Unbalanced pH in the soil. How to fix it?

G

Gardenvibes0

Member
Hello everyone,
It's my first time growing and I grow in coco coir medium I did some mistakes with my plants before and I flushed them with Flora Kleen after a while of feeding I decided to check my pH run off because the bottom leaves of my plant where going all yellow and the pH was 4.1. After I did some reading I flushed them with plane water that I left overnight at 6.5 pH with Enzymes inside till the run off was 6.0 I waited for the soil to dry off a little and then I fed my plants with 1.0 EC and checked the run off again. It was down to 4.5. Can anybody help me and tell me a solution to fix the pH in the soil at the roots.
Thank you!
 
polishpollack

polishpollack

Well-Known Member
try cutting the EC in half. EC value drives pH. if you want higher pH you have to reduce your EC. it's a reversed relationship. more EC makes for a lower pH.
 
S

spek9

Well-Known Member
polishpollack said:
try cutting the EC in half. EC value drives pH. if you want higher pH you have to reduce your EC. it's a reversed relationship. more EC makes for a lower pH.
Click to expand...
Wait... what?

Are you advising to cut down on nutrient content to change the pH of the mixture?

1.0 EC is 700 PPM by my measurements, and that's a nice area to be in PPM wise. I wouldn't want to lower my PPM below that, unless I'm feeding my seedlings.

Am I misunderstanding something here? Normally one would use something as a pH up to bump alkalinity, not drop PPM to try to gain the same effect.

Do you use this method? I'm genuinely interested to understand better.
 
polishpollack

polishpollack

Well-Known Member
It was the only suggestion I could offer as I have no clue why your pH is so low. Is there something about the coco that is acidic? Anything else in the grow that would lower the pH? did you load up nutrients in the coco to the point where no matter how much you flush, the pH will stay pretty low? You wrote that you made some mistakes early in the grow. What that the mistake?
 
Gond00s

Gond00s

Well-Known Member
my coco dropped to 5 when I tested it last night then I hit it with a 7 ph light feed. sent it back up to 5.9 waiting for lights to come on to test it to see what its at today.
 
F

FLO-GRO

Member
polishpollack said:
It was the only suggestion I could offer as I have no clue why your pH is so low. Is there something about the coco that is acidic? Anything else in the grow that would lower the pH? did you load up nutrients in the coco to the point where no matter how much you flush, the pH will stay pretty low? You wrote that you made some mistakes early in the grow. What that the mistake?
Click to expand...
Check your PH meter calibration... I always keep 2 or 3 handy just for redundancy and I always use the ones I can calibrate with solution by adjusting the pot with a screwdriver.
I do not grow in coir but I do use an organic hybrid. If I was in your situation I would flush with just water PH'd where I want it. Then when shes dried a bit and ready for more I would dump a good compost tea down her and repeat the process over time (dont over water) until that medium PH is right! Does ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD to feed her anything if your PH is causing nute lockout. Also, during situations like this where your adjusting soil PH sometimes it can take a week or two to get it nailed down due to not being able to always water when shes not ready for water yet... A good foliar feeding once week can be helpful as an alternate way the plant takes in food.
Get that soil PH right! GL bud..
 
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