RetiredRN Gorilla Glue, Northern Lights 2021 First Time Grower

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RetiredRN said:
Hey @Emilya @StoneOtter @Virgin Ground @InTheShed . Well, my gorilla glue auto is the right back plant and its 65 days old and the rest are northern lights autos all 56 days old today. All the plants are fed the same stuff and the gorilla glue auto continues to have rust spots all over it but the other plants don’t, I can’t figure it out. I’m not planting anymore of those gorilla glue plants. The others have been fairly easy to care for but not that gorilla glue. Everyone got fed big bloom, bud bloom and beastie blooms today from the fox farm nutrients line. Two out of the three northern lights plants are requiring watering every day and they wilt if they don’t get it , like that right front plant and they just drink and drink and drink they are so thirsty. They as a whole drank 1.5 gallons of water, ph to 6.5, before I got any run off. I’m considering maybe 4 gallon pots for my next grow. I’m thinking I still have 2 or 3 more weeks to go yet till harvest.

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looks like a bit of calcium deficiency on that one... supplement with calmag.
 
:green_heart:Chunky.


Very nice.
 
@Emilya @StoneOtter @InTheShed so I have all my girls outside bathing in the sun today. The smallest one to the far right is one of the northern lights that didn’t veg hardly at all and flowered early on me. She has about 10% brown pistols at this time. The next one over from her is my gorilla glue that is 10 weeks old today and it looks like it still has a couple of more weeks to go because I only have a few brown pistols on it. The remaining plants are northern lights autos and all my northern light plants are nine weeks old but as you can see they are all different sizes and seem to be doing their own thing. I do have a question for today, and forgive me if I have been told it before but am I supposed to be PH adjusting my water after I put my fox farm nutrients in it or no? Some are saying that the soil buffers it and theres no need but I’m not sure I understand completely about that. And as a homestead we collect rain water and use it for various things here but it’s PH is running about 7.4, so do I need to PH that water as well??? Thankyou for helping me, you guys and gals are great!

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It all depends on who you ask! I'd say you're fine watering FF soil without having to pH your nutes before you use them as the pH of your water doesn't affect the pH of your soil.
 
InTheShed said:
It all depends on who you ask! I'd say you're fine watering FF soil without having to pH your nutes before you use them as the pH of your water doesn't affect the pH of your soil.
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So does the PH of the soil dictate wether the plants can use the nutrients I’m dumping into the soil?
 
Yes. The pH of the medium is what the plants care about, not the pH of the nutes. Nute pH matters in hydro/coco/hempy (perlite). Here is a perfect example of how nute pH is buffered by the soil.
 
RetiredRN said:
@Emilya @StoneOtter @InTheShed so I have all my girls outside bathing in the sun today. The smallest one to the far right is one of the northern lights that didn’t veg hardly at all and flowered early on me. She has about 10% brown pistols at this time. The next one over from her is my gorilla glue that is 10 weeks old today and it looks like it still has a couple of more weeks to go because I only have a few brown pistols on it. The remaining plants are northern lights autos and all my northern light plants are nine weeks old but as you can see they are all different sizes and seem to be doing their own thing. I do have a question for today, and forgive me if I have been told it before but am I supposed to be PH adjusting my water after I put my fox farm nutrients in it or no? Some are saying that the soil buffers it and theres no need but I’m not sure I understand completely about that. And as a homestead we collect rain water and use it for various things here but it’s PH is running about 7.4, so do I need to PH that water as well??? Thankyou for helping me, you guys and gals are great!
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I was asked just this morning about this because someone knew that I don't pH my water. I explained that I do not, simply because I am not using chelated nutes that require being in a certain pH range before the nutes can break out of their chelated bonds and become available to the plant. If I ran synthetic nutes, such as the Fox Farm line of nutes, you can be sure that I would carefully pH adjust all of my fluids to 6.3 pH immediately before applying it to the plants, no matter the soil I might be in, buffered or not.

@InTheShed and I don't agree on the need for this and he believes that you don't have to pH adjust in certain buffered soils, and technically he is right... but there is a cost associated with this shortcut. His response just now talks about the pH of the water not adjusting the soil pH, and I don't think this has anything to do with anything, the pH of the water is not intended to change the pH of the soil and only very slowly does this over the several months of the grow. The pH of the soil in a closed container is different in different parts of the container, and depending on how much water is still in that region of soil.

Its not about the pH of the soil at all, it is all about the pH of the column of saturated soil after you water. That column has no choice but to assume the ph of the fluid you just saturated it with. If you are in the correct pH range, your nutes are available to the plant. If you are not, the nutes are as inert as they were in the bottle. Let's say you mix up your nutes and find that your mix is now at 5.3 pH. You can apply that to your soil and trust the buffers to react with it and get it into the needed range for the nutes to become mobile, and yes, some soils have enough dolomite in it that this will start the reaction with your nute water as soon as you apply it. It will take time however for this to adjust your nute water down into the usable range and for a significant amount of time as it is still adjusting, your nutes are totally invisible to your plant... they are locked up as tightly as they were in the bottle. For that period of time, only a portion of the nutes in the mix are available to the plant and you are not getting proper nutrition.

Doesn't it make sense to manually adjust the pH of your fluids so that all of the nutes are immediately available?? Are you really willing to go 12 - 24 hours before your nutes actually start working after you water your plants? As in all things, doing things right the first time, is usually best.
 
InTheShed said:
Yes. The pH of the medium is what the plants care about, not the pH of the nutes. Nute pH matters in hydro/coco/hempy (perlite). Here is a perfect example of how nute pH is buffered by the soil.
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Sorry, but I don't believe this last statement is true. The base pH of the medium is only what the pH of the soil reverts to when dry. The working pH, is the pH of the saturated column of water, and whether or not the nutes can be mobile and available to the plants depends on if the nutes are in the correct pH range. If it were up to the base pH of most soils, set up near 6.8 or so, nutes would hardly ever be in the range of 6.2-6.8 that we all know is optimum for best pickup.
 
RetiredRN said:
am I supposed to be PH adjusting my water after I put my fox farm nutrients in it or no?
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Feel free to pH your nutes if it makes you happy, but what matters is the pH of the FF soil. Over time, the pH of soil and soilless (peat-based) can change due to the type of nitrogen in your nutes (nitrate raises the pH of the soil and ammoniacal lowers it), and the alkaline content of the water.

Soil and peat-based substrates have their pH adjusted to buffer it to a range that suits that medium best. Soil has lots of micronutrients in it, so raising the pH in manufacturing prevents overloading the plants. Peat has no micronutrients in it, so the pH is buffered to a range that allows for their efficient uptake.
 
I don't see any reason to clog up RN's thread with a pH debate. And I address pH drift with every post I make on the subject (as I did above), as well as in the opening post in the thread regarding pH'ing our nutes.

Soil is magical. If it wasn't, the earth wouldn't be covered with it and we wouldn't be here. Everything else folks grow in suits them better in some way. Even peat-based substrates are modeled on soil.
 
Another non answer. :hmmmm:
Sorry RN, but this has been an impasse between he and I for a while now and I knew this would happen as soon as I saw who you tagged on your original question. Shed and I are never going to agree on this. I suggest that you do your own experiment, and it is my belief that you will quickly see the value of carefully adjusting pH, especially in FFOF and using their nutes. Run one plant without adjusting and several with adjusting, and see for yourself why this has been done long before Shed came along.
 
Emilya said:
I was asked just this morning about this because someone knew that I don't pH my water. I explained that I do not, simply because I am not using chelated nutes that require being in a certain pH range before the nutes can break out of their chelated bonds and become available to the plant. If I ran synthetic nutes, such as the Fox Farm line of nutes, you can be sure that I would carefully pH adjust all of my fluids to 6.3 pH immediately before applying it to the plants, no matter the soil I might be in, buffered or not.

@InTheShed and I don't agree on the need for this and he believes that you don't have to pH adjust in certain buffered soils, and technically he is right... but there is a cost associated with this shortcut. His response just now talks about the pH of the water not adjusting the soil pH, and I don't think this has anything to do with anything, the pH of the water is not intended to change the pH of the soil and only very slowly does this over the several months of the grow. The pH of the soil in a closed container is different in different parts of the container, and depending on how much water is still in that region of soil.

Its not about the pH of the soil at all, it is all about the pH of the column of saturated soil after you water. That column has no choice but to assume the ph of the fluid you just saturated it with. If you are in the correct pH range, your nutes are available to the plant. If you are not, the nutes are as inert as they were in the bottle. Let's say you mix up your nutes and find that your mix is now at 5.3 pH. You can apply that to your soil and trust the buffers to react with it and get it into the needed range for the nutes to become mobile, and yes, some soils have enough dolomite in it that this will start the reaction with your nute water as soon as you apply it. It will take time however for this to adjust your nute water down into the usable range and for a significant amount of time as it is still adjusting, your nutes are totally invisible to your plant... they are locked up as tightly as they were in the bottle. For that period of time, only a portion of the nutes in the mix are available to the plant and you are not getting proper nutrition.

Doesn't it make sense to manually adjust the pH of your fluids so that all of the nutes are immediately available?? Are you really willing to go 12 - 24 hours before your nutes actually start working after you water your plants? As in all things, doing things right the first time, is usually best.
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Thank you for that great explanation I understand completely now
 
InTheShed said:
I don't see any reason to clog up RN's thread with a pH debate. And I address pH drift with every post I make on the subject (as I did above), as well as in the opening post in the thread regarding pH'ing our nutes.

Soil is magical. If it wasn't, the earth wouldn't be covered with it and we wouldn't be here. Everything else folks grow in suits them better in some way. Even peat-based substrates are modeled on soil.
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Hey no worries Shed. I don’t mind if you debate in my thread because it’s all a learning experience for me and whoever else comes to visit my grow journal can learn as well so debate away my friends
 
Emilya said:
Another non answer. :hmmmm:
Sorry RN, but this has been an impasse between he and I for a while now and I knew this would happen as soon as I saw who you tagged on your original question. Shed and I are never going to agree on this. I suggest that you do your own experiment, and it is my belief that you will quickly see the value of carefully adjusting pH, especially in FFOF and using their nutes. Run one plant without adjusting and several with adjusting, and see for yourself why this has been done long before Shed came along.
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Hey no problem. I’m going to continue with the pH adjustment of my Foxfarm nutrients through the end of this grow because it has been working and I’m so close to a harvest I don’t want to kill my plants before it’s time. I didn’t mean to restart war but you guys are who I have hung with from the very beginning.
 
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