...WHAT AM I MISSING?!?!?
The meters sound like bunk man sorry. I had to throw one away early into my growing as well. The soil chemical test is the correct reading I believe. It would be in line with your in water, out water pH rates too.
Lime, either dolomite or calcitic (garden).
Or, you can keep playing these convoluted pH games with the same results you have now.
Your call.
Wet
Lime, either dolomite or calcitic (garden).
Or, you can keep playing these convoluted pH games with the same results you have now.
Your call.
Wet
What he said.....
And stop reading runoff pH, tells you nothing useful about the mediums pH. And put the Rapid tester in a drawer and forget it, they are inherently inaccurate. Your chasing 2 false numbers in vain. How do your plants look and how is their growth? That will tell you more about your mediums pH than anything.......
really...come on now how am i going to know wether to adjust up or down and by how much by just looking?
Maybe if I type real slow .....?
You get the lime ... you add the lime ...... the lime buffers your soil to the proper pH range.
You put your meters and pH up/down back in the box or garbage and forget about fucking with the pH.
How simple can you get? My meter hasn't been out of the box in over 9 months.
Wet
The chemical tests aren't expensive. Mine was £4 and does 200 tests if I use it as per the instructions (3 drops and a vial full of solution). However, I use it at 1/3 amount (1 drop per 1/3 vial of solution. Cost is about £2 a year doing almost daily tests. Running on that theory, my pH meter would have to last over 20 years to be cheaper.
Forget about 'guessing' pH by looking at the plant. You might as well shut your eyes when watering and hope for the best. Remember that nutrients are locked out by both high pH and low pH. If you are sat there trying to work out which deficiencies you have and what is caused by what for the sake of £2 a year, you are already onto a loser.
Also, adding lime is not a guessing game. It's called the 'Lime Buffering Capacity' (LBC). Look it up and work out how much you need.
Thanks for the rep Dr. Just one extra point to throw in. I changed nutes from Vitalink to Canna. Have found my pH stays much more stable since. However, I am in hydro so maybe different.
lol...so i just add lime and its going to bring it to 7? or is it going to help bring the soil to what ever the water PH is?
You've got it backwards. It will bring the water to the soils pH. Water has at best a temporary effect on the soils pH. That's why you want to get the soils pH right and not worry about the pH of the water or nutes.
Lime will bring it into the proper range, somewhere between 6.4+- to 7.0+-. Usually closer to 6.8 or so, but anywhere in that range will work just fine.
Do you think farmers pH thousands of gallons of irrigation water? Or, get the soils pH right and let it do the pHing?
My garden isn't all that large and it still takes 100 gallons or more to do a complete watering. It gets done straight from the hose. All my plants get straight tap water. IIRC the pH is 7.2 or so.
Some of the teas I apply have a pH of upper 4's to low 5's and when I apply ProTekt, it is well over 10. No ill effects from either extreme, the soil buffers them up or down to the mid 6's.
Try it and see. A 40lb bag only cost ~$4 at Lowes, plenty cheap for such a simple solution.
Wet
You've got it backwards. It will bring the water to the soils pH. Water has at best a temporary effect on the soils pH. That's why you want to get the soils pH right and not worry about the pH of the water or nutes.
Lime will bring it into the proper range, somewhere between 6.4+- to 7.0+-. Usually closer to 6.8 or so, but anywhere in that range will work just fine.
Do you think farmers pH thousands of gallons of irrigation water? Or, get the soils pH right and let it do the pHing?
My garden isn't all that large and it still takes 100 gallons or more to do a complete watering. It gets done straight from the hose. All my plants get straight tap water. IIRC the pH is 7.2 or so.
Some of the teas I apply have a pH of upper 4's to low 5's and when I apply ProTekt, it is well over 10. No ill effects from either extreme, the soil buffers them up or down to the mid 6's.
Try it and see. A 40lb bag only cost ~$4 at Lowes, plenty cheap for such a simple solution.
Wet
"As long as you use enough of it"
I guess you could over apply lime, but I've grown stuff (not mj), in pure crushed limestone, so .......
You can certainly UNDER apply it. It works by contact or close proximity, so you do need 'enough'.
*I* use 2tbl/gallon of mix (ex:6tbl in a 3 gal container), or 1cup/cf of mix. It's best added to the mix before use, but a top dress will work also, just a bit slower.
Only ONE application is needed for a grow cycle, if you use enough. It's ground up rock and will last a long time. I add more when I recycle the soil, but that's about it.
HTH
Wet