I used already brewed coffee grinds to pH Down. What would happen?

[ice minus]

Hi friends!

I just wanted to say I've resumed this experiment, deliberately, as I've ended up with a couple too many clones -- I anticipated some failures but had none! What a delight!

So over the last few days I have a couple young plants as controls/normal that I'm using actual pH down with, and then the ones I am sacrificing for science are being fed with pH'd water of 6.6 just like the others, however not using pH down -- using my old espresso pucks

Just to reiterate -- these are pucks that are typically literally waste, and go into our organics bin for disposal and no other usage.


Water registers almost as high as 8.0 from the hose after carbon filter and hose, fresh from the source. I now can crumble pieces from the pucks into the jug of water and stir, and a bunch of bubbles start forming in the water, maybe as a result of the acidification or something? Either way, I can just keep adding and stirring until 6.6 pH, my target, is achieved

I'm still a newbie and lacking any kind of self confidence, so I'm too embarrassed to share any pictures of my plants at this time - but, I just want to report that I have no observed ANY negative effects yet vs. pHing with name brand products, after several days of this so far.

I posted about this a while back as you can see with this thread here and also on one other forum I was using at the time, and most people thought it either A> wouldn't work or B> wouldn't be effective but I haven't observed either yet! Some said it could leech sodium or other undesirables but I believe they didn't realize these were already extracted espresso pucks that have already been used!

AND furthermore, my water has traditionally been SUPER resistant to pH changes with both Citric and Phosphoric pH downs so far -- they will fluctuate literally overnight usually, when I go to bed and check in the morning even.

For some reason the espresso pH down has been rock solid once it finally gets there. The Citric on the other hand needs to be watered literally right away, and the phosphoric General Hydro does better but still drifts after a day or two tops.


With my coffee grinds, I pH'ed to 6.6 while stirring frequently. Let it settle. Pour off just the water that seperates to the top while leaving the grinds to dump out after, check the water AGAIN in the morning, and it's still 6.6.

To be continued! But I still love the idea of getting further use out of grinds that were already destined for the trash otherwise

Thanks for looking!

 

[ice minus]

Try it with water. They escape from it too. Their misson is to lie a lots of eggs in their short adult life. Can't do that if they drown..

Most definitely.. I think the coffee and potentially very find coffee grinds make it even more miserable for them maybe though

I heard that diatomaceus earth (im being highlighted, so its spelled wrong) does a similar thing by shredding the bugs bodies at the soil level. Maybe the coffee has a slight similar effect as well? Or maybe simply the odour is a slight repellant?

Or, most most likely, this is completely unfounded speculation by me and not even remotely true

 

[OleReynard]

Lemon juice

 

[ice minus]

Lemon juice

Love this, But I think I've experimented already in the form of even supposedly more stable "citric acid" product:



A guy who used to be on my Discord server checked the MSDS sheet at the time and said it's just granulated Citric basically

It doesn't do so well with my water, tons of fluctuation but I do use it -- when it can be watered with right away!

Phosphoric based is much more stable. And a great "hack" I learned from the guys at Black Swallow Living Soil, is that Fish Hydrosylate is stablized with phosphoric acid just like pH down -- so you can use it for this purpose, and the soil loves the trace food or nutes from it I guess!

The used espresso grinds seem to be really holding the pH well in my tests though, and gives these pucks a second purpose in life, so I'm excited to continue on experimenting!

 

[OleReynard]

Love this, But I think I've experimented already in the form of even supposedly more stable "citric acid" product:



A guy who used to be on my Discord server checked the MSDS sheet at the time and said it's just granulated Citric basically

It doesn't do so well with my water, tons of fluctuation but I do use it -- when it can be watered with right away!

Phosphoric based is much more stable. And a great "hack" I learned from the guys at Black Swallow Living Soil, is that Fish Hydrosylate is stablized with phosphoric acid just like pH down -- so you can use it for this purpose, and the soil loves the trace food or nutes from it I guess!

The used espresso grinds seem to be really holding the pH well in my tests though, and gives these pucks a second purpose in life, so I'm excited to continue on experimenting!

Ph down when you buy it has a acidity smell to it

 

[MROrganicGreenz]

Have a look here. There is numbers and data for nutrients in coffee ground and a trial.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2016.02.015

As a gardener, I would always say: Put it on your plants. But the results from the trial say otherwise. After fast reading, I couldn't find any big flaws in the paper, so you should consider using it. If someone has further information, please post here or PM

If you don't have access through institutions or otherwise, just try: "sci-hub.hkvisa.net" This could also be interesting for everyone. It's a not illegal site, where you can find many scientific papers for free. Just give it a try.

Regards

 

[ice minus]

Have a look here. There is numbers and data for nutrients in coffee ground and a trial.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2016.02.015

As a gardener, I would always say: Put it on your plants. But the results from the trial say otherwise. After fast reading, I couldn't find any big flaws in the paper, so you should consider using it. If someone has further information, please post here or PM

If you don't have access through institutions or otherwise, just try: "sci-hub.hkvisa.net" This could also be interesting for everyone. It's a not illegal site, where you can find many scientific papers for free. Just give it a try.

Regards

Amazing! I don't have access unfortunately but I'm certainly considered in the jest of it if nothing else. Cool to see it's been attempted before!

Huge thanks for reporting in!

I am still carrying out my tests with it! It takes about one already extracted espresso puck I've found to bring a jug of my water down from 8.0 area to 6.6-range

 

[ice minus]

Sorry shoot also a bit confused by your wording -- did you mean the results implied it was bad? Thanks again

 

[MROrganicGreenz]

Have a look here. There is numbers and data for nutrients in coffee ground and a trial.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2016.02.015

As a gardener, I would always say: Put it on your plants. But the results from the trial say otherwise. After fast reading, I couldn't find any big flaws in the paper, so you should consider using it. If someone has further information, please post here or PM

If you don't have access through institutions or otherwise, just try: "sci-hub.hkvisa.net" This could also be interesting for everyone. It's a not illegal site, where you can find many scientific papers for free. Just give it a try.

Regards

Sorry. So I would say: give it a try and post results. No study is flawless and from anecdotal evidence I can report , it can give good results

Anyways thist study says otherwise. So it would interesting to see how it works out for u

 

[ice minus]

Sorry. So I would say: give it a try and post results. No study is flawless and from anecdotal evidence I can report , it can give good results

Anyways thist study says otherwise. So it would interesting to see how it works out for u

Thanks again for taking the interest in my thread and your helpful replies!

I have a few clones that I thought were doomed after sticking them under too-aggressive lighting before they were rooted. Figured they were on the verge of death, and looked like this, for some reason it's saying the picture is too big, but I posted about it here:

Do you have any tricks to keep your cuttings green and healthy?

Good evening ICMAG! Novice grower here Took some cuts off a Cotton Candy Mom I haven't grown out yet, but is giving off insane Terps just on leaves and stems, in simple Canna coco plugs. Took like 7-10 days or so, nice roots shooting out of the plug I just moved them into some lightly...

www.icmag.com

I didn't really need them as I cloned extras anticipating failures or deaths but ended up having literal 100% success rate across the board

So I decided to use it as a test dummy along with 2 others that looked as bad..

Now they look like this tonight

So literal night and day difference , and has been fed espresso-puck pH'ed water the entire time. Since they were pale like the original post!


I know they look far from "perfect" and I see the curled leaves on top right as well but I can't deny huge improvement otherwise so far

 

[Creeperpark]

The main difference between a successful grower and one that does not succeed is how they look at failure. From failure, we learn what not to do and from success, we learn what to do. I see people want to quit when things don't go the way they want. Quitters never get better. The people who look at failure as a golden opportunity to learn something advance into the best growers. If you do experiments on extra plants in every garden after a few years you will have learned a lot of new skills. You are doing great keep us posted friend.

 

[ice minus]

The main difference between a successful grower and one that does not succeed is how they look at failure. From failure, we learn what not to do and from success, we learn what to do. I see people want to quit when things don't go the way they want. Quitters never get better. The people who look at failure as a golden opportunity to learn something advance into the best growers. If you do experiments on extra plants in every garden after a few years you will have learned a lot of new skills. You are doing great keep us posted friend.

Oh man, that's absolutely me to a tee. I think because I've been using a PC since my mom brought home our first computer, a 386, when I was just a kid and became the computer expert of the house, that the general sense of "troubleshooting a problem until it works" is already engraved in my way of life

Just like a computer problem of any kind, I don't want to stop messing around until I figure it out and have my eureka moment. I think the same attitude is translating to my new growing hobby, and it makes me want to try things I don't see discussed often, even if it results in failure or negativity!

THANK YOU for the encouragement !!!

 

[ice minus]

The main difference between a successful grower and one that does not succeed is how they look at failure. From failure, we learn what not to do and from success, we learn what to do. I see people want to quit when things don't go the way they want. Quitters never get better. The people who look at failure as a golden opportunity to learn something advance into the best growers. If you do experiments on extra plants in every garden after a few years you will have learned a lot of new skills. You are doing great keep us posted friend.

Are you joining the Discord?

 

[PadawanWarrior]

Just a heads up. Most coffee beans have been sprayed with shit. Starbucks gives away used coffee grounds for soil. Or maybe it was a buck for a big bag, but personally I wouldn't add it to my soil.

 

[OleReynard]

Bad thing about coffee grounds is they should be composted first.
With grounds you have no idea how potent they'll be and it will fry your plants

 

[ice minus]

Just a heads up. Most coffee beans have been sprayed with shit. Starbucks gives away used coffee grounds for soil. Or maybe it was a buck for a big bag, but personally I wouldn't add it to my soil.

Totally fair and possible.. the brands I typically buy are designer coffee and huge on visiting and documenting the beans before buying.. sustainability, innovation, things like this drive the third wave community as a whole and I'd *like* to at least convince myself that they're sourcing stuff that isn't being sprayed with nasty Chems.. I mean, we are ingesting this stuff for God's sake!

But I agree it's good to be prudent and assume the worst

Bad thing about coffee grounds is they should be composted first.
With grounds you have no idea how potent they'll be and it will fry your plants

Fair assessment for sure -- just want to add these are already extracted grinds that have been brewed !

Also I leave the grinds behind and use the pHed liquid only!

But you're likely right, I doubt I've stumbled onto anything

 

[ice minus]

Just a heads up. Most coffee beans have been sprayed with shit. Starbucks gives away used coffee grounds for soil. Or maybe it was a buck for a big bag, but personally I wouldn't add it to my soil.

Totally fair and possible.. the brands I typically buy are designer coffee and huge on visiting and documenting the beans before buying.. sustainability, innovation, things like this drive the third wave community as a whole and I'd *like* to at least convince myself that they're sourcing stuff that isn't being sprayed with nasty Chems.. I mean, we are ingesting this stuff for God's sake!

But I agree it's good to be prudent and assume the worst!

 

[ice minus]

Sorry shoot, the forum is freezing up as I press reply and timed out, now I see it double posted

 

[PadawanWarrior]

Totally fair and possible.. the brands I typically buy are designer coffee and huge on visiting and documenting the beans before buying.. sustainability, innovation, things like this drive the third wave community as a whole and I'd *like* to at least convince myself that they're sourcing stuff that isn't being sprayed with nasty Chems.. I mean, we are ingesting this stuff for God's sake!

But I agree it's good to be prudent and assume the worst


Fair assessment for sure -- just want to add these are already extracted grinds that have been brewed !

Also I leave the grinds behind and use the pHed liquid only!

But you're likely right, I doubt I've stumbled onto anything

It's probably fine. Like your saying it's washed and roasted. I just read something somewhere that I didn't like. Don't remember what it said exactly even. I just remember reading something about pesticides. I've put Spinosad in a few of my pots so I really shouldn't talk about pesticides,

 

[ice minus]

It's probably fine. Like your saying it's washed and roasted. I just read something somewhere that I didn't like. Don't remember what it said exactly even. I just remember reading something about pesticides. I've put Spinosad in a few of my pots so I really shouldn't talk about pesticides,

I totally believe it and think you're probably right, at least about a large fraction of the stuff produced en masse for mass consumption -- but I buy from "micro roasters" and the type of places that detail the exact lot and producers and their fields, even by name, and do their research hopefully

The stuff going into my plants currently for this test is actually this stuff. Natural anaerobically processed beans co-fermented with strawberries.. It's named after the guy so his reputation would likely be at stake if nastiness was discovered? Who knows