Cheers for the help guys, I will do a ph test on the root zone again today, just to double check.
I have ag lime, but ph ing my water up is not a problem. I do that with potassium silica normally.
I have been adding sulphur to boost the Terps but probably over did it.
Lime is your friend, I do believe I recommended that a bit ago.
Yes you did, There is plenty in there I added some 5-6 weeks ago, you can still see it in the soil when the top 3 inches of soil are dry. Maybe not enough though which is why I didnāt think it needed it.
I was getting a run off that was raising my PH 2 points above whatever my water PH was going in at that point, which is why I am confused and asking for advice.
I canāt get my head around why my root zone is acidic and my run off is highly alkaline.
Do you think there might of been a mass die off of your microbes when you put your additives in weeks ago? And now they may be just building their numbers up again and equaling out the different stratta of soil?
I have been upping my Labs when watering the last couple of weeks, so rather than a die off, I think it may be I am adding to much, Labs and Tea. When I was getting the high PH run of I was lowering the PH of my water with Labs. Perhaps I have a very high bacteria count now compared to 3- 4 weeks ago.
Ya thatās making more sense now ,I havenāt messed with labs much but from what Iv gathered in KNF concepts most high bacterial solutions need probably a 1:250 or 1:500 dilution when working them IIRCC.
I am using around half a cup to 5 gals of water with a table spoon of molasses when directly feeding it to the plants. Otherwise its a table spoon full or 2 to PH my water down.
If Iām right in my assumptions with dilutions that sounds a bit heavy to me maybe try 1/4 to 1/8 th cup per 5 gallons for the next rounds but at this point Iād probably hold back on any other additions of labs IMO
Yeh I was thinking the same lol. I have fungal tea on the go atm that has a higher PH of 7.2
Just tested my soil again in the pot that had the sebs rev in it, that is acidic reduces the water PH by 0.9 so added a couple of tablespoons of lime to the surface.
The C99XGHP and the Tut pot has an alkaline soil, it raises PH to 1 above my water PH so I have added a tablespoon of sulphur to those pots. No signs of problems in the others in veg or flower atm.
Usually dilute to 1/2 oz (15 ml) per gallon. So 1/4 cup is perfect IMO.
It has to be a PH problem, as they are displaying almost identical problems with different soil PH swings. I will test the soil every 3 days, and see if things are changing, and just water each pot with a specific PH. Its a pain in the arse, but once back on track, I will use less supplements in one go, keep it to smaller amounts and test more often. More LITFA on supplements and less LITFA on testing lol.
Just a random thought, if you feed 6.0 pH does it also go up to 7.0 pH? The lime will try to buffer to 7.0 regardless of input pHā¦
From my Log book.
9th Sept 2019 watered Tut and C99 at PH 6.4 tested run off at 7.53 and 7.37 so averaging around 1PH point raise Looks like I need to water @ 5.4-5.5 to get it where I need it at 6.5.
17th Sept 2019 Watered C99 and Tut with 2 liters for the Tut and 3 for the C99 PH 4.4 with molasses and labs and Epsom salts in 5 gals. Tested run off PH it was 6.
I have just watered them with PH 5.8 to try and get them in the PH 6.8 range in the root zone.
I will test it again tomorrow, with a lower PH as I only gave it 2 liters, and see how much it will raise it, the sulphur will take a while to break down, so not sure if it will affect the PH straight away.
Is it better to test root zone or run off PH?
I am going to be watering with less water but more frequent for now. I will see if it still raises it above or around the 6.4 mark in the root zone.
I wouldnt worry about runoff, personally. I water at about pH 6.0 and let the plant/microbes sort it out. The plant can exude specific carbohydrates to attract fungi/bacteria that will adjust the pH if necessary.
Ok cheers Reikio, I will just test the root zones every couple of days and see whats going on. Just going to use plain water with an adjusted PH to compensate for up and down swing, for a week and see what happens. Hopefully get on top of this problem asap.
From what Iv gathered from Dr Elaine Ingham the rhizosphere can and often is in a constant flux of ph ranges could be as high as 8-9 on one side of the plant and 5 on the other side, the plant will always dictate by adjusting the ph through microbes like @ReikoX mention get it in a happy medium range and things should sort themselves out automatically
Cheers man, I was thinking if I should just take random samples from around the pot or just one spot. If thatās the case then it will not make much difference, I will get different results day to day and spot to spot.
So instead of checking and doing a different PH watering for each plant, do you think, stick with like a PH of 6 for the week on all of them with just water. I think they have plenty of Bacteria in them atm, just let them get on with it and see what happens ?
Yup agreed a lot of peeps just end up chasing their tails trying to fix this and that when it comes to ph and end up making things worse in the end
Lol thatās just what I was thinking, this could just keep going the more I mess with them.
Sod em they will get PH 6 and like it or lump it lol. I will just have to grow another C99XGH anyway, along with the sebs Rev, and hope I can do them more justice the next time. I guess I could try and re veg the C99 if it lives through this.
Iām with you. Anytime I tried to fix pH by lowering/increasing input values I created more issues.