PH problem
- Thread starter Leugim
- Start date
I wouldn't trust those soil meters. What soil are you using? I'd lower the feed pH to 6.3-6.5. As long as that's what's going in you should be fine.
- Thread starter
- #3
Use that thing to cook hot dogs over the fire.
Water pH is more important.
Water pH is more important.
HydroponicFireman
Well-Known Member
I wouldnt trust that thing much either...unless its for soil wetness (I think the middle range)...and the light meter part isnt even facing up! lol
Those green meter skewer things would actually be more useful if you could just set the needles however you wanted, then at least it could make you feel better. As it is they’re useful like a one legged cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen lake.
- Thread starter
- #7
Thanks
I agree. Not so good for PH readings.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Soil pH is set to the high end of the scale for a very good reason, and it should NOT be adjusted. Soil's pH is set that way so that you can easily slide through the entire soil pH range when you water. Let me say that again... the target pH for your grow is not one single number... it is a range, and in soil it is 6.2-6.8 pH.
So how do you adjust to a range??
If you water with a fluid set at 6.3 pH (the point where mathematically the most nutrients are the most mobile in the soil), because the water that you saturate the soil with so drastically outweighs anything else in that container, that mass of water is what is setting the pH of that container. At that moment, the entire container's pH is whatever the pH of your water/nutes is. It can be nothing different, the physics demands it.
So immediately upon hitting the soil, your carefully adjusted fluid begins to react to the buffers and other things in the soil, and it begins to slowly drift upward in pH. Your pH begins to slide from 6.3, upward... starting to head through the "range."
Gravity begins to work on that column of water sitting in your container, and as the plant uses some of the water, the level of that lake inside the soil, the water table, begins to fall, and the top of the soil begins to dry out. As you wait for the plant to need watering again, that water table continues to fall, allowing the soil in the top of the container to dry out and revert back to its base pH... that high number you have been measuring. If the base pH of your soil is set to 6.8, as most potting soils are, that region of the soil continues to drift upwards through the range toward that top end pH, and in doing so, you have just allowed the nutes in that area to drift completely through the usable pH range, picking up each nutrient in its turn as it becomes the most mobile.
It is a good system, and one that should not be "adjusted." Use the tools as intended, and your grows will go much easier and with much less waste of expensive nutes, just by realizing that the desired pH is not a number... it is a range.
So how do you adjust to a range??
If you water with a fluid set at 6.3 pH (the point where mathematically the most nutrients are the most mobile in the soil), because the water that you saturate the soil with so drastically outweighs anything else in that container, that mass of water is what is setting the pH of that container. At that moment, the entire container's pH is whatever the pH of your water/nutes is. It can be nothing different, the physics demands it.
So immediately upon hitting the soil, your carefully adjusted fluid begins to react to the buffers and other things in the soil, and it begins to slowly drift upward in pH. Your pH begins to slide from 6.3, upward... starting to head through the "range."
Gravity begins to work on that column of water sitting in your container, and as the plant uses some of the water, the level of that lake inside the soil, the water table, begins to fall, and the top of the soil begins to dry out. As you wait for the plant to need watering again, that water table continues to fall, allowing the soil in the top of the container to dry out and revert back to its base pH... that high number you have been measuring. If the base pH of your soil is set to 6.8, as most potting soils are, that region of the soil continues to drift upwards through the range toward that top end pH, and in doing so, you have just allowed the nutes in that area to drift completely through the usable pH range, picking up each nutrient in its turn as it becomes the most mobile.
It is a good system, and one that should not be "adjusted." Use the tools as intended, and your grows will go much easier and with much less waste of expensive nutes, just by realizing that the desired pH is not a number... it is a range.
- Thread starter
- #9
Thanks for that. Sounds similar to an earlier suggestion. I was able to test my runoff water after a few days of watering and my soil read at a 6.5 which I was so happy to see. I followed most of everything you mentioned. So excited that everyone here has calm my nerves down quite a bit. She looks so much healthier now.
Runoff water shouldn't be used to test for anything really.Thanks for that. Sounds similar to an earlier suggestion. I was able to test my runoff water after a few days of watering and my soil read at a 6.5 which I was so happy to see. I followed most of everything you mentioned. So excited that everyone here has calm my nerves down quite a bit. She looks so much healthier now.
Why = cation exchange capacity of soil.
What is the runoff soil pH mean for your plant??
