Let me begin by saying I’m a stickler for ph. I own a Blue Lab gauge, and test every watering and feeding. I grow only indoors. My tap water always runs high, 7-8. I recalibrate after each grow. Use quality soil.
Then there’s my next door neighbor. He only grows outdoors. He grows 6.5-7’ plants.
Essentially grows in composted dirt. His water, right from the garden hose. Basically the same water I use, except it’s not ph’ed.
So how can you explain the value of ph?
Outdoor has some strong soil biology. Mucho life. It regulates the ph for the individual plant. Much larger range. My indoor living soil is the same. I keep it strong and it gives me a much wider ph in range. Straight synthetic liquid doesnt need the life to make it available to the plant. Instant. Ph needs to be adjusted. Just my take on it.
@MidwestGuy is correct, for sure. The difference for outdoor growers (either in the ground or very large containers) is that the volume of soil buffers the pH so that the small amount of water has little impact on the effective pH. Plus what @Storm said.
Yep and indoors in Promix or coco is a whole other story! You’d better keep ph on point then or they will make you pay! Outdoors the very volume will buffer a lot of waterings.
In soil, indoors, ive never ph’d unless i start seeing issues. If your soil is loaded to start and using a large enough container ( ive done water only on 10gal up to 25 gal containers) your soil will buffer the ph. My tap averages around 7.5 but i also add just a touch of molasses to every watering and the molasses will bring the ph down to 6.5 every time.
That question depends on if its organic or synthetic. Ph’ing with synthetics is a must imo, organic, its optional but not needed.
This^^^ sorry, i forgot to mention im organic. Ill also add that adding Dolomite Lime to soil IF organic will also help buffer the ph.
My first attempt at grows Id get 2-3 weeks in and immediately start getting yellow. I arrived here and after searching a bit began to address the ph. It was well water at 7.0. We started addressing it and things smoothed out for awhile. Began getting yellow again and suspected nutes but realized as going into flower the ph of our well had fluctuated. We have a runoff meter but have had 2 decent harvest only paying attention to ph. Id be curious if you have compared the flavor and potency of yours and your neighbors? Right now, for me, ph is about the only thing im focusing on. 3rd one indoors and we’ll see how it goes. I know one thing. This forum has been immensely helpful and useful in the adventure. Thank you to everyone here.
PH is one of the most important things imo. It’s one of the biggest things all farmers (including us growmies) need to be aware of.
When planting gardens, food plots, farm fields, it’s one of the great questions asked. The chart @MidwestGuy posted shows that perfectly.
My neighbor’s weed was a disaster. 7’ tall, all the buds were fluffy like cotton candy. No potency.
But in all fairness to him, I think he ran out of growing season. It was Oct and his buds weren’t even close, he he had to harvest since frost was imminent.
Gotcha… nice beard BTW👍🏽.
You should test pH even using organic soils if you’re not adding
soil amendments to regulate the pH. The only reason why is so the plant can accept nutrient uptake. Too high pH and the plant will die. I’ve seen this happen to a grower, too confident in organic soil and his flowering stage was a disaster. Better safe than sorry, testing soil pH also helps.
@legalgrow If his flower stage was a disaster using a true organic style grow, it was not ph that caused it. Most likely he ran out of nutrients. True organic grow does not require ph’ing. It is however necessary with synthetics.
PH is like a gps for the plant and we follow the Mary, you know where you are going but it tells you to stay on the path you’re on, make a U turn, what you’re feeding is good for the plant or hold on that’s to much of something and need to bring it back down, flush and start over.
