I know Sub's a very busy guy. And I already know how he replies to, what about the PH run off questions. /duck =P
But, I did want to ask others what they thought about this one. We have had great results with this soil recipe. There is only one small issue we are having, maybe someone can shed some outside light onto.
In these pics you will notice we have, what appears to be a cal/mag deficiency problem. At first, it was only showing on one strain in particular, a Dinafem White Widow. But now, it is starting to appear on one of our RockLocks.
We live out in the country, so we run off our well water. This water runs through some sort of well water filtration tank system thingy(Well-x-trol). The water has a PH of about 7.4-8.0 which we PH down to 7.0 and oxygenate via airstone at least 24 hours before watering. The TDS of this water runs at about 130ppm. Not too shabby at all in that dept, maybe a bit low even.
We have added Cal/Mag in light amounts to our water before, up to 200ppm and to be honest didn't see much a difference. But at the same time, maybe we didn't give it a long enough go. So I really started to lean towards a PH lockout situation maybe?
Upon testing the run-off(i'm sorry!) it was really really low. 3.4ish once, and the other day 5.4 at around day 30. From what I have read, Dolomite helps the soil from becoming too acidic, therefor, raising the PH.
The one thing I noticed recently is Subcool is using the Whitney Farms brand "Prilled" Dolomite Lime. Which is funny, because we almost used that on our very first batch, but remember reading his writings to use "Powdered" Sweet Lime. So we opted to sideline that Dolomite and order another product we found on Amazon.com. This stuff is very powdery, like flour. A not so funny story is a couple times these powdered dolomites would show up in a box, with white powder all over the outside! This last time, the USPS wrapped the whole box in a plastic bag, so powder didn't get everywhere. So yea, i'm thinking, oh great. Last thing I need at the moment is the postal inspector coming down on me for a anthrax scare. lol Why would they package something this problem-atic in a thin paper bag that tears open so easily during shipping? Gah
Anyways, back to the matter at hand. Is it maybe possible, or even the slightest bit feasible that maybe, just maybe, the "Prilled" Dolomite is a better way to go? And might in turn, fix our issue we are having. I'm assuming, and I hate assuming anything in life. But maybe the "Prilled" version is more time-release friendly than the straight powder? And the powders PH raising powers are rinsing away faster than a more pellet style product would?
I hate coming to these boards and asking for any help. But as you guys can tell, I have put alot of long thought, and what I feel to be a good amount of reading and research into this issue. So any insight would be greatly appreciated from the TGA Team/Fan Base and I thank all replies in advance!