New Grower Soil ph questions.

[The Squid]

Depends on your price range really. I use the Hanna combo, it measure everything. Ph, temp, ppm and it's waterproof and really nice, top of the line pretty much, although I am sure one could spend more. It's $129 US. Either way you'll need calibration solution and storage solution for your digital meter. Hanna makes one that just measure ph which is fine. That one is $70-80 US.

 

[gbd]

thanks, i'll look into them! the costs are really starting to add up!

 

[The Squid]

Yeah get used to that man. haha

 

[florafire]

thanks, i'll look into them! the costs are really starting to add up!

INVESTMENTS!>>>>not cost. investments...such as, it takes money to make money(a true saying if ever there was one, even prinitng it cost money)...

but when you have your own top quality smoke, grown by you...and you know it is good, clean and dirty cheap by comparison to buying it, you will see it not as costs, but investments.

 

[gbd]

so i've done some runoff tests. put two samples of soil in individual coffee filters and used an eye dropper to run distilled water through one and tap water through the other. running distilled water through gave me a ph color between 6.2 and 6.5. using tap water the ph came out in the 7.2 color range. the starting ph of the distilled water was around 6 and the ph of the tap water was 7. based on this information my soil is 'hot,' correct?

 

[gbd]

florafire,

you are exactly right. thanks for putting it in perspective.

 

[The Squid]

Ph has nothing to do with what we refer to as too hot. That is referring to nutrients.

 

[gbd]

that definitely clears some things up, but leaves me with other questions.. i'm going to stick with the soil questions until i get a grasp on that before jumping into the nutrient portion of my ignorance. do those runoff numbers have any significance as to whether my soil is at an appropriate level to avoid lock out? i've located some ph up/down locally for when that's needed. thanks again!

 

[gbd]

also, does anyone have any experience with 'superthrive'?

 

[The Squid]

I use it on all of my outside plants(and it works great!) and started using it on my Canna too. I just use smaller doses just to be sure it isn't too much and wait until they're good and vegging. About 3 weeks in and not on every feeding. Just my opinion on the matter. Seems to work well although I haven't been using it long on the Canna.

As far as the runoff question yes it does. If you can't use a soil tester, then use runoff to test. That's what I do and plenty of others too.