So…This run I decided to buy some store Soil made for cannabis, I bought 3 different brands and turned out that one of them is pure crap.
the good ones were Canna Terra and Atami Janeco and the shitty was Cover Crop a soil made in southern Spain
The recipe looked nice to me …70% peat 20%perlite 5% coco 5% EWC (very shitty quality) plus trichodermas and mycorrhizae…nice huh?
well…hell no…the soil was poorly mixed and I founded several black rocks of what I recall compost…the smell was not like mine or the other soils , didn’t smell like healthy soil but like ammonia…
I should see that as a red flag but I was very busy and I decided to trust this assholes from Cover Crop…bad move…
Plants in that particular soil immediately reacted with a Potassium toxicity , after 10 days some are recovering some are still hurt. I prolly aggravated the problem watering the with my distilled water from dehums and AC that has a ph of 5.5. same as this shitty soil…
I tested the runoff and is pretty acidic…5.5
The other plants (all the same clone) in the different brand soil are doing awesome, so im pretty sure the problem was that crappy soil and im thinking’s to raise the ph of my water to 7 and balance the slightly acidity of the shitty soil in this way…
I always grew organic and I always mixed my own soil, and this time I decided to buy some soil I got punished so bad…
So…I went to grab a bottle of PH Up and I realized that the majority of ph up are Potassium Hydroxide…Would this alterate the nutrient profile of the water adding more potassium???
Some of the plants that are in this shitty soil are doing better, some are worst…and im thinking that adjusting the ph of the water up would prolly Unlock the situation faster and in a more controlled way than add some Dolomite as top dressing with some EWC that is also pretty alkaline. ( my second option)
Im new to this PH problems and def very ignorant as far as way to buffer it…I always grew in my own soil with quality Lime pack (dolomite, gypsum and calcium carbonate) and high quality homemade EWC…
Can someone enlighten me please???
Im suspecting that those assholes just didn’t lime the soil mix that’s why im having this problem, o maybe they didn’t mix it well and the roots are clashing with some compost boulders…
ill add some pics of the good ones and the bad ones…
thanks so much for reading!
My immediate reaction was that it’s not enough perlite/aeration; I think your observations & points are fair but to truly dismiss the product would require either lab analysis or further experimentation. No doubt, there IS shitty soil for sale, but the plants don’t look as bad as I imagined.
Maybe experiment on them? Try top dressing with a little soil snatched from nature?
I’d say that the soil doesn’t have enough aeration and it’s really easy to compact/ overwater causing lockouts, especially in the cold. Flush with 7.5-8 then let it dry out. Your P should start up taking after some time followed by others.
Thanks for the inputs! interesting…never thought about the mix being too heavy, cause It didn’t look like…
in My soil mix I do 60% limed peat 30% perlite and 10% EWC…and never had problem with compact heavy soil…maybe that 10 is crucial!!!
The other two mixes of soil has more or less the same amount of perlite around 20-25% but they don’t have coco…
What was worring me was those black compost balls that for my mistake I decided to crush during the transplant instead of takin them out…and that ammonia smell…
Dou you guys agree doh that there are some ph problems goin?
*Oh I should add that I’ve been ultra careful to don’t overwater…extremely light watering and the temps are pretty high , as humidity (27C day 25 C night 77-81f) (RH 58-64) in a sealed room with co2 at 1500ppm
Thanks ReikoX…thats definitely another variable to take in account…
That smell reminded me of that smell of those hardware store potting soil…like Costco , Home Depot etc… nothing exciting or like a healthy mycelium smelling forest type of smell
I did some research on Potassium Hydroxide, cause I never used a PH adjuster, but I can’t find if it will add nutrient to the water or not other than adjusting the PH…
just flush the pots with 2-3x the volume the rest of the plants look happy the plant should correct in a week or two just watch the new growth the damaged leaves will never recover fully.
That’s probably your industrial waste right there poorly composted Pine from the lumber mills might be reason it’s acidic as well … ya think you have a low ph lockout going for sure! Hope it turns around for ya!
Don’t think Iv seen ya here before WELCOME to OG!
Hell yeah! Same here! Im actually having a real hard time to keep up with organics recipes, the feeding requirements of my girls under those very powerful LED fixtures im using, plus the CO2…seems like driving a Ferrari …a fast car that its easy to wreck if you don’t know how to drive it!
Thats why I also decided this run to experiment some hybrid style ,half organic half mineral …getting that store bought soil, my idea was to start feed them Greenleaf Megacrop as soon as the soil nutes were starting to vanish…plus adding Lab, EWC topdressing, Seed sprout tea, and microdosing Fish hydrolizate, Molasses and Kelp mainly to try to keep the biome alive…
But there always some unexpected thing that makes things more “exciting” or better annoying
Lets see…thers sooo much to study, learn and experiment!!
I got a BlueLab PH Probe and I discovered that the readings I did with the drops were a little off…
My distilled A/C and Dehums water is 7.1 and right now I’m watering the hurt ones with a 8.5 water.
The drop test was giving me something about 5.5 - 6…
Tomorrow ill re do a runoff test…
Im thinking’s to top dress the most hurt ones with dolomite and EWC…to keep buffering…but im wondering if they will make it!!!
Do you think some balanced foliar feed could help them? I sprayed a mineral supplement with sucrose and they loved it…
My 2 cents… stop messing with ph and give them a nice fish fert for nitrogen… a little kelp wouldn’t hurt either.
Also, how old is the soil? If 3 weeks then all ferts in the soil itself are depleted. Even faster if you’ve been watering until run-off a lot.
Thank you Meesh!!
Thats exactly what I’m doing right now, yesterday I decided to stop messing with that ph drops and since a week I started to give them complete nutrients at 6-6.5 ph…
nothing exciting or like a healthy mycelium smelling forest type of smell 
It’s like “pre-soil”. 
…getting that store bought soil, my idea was to start feed them Greenleaf Megacrop as soon as the soil nutes were starting to vanish…plus adding Lab, EWC topdressing, Seed sprout tea, and microdosing Fish hydrolizate, Molasses and Kelp mainly to try to keep the biome alive…
or better annoying 
