Soil PH Emergency

[Cannadude87]

I have been working with a business partner that has been attempting to economize the grow process. In doing so he decided to buy a different type of soil than I recommended but assured me that he tested the soil and it fit within the parameters that I gave him regarding nutrient content and ph levels.

Well it turns out that he was mistaken and our plants have been in soil with a ph of 7.5 for 3 weeks and understandably have produced very little growth.

I have all but succumbed to the fact that I will most likely have to re-transplant everything into soil with the right ph. But as a last hope I would like to know if anyone has had any success with quickly reducing soil ph. I thought about lowering the ph of my water to 5.5 to attempt to balance out the soil ph but after initial research I haven't found anything that suggests that as a viable option.

Please help!

 

[Blue brother]

It’s gonna be hard to amend that, even watering with 5.5 for a long time will be a slow process, that soil is designed to buffer to 7.5 so unless you’re gonna take it all out and mix it with something acidic I can’t see you being able to do it. Vitamin c that’s used to dechlorinate water would drop ur waters ph and be safe for the plants but I this isn’t a long term solution, are you planning on reusing the soil or is it just for one cycle?

 

[VincenzioVonHook]

You could try running aluminium sulfate or elemental sulphur additive for a while. 7.5 is right on the border though. It might just do enough to counteract the buffer capacity, but it will generally take a two-three months to work its way through the soil which could be a no go for a single cycle.

 

[calvin.m16]

Urea in my experience can lower pH big time but it will ramp up nitrogen. I would try running some natural acids like humic acid, fulvic acid and a urea fertilizer supplement, just be cautious with the urea it can burn plants pretty easy. Urea is commonly used to mask Mag deficiencies in fertilizer lines (Probably because Urea is cheaper than Magnesium) and I've learned it's quite acidic.

 

[hotrodharley]

Tell us more about this medium other than pH. Brand name included.

 

[Billy the Mountain]

Urea in my experience can lower pH big time but it will ramp up nitrogen. I would try running some natural acids like humic acid, fulvic acid and a urea fertilizer supplement, just be cautious with the urea it can burn plants pretty easy. Urea is commonly used to mask Mag deficiencies in fertilizer lines (Probably because Urea is cheaper than Magnesium) and I've learned it's quite acidic.

That's preposterous

Please elaborate how a Nitrogen source will "mask" Mg deficiency

Provide an example product where urea is used as you suggest

 

[jimihendrix1]

Id just go ahead and transplant them into the correct PH soil, and be done with it.

 

[Richard Drysift]

If you add a bunch of worm castings and otter organic matter like say a form of fertilizer like chicken or cow manure to the soil that will help bring down ph. Adding buffers like dolomite lime and/or crushed oyster shell to the mix will help balance it but for a massive amount of soil you’ll need a decent probe to actually check ph at the root zone. Adjusting the water will do nothing; in soil ph is balanced by the amendments you add not the water you give.

 

[hotrodharley]

I’ll question the actual pH.

 

[Cannadude87]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I ended up just putting in the work to transplant them into soil that has the proper ph. It was a much quicker fix than adding soil buffers that reduce ph. They were in shock for about a week then bounced back pretty well and are looking lush now.

 

[Hiphophippo]

I don’t know about you but I don’t do anything commercially or on that scale but swapping out huge amounts of soil is a pain I swap out 250 to 300 gallons of soil every few years in my basement and it’s a bitch. Much easier to correct ph to balance with amendments

 

[Cannadude87]

One more similar question for anyone that is still paying attention to this thread. I still have a few bags of the 7.5 ph soil, as well as a few bags of a different type of soil which is at 6.0. Is it feasible to mix the two and have the ph level of the mix be a constant number? Or would it just be tiny pockets of of the two separately just sitting next to each other within the mix?

 

[Cannadude87]

I don’t know about you but I don’t do anything commercially or on that scale but swapping out huge amounts of soil is a pain I swap out 250 to 300 gallons of soil every few years in my basement and it’s a bitch. Much easier to correct ph to balance with amendments

It was 300 Plants in 1 gallon pots. (at the time). it definitely was a pain and took about 30 hours altogether to transplant everything but adding amendments takes months to have any effect, and since they are outside the season would have been over before that happened.

 

[Hiphophippo]

It was 300 Plants in 1 gallon pots. (at the time). it definitely was a pain and took about 30 hours altogether to transplant everything but adding amendments takes months to have any effect, and since they are outside the season would have been over before that happened.

I get that I thought you where talking bigger pots less plants but still that’s a lot to do I just did 115 for outside in 1/2 gallon pots and was a pain in the ass

 

[Mechman60]

If you add a bunch of worm castings and otter organic matter like say a form of fertilizer like chicken or cow manure to the soil that will help bring down ph. Adding buffers like dolomite lime and/or crushed oyster shell to the mix will help balance it but for a massive amount of soil you’ll need a decent probe to actually check ph at the root zone. Adjusting the water will do nothing; in soil ph is balanced by the amendments you add not the water you give.

Finally a clear answer without wandering into other topics. Thanks