Been doing some research on why one of my plant’s soil pH refuses to come up. I have ran across a couple articles that talk about this problem with FFOF during flower stage. Anyone have this problem? I’m recycling the dirt so it very well could be past it’s prime. Starting to see problem signs in the lady. She is an auto and I’d hate to dig her up to transplant in fresh soil bc of the shock factor. T.I.A
The pH is coming out at 6.0-6.2 … I’ve put in pH water at 7 and 7.5 and it will not come up above 6.3
Would not use of for autos, having nutrients in the soil for those rodis could end up with possible nitrogen toxicity.
Lw is good since there’s basically no nutes there
1 Like
Yes. I tested the fresh FFOF and it has 1400ppm out the bag
Yep ocean forest always does this to me. 6.1 in mid-late flower like clockwork. I stick to the 4 week flushes but a week after flush, back to 6.1. Next time I run just ocean forest, I’ll add some dolomite.
6 Likes
If you mix it with some manure you can push 2000 ppms and kill your neighbors well…
1 Like
Do you still run FF or have you moved to a different medium?
I would grab some florakleen and do a flush to get any salt deposits out which is usually what tanks your ph. I would also not suggest taking big swings at the ph by going in a 7.5, that’s just gonna create more problems.
Whenever I ran the ffof I was going in at 6.9 through the last half of flower. Your plants slow down on the nutrients as well, which means they take in more water then they do nutrients which also causes ph spikes
5 Likes
I’m running kind soil with ocean forest on top right now. These are the plants I ran in just ocean forest. You can see with the low ph it caused magnesium issues in all of them but they all turned out well in the end.
11 Likes
That and decaying plant material in the root mass drives the PH down.
5 Likes
All in all it’ll be best to transfer her to fresh soil. On week 1 of veg and a long time to go playing keep up with the soil pH. Thanks everybody
2 Likes
Ahh, just caught the recycled part. Was wondering when you just said week 1 of veg.
2 Likes
Yeah, no hydro shops or stores that carry it so I was out and just had enough for 1 7 gal so I recycled the dirt to fill 1 more 5 gal
Here is the lady in the old FF … she has been under a dome the entire time. Water droplets are from dome removal and it dripped onto it. Bottom leafs are closing up and it looks to be a tint of yellow. Believe it is early signs of nute lock due to low ph
That plant doesn’t even really look old enough to justify watering to runoff. So I wouldn’t suggest flushing right now. I think Bobbydigital had great suggestion of using some dolomite lime. Get the fine version and gently turn a few tablespoons into top of your soil. Use sparingly at first and see where that gets you. If you use a lot of the fine stuff the top of your pots will turn to concrete.
3 Likes
Would bone meal be a good substitute for Dolomite?
@dbrn32
1 Like
Not that I know of. I was always under impression that that bonemeal was more of a slow release source of phosphorus, or something like that. The purpose of adding lime here would be more to buffer ph.
1 Like
It went straight thru to the catch tray, wasn’t much but enough to test. Moved her into fresh fox farm before last out. Lights on, she was perked up and happy. The root ball and main root looked really good. That soil is just not made to recycle without adding something for the pH. Don’t want to risk this auto being shocked and turning into a one nug plant 
3 Likes
That makes sense, thanks for the knowledge.
@dbrn32
KE13
1 Like