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- #1,701
Yeah thanks buddy... the whole city is going wild right now... been waiting for that for a long while. Was a great game... Reminds me, gotta get me a super bowl championship hat!
Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden
Yeah thanks buddy... the whole city is going wild right now... been waiting for that for a long while. Was a great game... Reminds me, gotta get me a super bowl championship hat!
LaquerHead
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the thorough answer! I made the jump and ordered "floured". May also throw a few handfuls of coarse in for the long term side of things. I see a lot of people transplanting in their no-tills. Doesn't that sorta kinda disrupt soil? After its been established that is..
That course stuff will be great if you do multiple runs through your soil. Will only improve with time.
TheFertilizer
Well-Known Member
I usually have a oscillating fan blowing at soil level always, maybe that's why my pots dry out faster than most people experience with the same soil amounts. In any case they still need about 2-3 days with fans on them :/
kelticBlue
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TheFertilizer
Well-Known Member
Hey Bob what kind of RO filter are you using? I found Aquatic Life models that are 50 GPD and 100 GPD for 40 and 60 dollars respectively on Amazon, wondering if that sounded like a brand that you're familiar with and what you use? Also, does it just come out of the filter at 6.5 or do you have to do anything to it? One of these filters comes with a 4th stage de-ionizer too, whatever the hell that is.
But seriously I need to get this idea of soil pH buffering input water straightened out because if that's not how it works, I've been giving people bad advice. I guess it's probably easier for the soil if the input water is optimal already, but what about when it's pretty alkaline? Those RO filters are so much more affordable than I previously though ( thought it was like 200-300 but I remembered you telling me about the cheap RV ones ) and so I'll go that route, but just for academic and knowledge sake I wanna make sure I actually know what I"m talking about with pH buffering.
But seriously I need to get this idea of soil pH buffering input water straightened out because if that's not how it works, I've been giving people bad advice. I guess it's probably easier for the soil if the input water is optimal already, but what about when it's pretty alkaline? Those RO filters are so much more affordable than I previously though ( thought it was like 200-300 but I remembered you telling me about the cheap RV ones ) and so I'll go that route, but just for academic and knowledge sake I wanna make sure I actually know what I"m talking about with pH buffering.
I don't know Fert. My first grow.....I used the earth juice crystals for pH'ing down my water from 9.2 range to the 6.5 range.
This grow I have changed.....I start aerating my tap water (9.2) for 2 days or so and I am finding my pH is falling during that process to the 7.5 range. From there I have been adding in the ACT components and brewing for 24-48 hours. I haven't even checked the pH of the ACT I use......but whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be doing anything negative
I haven't had my soil analyzed yet so no clue what my soil's pH is. I do plan on having it analyzed here at some point just too see.
I wish I could offer you better advice on the soil and pH issues you are having Fert.
TheFertilizer
Well-Known Member
I don't know Fert. My first grow.....I used the earth juice crystals for pH'ing down my water from 9.2 range to the 6.5 range.
This grow I have changed.....I start aerating my tap water (9.2) for 2 days or so and I am finding my pH is falling during that process to the 7.5 range. From there I have been adding in the ACT components and brewing for 24-48 hours. I haven't even checked the pH of the ACT I use......but whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be doing anything negative
I haven't had my soil analyzed yet so no clue what my soil's pH is. I do plan on having it analyzed here at some point just too see.
I wish I could offer you better advice on the soil and pH issues you are having Fert.
Well I have a bit of a theory and it kind of lies with the term "optimal pH". 7.2 is obviously a little on the high side, but if you look at the charts, it's not so high that you'd think it wouldn't avoid lockout of the major macronutrients at least. Well, I think my specific problem is that even if my pH buffering seems to be working, it's buffering alkaline input to alkaline and completely skipping over the acidic range that cannabis likes. If my soil was at a more optimum 6.5-6.8 it would probably work to just pH buffer plain water, but I'm thinking that as much as I detest pH adjusting, I'm going to have to knock it down to 6.5 if I want to run plain water. My other option would be to run ACTs, because they nearly always come out slightly acidic. In that scenario, it would be an acidic input being buffered to alkaline, so it would at least bring it over the full range to avoid the lock-out I'm seeing.
That's just my theory. I'm just not really sure how to remedy it. I don't know how feasible it is for me to be brewing teas all the time, and I really hate adjusting with pH crystals. The EarthJuice ones are just dehydrated citrus and sodium bicarbonate, but it's still adding salts to the water, which isn't good for the microbes or the roots especially when I'm always going, "Whoops too much down," and then, "Whoops too much up," over and over until it's just right lol
bob I think was telling me about keeping re-hydrated kelp meal in a mason jar in the fridge and adding that to the water? I wasn't sure what you were getting at before bob, but I think after brewing a batch I get what you're saying. I'd take the stuff I brewed with, keep it in a jar, and then just kind of add that into my waterings instead of just plain water? I'm not sure if you told me that here or in my journal. I'm wondering if just a few splashes of re-hydrated kelp-meal juice will pH adjust a few gallons of water.
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- #1,710
On Amazon I buy the brand "Ro Buddie" yeah Aquatic Life ... I only use the 3 filtered one. The ionizer I think is for the fish tank peeps. Yes the water comes out tested @ 6.5ph and between 5ppm to 10ppm... I test it once a year for ppm. Can but the filter replacement kits when ready to change out.
I have 2 one is 100 gpd and the other is 50 gpd. The difference is there's a choke on the grey side (waste water) that slows the water down enough to so it works thru the filter... I bought the 50 gpd and changed that choke to a 100 gpd so now have 2 100 gpd filters. Don't know why I bought the 50 gpd one . prolly stoner moment.
Get the 100 gpd - we use it for all our drinking water too. We fill up a glass carboy (3 gallon) and a 5 gallon one and keep them in the kitchen for drinking and cooking and watering plants. Then the other 1 I have dedicated to filling the flower room reservoir. Turn it on and 8 hrs later filled. Kinda nice knowing how fast it fills. I have to leave myself a note to turn off the water. I'm too lazy to add an auto float valve.
Soil PH in my soil is regulated by the micro herd and the plants roots. Provided the soil is in balance - we know that from our soil test. Buffering PH is handled via the CEC - when there's plenty of minerals available, high CEC soils will be highly buffered so if say you wanted to raise the soil PH in a highly buffered soil you would have to add more lime than you would if the CEC was lower. In a container it's important to have the soil in a "ready to grow" state, not liming the soil for next season... Having and maintaining a high CEC rate is what I do. The PH us already around 6 or a little less (for me) and then the plants do their thing.
If what you mean by buffering PH is adding enough med - long term Ca to the soil to maintain the proper PH, yes thats one way to look at it. I provide enough Ca more for the long term health of the plants. Ca does much more than just regulate PH, but it is 1 function and it's an important one but there are other good reasons to have enough Ca ... and I would even go as far as to supply the max amount within reason of course and why we soil test.
GodOfPot
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Anyone have a quick estimate on how many lbs of rice hulls per gallon? Need about 5gal worth but no clue how many lbs that equals to be
Conradino23
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Great answer you got from bob here. I just want to add that PH is one thing only, the concentration of hydrogen ions in soil.
A lot of them and we get acidic conditions and little of them we get alkaline ones. To stabilise PH permanently you'd have to regulate breaking heavier molecules into cations and anions, so they only give off so much hydrogen.
Unfortunately water itself is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is broken down, which means this too would have to be tackled... probably on atomic level. And then hydrogen is also necessary by bacteria to metabolise stuff and some gets trapped with soil carbon too, which means it stays there for good.
Well the answer is PH can't be well controlled in living soil, cause the soil food web sets it by itself and can swing it as much as it wants to achieve balance for all the organisms sharing it, but mainly for the plant, which provides nutrition in exchange via exudates.
TheFertilizer
Well-Known Member
Quoting both you and bob... Just not sure I can see what the issue is with this soil then. The CEC is high, or high as far as I know. Is 7.2 really that high of a pH to be causing lockout issues? I do notice my indica-dominate Platinum Girl Scout Cookies x Cherry OG is slightly less unhappy than my 100% sativa crosses in it. ACE recommends low-to medium nutrients for growth and medium-high on flower, so maybe it's just an issue of it being so rich?
I dunno, but I'm chasing my tail with this one.
Conradino23
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It's totally blurred, I can't read it.Quoting both you and bob... Just not sure I can see what the issue is with this soil then. The CEC is high, or high as far as I know. Is 7.2 really that high of a pH to be causing lockout issues? I do notice my indica-dominate Platinum Girl Scout Cookies x Cherry OG is slightly less unhappy than my 100% sativa crosses in it. ACE recommends low-to medium nutrients for growth and medium-high on flower, so maybe it's just an issue of it being so rich?
I dunno, but I'm chasing my tail with this one.
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Smell it... should smell like soil with a hint of ocean beach smell. Once it starts to smell like poop its best for outdoor use.
When I aerate my teas usually just do it for 24 hrs sometimes 30 if I get too busy. Once to 40-48 hrs its ok but the micro herd population starts to decline ... then the bad bacteria start to multiply and they smell like shit... not really "bad" per se but in containers anaerobic bacteria can be a problem. I've only had that happen 1 time. The micro herd in the soil die off ... soil wont dry out, then the plant starts dying.
Cure was to change pots with new soil and compost the bad soil. Alcohols can begin to be a thing... so we should be able to detect that from the smell pretty easily.
I've never had to worry about too much water in flower, they drink a lot. Only in early to mid VEG can I mess up with water. I flood my VEG girls almost everyday... The pots sit in another dish, water runs thru and out and the pots sit in the water. Overnight all the excess water is taken up by the plants roots and they are ready for more. This is VEG plants that are pretty well root bound.... so they are more than ready for a larger container. I can drown them and it wont hurt. They are also slowly running out of nutrients... so this is when I know they are ready for a new pot.
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- #1,716
All of the above... What I do is grind up some kelp meal in a coffee grinder, say a 1/2 cup or so and put into a quart mason jar and fill with water. Give it a few shakes and then into the fridge. At watering or even when doing an IPM I will pour off some of the liquid from the jar into my water and also into my sprayer for IPM - can do either or both. Not going to hurt your plants will a little kelp tea.
What I don't do is brew a tea say with EWC and Kelp Meal and and keep it around after brewing. Either I water in or I take it outside and pour it in the outdoor gardens even in the winter time ... it will help all the outdoor plants (perennials and berries) get a good start for spring.
Guy Cavallero
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I had an earlier question about my EWCxkelp spray smelling like crap. GOP explained in not so many words......thank you for or the explanation of what is actually occurring once the tea seems to be "bad". Now I know to mix and fridge it til needed, and then just to put enough in my sprayer for foliar.
Guy Cavallero
Well-Known Member
Maybe Nathan would divulge that info? I know they use it as they're humic at Black Swallow.
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- #1,719
Fert - your soil test looks pretty good... I wouldn't worry too much about the "recommendation" at the btm. Thats the job you gave them money to do. Test your soil and give you a recommendation. Remember when reading that, they are geared towards farming and chemical fertilizers. At that, they say 2 cups of N Ferts per 100 sq ft
Yeah so doing some math
100 sq ft say 6" deep of soil = turn that 100 sq ft into sq inches = 120" x 120" = 14400 square inches
14400 * 6" (6 in depth of soil) = 86400 Sq Inches of soil that needs to be treated.
Take 86400 and turn into gallons of soil = 374 gallons of soil treated with 2 cups of some N fert. Well you can see from that recommendation, that's not a lot of N that needs to be added. For a 7-10 gallon pot of soil its like 1 TBS of kelp meal or some N heavy amendment. Nothing to worry about throw another cup of EWC in there and call it perfect!
Your test looks very similar to my last soil test.... I call it perfect.
Yeah so doing some math
100 sq ft say 6" deep of soil = turn that 100 sq ft into sq inches = 120" x 120" = 14400 square inches
14400 * 6" (6 in depth of soil) = 86400 Sq Inches of soil that needs to be treated.
Take 86400 and turn into gallons of soil = 374 gallons of soil treated with 2 cups of some N fert. Well you can see from that recommendation, that's not a lot of N that needs to be added. For a 7-10 gallon pot of soil its like 1 TBS of kelp meal or some N heavy amendment. Nothing to worry about throw another cup of EWC in there and call it perfect!
Your test looks very similar to my last soil test.... I call it perfect.
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- #1,720
What I do with aeration is mix in by volume.
So say I wanted 15 gallons of soil I would:
5 gal bucket of peat moss
5 gal bucket of aeration (rice hulls or per-lite)
5 gal bucket of humus
add in my amendments to the above.
Don't worry about weight.... rice hulls are pretty light as is per-lite. You want to measure by volume not weight.