What is pH?

Wat
McBudz said:
It can be very difficult near impossible to grow a healthy plant without proper understanding of pH and the tools to monitor and adjust the pH.

A must is a good digital pH meter.

I feel like this should be a sticky. A lot of beginner growers including myself treated pH as an after thought. These days I spend close to an hour carefully testing and adjusting my pH each feeding/watering and my results have improved drastically.

IMO pH issues are the root of almost every mystery problem.

Great thread.
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Water temperature is very important too, which is an issue that I rarely see discussed.
 
I've been asking a lot of questions about ph and testers and the up and down stuff for a while on different forum's or threads and never got the whole story,got you have to do it and what bad ph does to plants but not much on how and what to use and now thanks to you and all.this information you've answered all great read. ive also looked at emilya post on watering another great read.Im 60 and haven't grown for 30 years and im going indoor with LEDS and organic soil growing so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone plus in tent another new thing for me so the information you guys give is invaluable i just wish i could find them sooner but all's good i can't thank you enough :welldone::welldone::adore:
 
I would also like to point something out that I just learned about PH...

Water temperature will affect your PH....

Not sure if it was mentioned but figured I would put it out there if not...
 
I'll try to remember that. I'm going to start up another grow here in a couple months and I use well water that's probably 60 degrees. And as it warms up when it hits the soil the pH will change. I need to fill my jugs and let them sit so they get to room temperature
 
Best bit of ph advice around changed the way I grow
1740176
 
Yup, the temperature effects the PH because increased temp makes the hydrogen ions more active then when cooler. This will throw off the PH reading. My root zone in my plants tends to be around 72F, so I put an aquarium heater in my reservoir that I use to draw water from when I need to feed. That keeps the water at the same temp as the root zone in the pots. Not sure if its overkill, but the plants seem to like it.
 
So I'm am new to growing and this whole ph thing. I have been tracking my soil ph with a soil ph meter and my water and nutrient solution with ph strips and everything was fine until I switched to flowering.
I would normally make my nute solution and check the ph. If it was within 6.1-6.9 I would leave it as is. I would water my plants and a while later I would check my soil ph with the soil ph meter. Throughout all of veg it was consistently within the range and I wouldn't need to do anything.
The other day i switched to flowering and gave them their first feeding. Soil was at 6.8 in all 4 plants. I made my solution with tested at about 6.25-6.5 (using strips). After feeding all 4 plants my soil ph meter was reading the soil at 4.0! I never had such a drastic change. The next day it was up to 6.1 so I don't know if my meter malfunctioned or what happened. So now I got a water ph meter/pen and want to test my soil ph with out feeding again to get a base. What is the best way to do this? Do I water with plain ph'd water until I have runoff and just test that to get my soil ph? Do I have to recalculate anything depending on the ph of the water I water with? Any help is appreciated.
 
So being new to growing as I am, I would not waste my time trying to test soil PH. I tried all that and found I need to get the very basics down first. Generally soils are 6.1-7.0 from what I have gathered via reading and talking. I also ran across the issue buying PH pens, you can get a bad one right out of the box. I saw it happen with my own eyes, three separate manufacturers, three bad pens, ranging from $20-$100 so, make sure your PH pen is working correctly, that was my worst mistake, trying to feed when I didnt know my Pen went bad.... My PH also would fluctuate and I killed a nice plant and hurt one extremely bad, they were bushy and looking good, only took that one feed too. Also what Nutes are you using?
 
Rad420 said:
So I'm am new to growing and this whole ph thing. I have been tracking my soil ph with a soil ph meter and my water and nutrient solution with ph strips and everything was fine until I switched to flowering..............
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Soil PH Meter? As in those cheap probes that tell you when to water etc...? Can't get a correct reading with those, and if we talking actual soil and not a hydro like medium like coco then it has things built into it that buffers the PH and no reason to even try to measure the PH of it. Worry about the PH of water/nutrients going in being in the proper range for your medium (or your nutrients as some call for a slightly different PH according to manufacturer) , as chasing problems that are not there will create actual problems, unless your plants are showing signs of deficiencies/lockout.
 
oldskoolbudz said:
So being new to growing as I am, I would not waste my time trying to test soil PH. I tried all that and found I need to get the very basics down first. Generally soils are 6.1-7.0 from what I have gathered via reading and talking. I also ran across the issue buying PH pens, you can get a bad one right out of the box. I saw it happen with my own eyes, three separate manufacturers, three bad pens, ranging from $20-$100 so, make sure your PH pen is working correctly, that was my worst mistake, trying to feed when I didnt know my Pen went bad.... My PH also would fluctuate and I killed a nice plant and hurt one extremely bad, they were bushy and looking good, only took that one feed too. Also what Nutes are you using?
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I am using Remo Nutrients. It what was recommended to me.
 
Dwight Monk said:
Soil PH Meter? As in those cheap probes that tell you when to water etc...? Can't get a correct reading with those, and if we talking actual soil and not a hydro like medium like coco then it has things built into it that buffers the PH and no reason to even try to measure the PH of it. Worry about the PH of water/nutrients going in being in the proper range for your medium (or your nutrients as some call for a slightly different PH according to manufacturer) , as chasing problems that are not there will create actual problems, unless your plants are showing signs of deficiencies/lockout.
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Thanks. I appreciate all this. Wish I didn't spend $35 on the stupid soil probe.
I am seeing some sign of deficiency so I'm trying to dial all this in. It looks to be cal or mag from what I can find online.
IMG_20191108_212534.jpg
 
Rad420 said:
Thanks. I appreciate all this. Wish I didn't spend $35 on the stupid soil probe.
I am seeing some sign of deficiency so I'm trying to dial all this in. It looks to be cal or mag from what I can find online.
IMG_20191108_212534.jpg
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Sure someone will wander in that better with deficiencies than me, otherwise start a Thread for it in FAQ section and use this format, as the more info you give the better advice you will get (and folks don't have to play 20 questions with you to try and help you ;) ):

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As sometimes older threads get overlooked by folks, so sometimes better off just starting your own thread for help/advice. Pics of the whole plant will help too along with the specifics.
 
@Rad420 Looks like you have another thread going already and folks helping you out, post those pics in that thread and go from there. :Namaste:
 
Dwight Monk said:
@Rad420 Looks like you have another thread going already and folks helping you out, post those pics in that thread and go from there. :Namaste:
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Ya I started with a question in this thread but then realized I should just start a new thread for myself and then couldn't delete this one. Now I got people replying on both. Sorry about that.
 
Rad420 said:
Ya I started with a question in this thread but then realized I should just start a new thread for myself and then couldn't delete this one. Now I got people replying on both. Sorry about that.
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It happens :rofl: no worries and now you know ;) :peace::Namaste:
 
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