So you are saying that if i feed my plants in bagged organic soil with 5 ph on a regular basis, the soil wont become acidic over time? and i wont have a lockout?
Nutrients What is your best advice for fixing the low ph on soil?
- Thread starter vincenoir
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So you are saying that if i feed my plants in bagged organic soil with 5 ph on a regular basis, the soil wont become acidic over time? and i wont have a lockout?
There's a lot to unpack in that question.. Organic growers don't feed their plants.. They feed their soil.. That's the first issue.. Second issue is the ph of 5 you mention. Like how? Either you're purposely adjusting the water to a ph of 5, or you're using sewer water. No drinkable water has a ph of 5. So if you purposely try to break the soils buffer it will eventually happen. It will take a couple of months, but if you try that hard to break something, you'll eventually do it..
But in a realistic situation using drinkable water whether it's RO, tap, distilled, rain water, well water etc.. When growing "organic", none of those water sources need to be ph'd. And it will never cause a lock out or effect the soils ph. I grow in no till organic pots and don't ph anything. That's why you may have heard people say that you don't need to ph when growing organic. Ph'ing of any liquid has to with the nutrients in that liquid.. Anything with an npk value that You mix with water, should be ph'd.. You don't feed liquid nutes when growing in a true organic style. It's mostly water only like in nature. And that water doesn't need ph'ng..
Ok i get that biobizz soil might not be "true" organic grow because you feed with bottle nutes instead of top dressing.
The 5ph was after adding nutes, and an example, maybe a bit exaggerated one. But when i mix biobizz nutrients at full recommend strength the ph might get as low as 5.8ph.
According to Biobizz, the micro-organisms will adjust the ph in the soil within a certain range BUT the micro-organisms only act as a ph DOWN, they cant act as a ph UP, so if one feeds at less then 6.2ph, might cause problems... Thats what biobizz says at least...
And all that is correct when you're using bottled nutrients.. If you are using a nutrient line of any kind, you aren't growing organically, you may be using organic nutrients from a bottle, but organic growers don't feed their plants bottled nutrients. You should always ph your final mixes when using any bottled nutrient line. And that ph'ing as zero to do with the soil.. When you feed the soil, oh doesn't matter.. When you feed the plant, ph always matters. When you mix your nutrients and it has a ph of 5.. You have to raise that ph because the bulk of the nutrients in that mixture aren't available for uptake with a ph of 5. You're raising the ph to benefit the nutrient availability, not to benefit the soil, if that makes sense.. But soil ph and nutrient/water ph are completely separate things.
Ok, this made alot of sense, i see what u mean. I thought one would ph adjust the water, so the water could then adjust the soil ph, but now i see thats not how it works, its 2 different "ph"s. Thank so much for clarifying that.
And sry to the OP for hijacking the thread.
Im glad it made sense! It's a huge eye opener and something most new growers don't grasp into for a long while!
