spike.It is way the fuck off.

The other problem with pH is that very, very few people have the equipment or wet laboratory skills to measure pH correctly. In hydro, you can achieve "good enough" with common sense and basic meters. But soil pH is an entirely different ballgame.

Why? Because hydrogen ions attach to soil particles and cannot be removed by simply passing water over the soil (the "runoff method" you so commonly see on RIU, and which I once believed in myself, I admit..). Measuring soil pH requires a calcium chloride extraction to bump those hydrogen ions off the soil into solution, where they can be measured.

The other problem I have is with the cheap meters in common use. A lot of these things are total pieces of crap, and quality varies extensively even within the same model. A lot of the one-point calibration meters drift like crazy, meaning they need to be calibrated before every individual reading.

And all chemical monitoring is totally dependent on good quality control -- properly cleaned equipment, 3X rinses with distilled water, clean vessels made of the right materials -- you rarely see these details affirmed in someone's pH post.

For all these reasons, when people come out and say "my pH is XYZ...", it just doesn't mean a thing to me.

Kriegs said:

The other problem with pH is that very, very few people have the equipment or wet laboratory skills to measure pH correctly. In hydro, you can achieve "good enough" with common sense and basic meters. But soil pH is an entirely different ballgame.

Why? Because hydrogen ions attach to soil particles and cannot be removed by simply passing water over the soil (the "runoff method" you so commonly see on RIU, and which I once believed in myself, I admit..). Measuring soil pH requires a calcium chloride extraction to bump those hydrogen ions off the soil into solution, where they can be measured.

The other problem I have is with the cheap meters in common use. A lot of these things are total pieces of crap, and quality varies extensively even within the same model. A lot of the one-point calibration meters drift like crazy, meaning they need to be calibrated before every individual reading.

And all chemical monitoring is totally dependent on good quality control -- properly cleaned equipment, 3X rinses with distilled water, clean vessels made of the right materials -- you rarely see these details affirmed in someone's pH post.

For all these reasons, when people come out and say "my pH is XYZ...", it just doesn't mean a thing to me.

Click to expand...

Great post, everyone that grows should read this over and over.

Just want to say thanks for all your good info guys.



~Long time lurker~

Hey, UB ....

If you have a mind, click on my grow and check out my "Mg deficiency" experiment on the last two pages.

Why did I do this? I was a little lazy and buffered my soil with CaCO3, instead of dolomite (Ca/MgCO3). Some of my plants came up with classic Mg deficiency symptoms as commonly described. I thought perhaps the Ca-based lime threw off the Ca-Mg balance.

I treated the worst-looking plant with 1 tsp / gal of epsom salts, and left the rest be.

To my eye, the untreated plants are "growing out of the problem" and have left the treated plant behind. I attribute the solution to more aggressive watering + bigger plants (ie. increased nute demand) = better osmotic balance between the plant and medium.

I didn't try to bust my butt thru an exhaustive controlled trial here, but there's some comparative material here to ponder. In any case, here's an example of where plants exhibited "classic XYZ deficiency symptoms", and the popular fix appears to have no relationship to it, or that other simpler factors are driving the result.

I'm going to keep this experiment going for another 3-4 days, at least.

Interesting take, Uncle Ben. And for the most part I have to say I agree with you.

I will generally ask all the questions when trying to help a person diagnose I problem. And like you, i've seen people here instantly point to ph. I think it's a starting point question, and quite important to understand why it does what it does, but definitely not a be all end/help all. heheh.

as far as mg goes, I had to laugh when I read that part. I say this because I've been seeing more and more of that around here...."you have an mg deficiency." Like you, I believe that it's quite hard to have an mg deficient plant...there are other variables that are much more likely to be the particular issue some one may be having.

All in all, a good post.

-S

Kriegs said:

Hey, UB ....

If you have a mind, click on my grow and check out my "Mg deficiency" experiment on the last two pages.

Why did I do this? I was a little lazy and buffered my soil with CaCO3, instead of dolomite (Ca/MgCO3). Some of my plants came up with classic Mg deficiency symptoms as commonly described. I thought perhaps the Ca-based lime threw off the Ca-Mg balance.

I treated the worst-looking plant with 1 tsp / gal of epsom salts, and left the rest be.

To my eye, the untreated plants are "growing out of the problem" and have left the treated plant behind. I attribute the solution to more aggressive watering + bigger plants (ie. increased nute demand) = better osmotic balance between the plant and medium.

I didn't try to bust my butt thru an exhaustive controlled trial here, but there's some comparative material here to ponder. In any case, here's an example of where plants exhibited "classic XYZ deficiency symptoms", and the popular fix appears to have no relationship to it, or that other simpler factors are driving the result.

I'm going to keep this experiment going for another 3-4 days, at least.

Click to expand...

Who knows what's going on. Perhaps the "worst looking plant" has something wrong with it, perhaps its just a runt and will always be. I've found that once a plant is stunted, you can count on it being that way for the rest of its life. Cannabis likes to be grown vigorously from start to finish. Bunny you should bring that up, check out this link: https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/288013-mg-defiency.html

snutter said:

Interesting take, Uncle Ben. And for the most part I have to say I agree with you.

I will generally ask all the questions when trying to help a person diagnose I problem. And like you, i've seen people here instantly point to ph. I think it's a starting point question, and quite important to understand why it does what it does, but definitely not a be all end/help all. heheh.

as far as mg goes, I had to laugh when I read that part. I say this because I've been seeing more and more of that around here...."you have an mg deficiency." Like you, I believe that it's quite hard to have an mg deficient plant...there are other variables that are much more likely to be the particular issue some one may be having.

All in all, a good post.

-S

Click to expand...

Glad you like it. It seems some are compelled to say something, albeit it wrong, misdiagnosed, or "the thing to say", than keep their mouth shut. I've seen folks recommend Mg and upon close inspection of the person's plants, there is no evidence of lower leaf chlorosis.

UB

Uncle Ben said:

Who knows what's going on. Perhaps the "worst looking plant" has something wrong with it, perhaps its just a runt and will always be. I've found that once a plant is stunted, you can count on it being that way for the rest of its life. Cannabis likes to be grown vigorously from start to finish. Bunny you should bring that up, check out this link: https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/288013-mg-defiency.html

Click to expand...

Very cool - thanks for that link. I think my initial reasoning was sound (added Ca throwing off the Ca-Mg balance), but that doesn't mean it was "the problem" to exclusion of all else, or that the best solution is to add Mg, as straightforward as that seems.

As we see by the evidence, a lot of these things sort themselves out with patience and simple attention to basics.

Kriegs said:

The other problem with pH is that very, very few people have the equipment or wet laboratory skills to measure pH correctly. In hydro, you can achieve "good enough" with common sense and basic meters. But soil pH is an entirely different ballgame.

Why? Because hydrogen ions attach to soil particles and cannot be removed by simply passing water over the soil (the "runoff method" you so commonly see on RIU, and which I once believed in myself, I admit..). Measuring soil pH requires a calcium chloride extraction to bump those hydrogen ions off the soil into solution, where they can be measured.

The other problem I have is with the cheap meters in common use. A lot of these things are total pieces of crap, and quality varies extensively even within the same model. A lot of the one-point calibration meters drift like crazy, meaning they need to be calibrated before every individual reading.

And all chemical monitoring is totally dependent on good quality control -- properly cleaned equipment, 3X rinses with distilled water, clean vessels made of the right materials -- you rarely see these details affirmed in someone's pH post.

For all these reasons, when people come out and say "my pH is XYZ...", it just doesn't mean a thing to me.

Click to expand...

nice post

another good thread by UB.
i agree ,soil is a very good buffer and if your havin problems in soil it is not your ph.
and 99% of all the "soiless" mediums are gonna buffer just like soil.(not hydro)

I watered my plants for a few months with a very acidic 3.8-4.0 mix and they were fine , and when i added ph up to the mix they did not change. and i also agree that "ph runoff" means nothing.
(unfortunately i have been learning all this the hard way, but i will write it off as "learning/experience")

Kriegs said:

...... but that doesn't mean it was "the problem" to exclusion of all else, or that the best solution is to add Mg, as straightforward as that seems.

Click to expand...

No question about it. The overall health of the plant is dependent on the sum of the parts.

Ok so I have problem that may that may be ph related or tds or temp.. Ive posted this same scenario in several spots, yet to get a reply...

I know this might be long and drawn out but I dont know what else to do..

I have four plants in five gal. buckets in soil. veg for five weeks, perfect. Now on fourth week of flowering and here is where the problem starts.

Due to topping at different stages or not at all, I have various height plants. So, my tallest is on the floor in her bucket and the other three are raised to even out the canopy. Everything was perfect until it started getting cold in part of town. My room is inside with room temps averaging 80F.

The plant on the floor starting at the newest growth began to canoe its leaves severely and started to evenly bronze over the surface of the leaves, both large fans and small new growth.. Of course being a noob I looked for deficiencies and such..

I ran across a few things but nothing definitive. So I got myself a temp meter and was wondering....what about soil temps?

My bucket on the floor is about 58 degrees F. The buckets on the platforms are 70 degrees.. Could temps play a role in ph? Or does temp extremes lock out nutes?

Every plant has the same regimen and all the others are perfect...just the one on the floor is looking terrible at the top and starting to affect mah buds...

One more thing.... My water from the tap is 7.9 ph.... I have a water softener but with sodium instead of potassium.. My TDS meter shows 780 out of the tap... 580 without the softener..

Is there anything that i can do other than buy distilled water or R.O. unit? Doesnt rain much here.....Damn sunshine state.. I am using Botanicare Pure Blend for soil... When I add the recommended dose the TDS is over 1500..

Im not sure how critical this is...just wondering if I need distilled or spring water and whether I need to add supplements to the water if I have to use distilled...