Is it safe to use PH down??

[Bones]

Hey all,

I've recently bought a bottle of organic blooming ferts, and I was wondering what I should do about adjusting the PH. I only have the liquid test kit so i cant test the ph after mixing due to the colour!!

I mix the ferts in after adjusting the water to ph 6, and I use phosphoric acid to do this. Is this safe to do or will it affect the organic nutes?????
Since starting doing this some of my plants are showing deficiencies, and they dont seem to be getting better with more nutes or flushing with plain ph'd water.

The nutes say ph 5.8 on the bottle, but i dont know if this means its buffered to hold that ph.

Should I try not adding ph down???




They've got a little worse since this pic (yellowing, purple/red stems/leaves, small buds).

They're white widow on day 44 of flowering, and the buds look stunted - Could the ph down cause probs with the nutes??
What can I use as a natural alternative?

Edit: The plant with the worse red/purple is closest to the air intake so it could be the cold, but the buds on even the far away plants are stunted. Temps are day 24-28c night 18-20c.

Thanks, all help much appreciated

Bones

 

[James Morrison]

white widow are known to beef up late..REAL late..also they will turn purple, its in the genes....

 

[Bones]

Nice one JM, does this mean that they will need nutes through the last couple of weeks??? The one with the red leaves is yellowing A LOT, and looks like it wont have the energy to put on any real weight without me giving it food up till the end!

Thanks again,

Bones

 

[Suby]

Hey Bones,

Did you add any solid source of ferts or lime to the original mix?
I can tell more if I know your starting soil recipe.
It could be lockout because your seing yellowing and purpling but that could be due to temps or genetics.
Phosphoric acid is too agressiv IMHO for an organic grow, try vinegar it breaks down quickly so if you use too much it won't fuck up soil ph as badly as nitric or phos. acid.
Also let me know what bottled fert you are using, maybe you are not feeding them enough, if the bottle say 5.8 it probably means that when you mix a batch of ferts and follow the amounts on the bottle the final solution will have a ph ~6, that close enough.
I'd say they are under fed but that's a guess without more info, it could be lockout though.
Next time you water collect some runoff water and test it's ph, you'll have a better idea what's going on with the soil, between the ph down and the nutes I'd say your ph is too low.

talk to you soon

Suby

 

[Bones]

Thanks suby,

The soil mix i started with is called plagron light mix, and as far as I know it doesn't contain any lime, and has a small amount of nutes already added to last the first couple of weeks. To this I just added about 30% extra perlite.

My night temps have been a little low on occasions, but I've sorted that now with a fan heater.

My ferts are Hydrogarden Bio Harvest Bloom, and I fed them yesterday morning with just under full strength (3.5ml/litre) and the NPK is 6:5:6.
My tap water starts out at ph 8ish, and requires around 0.75 ml of ph down to correct to 6.0-6.5.

I've run into various problems, this being the first grow I've managed to set up start to finish............ Due to bad planning i've had to chop the bottom off of the pots and sit them in a sorta 10 inch deep bed, but this has no drainage holes!!! Bad move, I know!!!!!!! I've been feeding quite sparingly up to now to make sure I dont end up with a big puddle in the bottom of the bed, and only adding nutes every third watering, to avoid too much nute buildup - can't flush. I added plenty of perlite especially at the bottom to help drainage but now i've got no way to test the runnoff ph!!!

So basically this grow's taught me a lot of what NOT to do


So you think that I should try mixing these ferts without adding any ph down/vinegar??

Thanks again for your help

Bones

 

[Suby]

Growing can be very easy or it can be a nightmare if you have things working against you, like your water ph for instance, yours is 8 and mine is 6.8 from the tap, ergo what works for me might not work for you based on that simple detail.
I would definatelt try to give them a feed with not ph adjusting, they are already stunted so you have little to lose IMHO.
I'm unfamiliar with those ferts, they seem very high in N for flowering but you have a N def for some reason so not to worry you'll need the N.
Drainage is very important, when you water/water/then feed the two prior waterings are not running off so not leeching salts from the soil, that can work but it's tricky for a newb without a solid recipe and a good feel for his setup.

If it where MY grow, I would risk giving them a big dose of ferts with no adjusting, but it's a risk and an educated guess at best, maybe heavily feed only 1 plant and see how it reacts, I try to different things with diffferent plants when I'm fixing a problem, this way I only kill 1 and not all of them.

Keep me posted

Suby

 

[Bones]

Cheers suby,

I'll try giving the weakest two plants non ph'd feed in a couple of days and see what happens, I still have two that aren't doing TOO badly - They're still a bit small but dont have any yellowing (I think the yellowing was caused by old veg ferts, I had problems on and off through veg although my runoff ph was fine), just slight purpling around the edge's of the leaves.

I've just got to put this one down to experience I suppose and learn from my mistakes!!

Thanks for your help, i'll be back to let you know how it goes

Bones

 

[Bones]

Hey suby,

I took your advice and they don't really look any better or worse (No miracle, lol) - I guess I made too many mistakes to recover fully from!!

LIVE AND LEARN!!!!!!

They've only got two or three days to go now, and it looks like I'm still gonna get a nice bit of smoke out of it - even tho they're small they're damn frosty!!!!!!

Thanks for your help,

Bones =)

 

[Guest]

I'm not a PH adjuster but on unrelated plants that required very low PH (swamp/boggy plants) I used a pantyhose leg filled with peat and poured the water through it first then watered the plants and that worked just fine. Kinda like steeping. My tap is like 7.6 but I never bother with it and never have PH problems. Seems like more problems start with PH adjustment than solutions.

J.

 

[Suby]

Hey Bones,

Tough to say where you went wrong, I stunted a batch of girls when growing in coco the first time and they never recovered, that happens when they get fucked up too far into flowering.
I work with an ammended soil mic with guanos added during flowering, it's a brainless approach to organics and more user friendly.

Pyrex

Good tip pouring water through peat to lower ph, I'll have to try that for sure, I'm assuming the humic acids which are beneficial to begin with are the cause, great tip.

Suby

 

[Guest]

I stunted one of my seedlings when I lifted the pot and unbeknownst to me, the roots had attached themselves to the surface underneath and ripped away from the plant when I lifted rather than the table. To top it off, it was already one of those mutant/retard plants. I was reading about seedlings in 12/12 from the start so I thought I'd go ahead and 12/12 the little bugger. See if I can pull a gram or 2 from her.

J.

 

[smokeymacpot]

omg.
why are you adjusting the water before adding ferts?

ferts are acidic, so you have probably been feeding your plants with a solution of about ph 4 !!!!!

 

[minds_I]

^^^^
Hello all,

Yeah thats what I am thinking too. The pH is too low in my opinion.

minds_I

 

[Suby]

I though so too but he said his starting ph was 8 and that a flushing didn't help???

Bones what type of tester are you using drops or probe?

S

 

[Bones]

Suby - Using the drops at the moment...as soon as I get enough £ i'm gonna get a digital pen, those drops get soooo tedious lol!!!

smokey - that explains a lot!!! I was using chemical ferts through veg and assumed I would do the same thing to maintain Ph when switching to the organic ferts!!! I couldn't test the Ph of the organic feed once mixed due to the way the ferts colour the water, so I adjusted the PH of the tap water first. When I first noticed problems I called the guy at the shop I bought the ferts from and explained the situation, and he told me to adjust to 6!!! I guess I didn't explain that well, and he was talking about testing/adjusting after mixing!!!!


I just invested in a hash maker as I harvested the smallest plant a couple of days ago, I ran the trim through it, and just smoked my first joint never touched by another.................beautiful!!!!! It 's great to think that what i'm smoking has spent it's whole life, from seed to bud to lungs, without being fucked with in any way (except my mistakes!!!).

Man that's some good shit, hahaha!!! nice heady high =)

I'm definately going with making up a organic soil mix for the next grow, I've bought some lime and I'm gonna get some fish, blood and bonemeal, and maybe some pelleted chicken manure in the next couple of weeks. I've been composting all of my kitchen waste for a few months now as well so I think I'll have everything for a good starting mix.

What kind of rough ratio should I use for these products??

Also I read that lime shouldn't be added at the same time as compost or manure, but shoud be mixed in to the soil a couple of months in advance, If that's right I'm about two months behind schedule!!!!!!!!

Any help with how to get a nice mix started with these ingredients would be much appreciated,

Thanks for all the help and advice,

Bones

 

[BurnOne]

I honestly can not understand why people worry with pH in organic growing. It's just one more of the great things about organics.
Get your soil medium right and you won't need to check your pH EVER again.
Burn1

 

[thekannibuskid]

word

 

[Bones]

That's the plan!!

I bought a couple of boxes of fish blood and bone from the pound store yesterday, It has a NPK of 5-5-6.5, with p as P2O5 and K as K2O.

1. Do I need to buy something else to add the trace elements for my starting mix?

2. Is it safe to make my mix by adding the lime at the same time as the organic ferts and kitchen compost?

3. How long should I leave this mix to stand before I use it?

4. Will throwing in some worms from the compost heap help?

Sorry bout all the questions, I just wanna give my next ladies a good start (hopefully without having to worry about Ph)!!!

Thanks in advance =)

Bones

 

[BurnOne]

Bones-
Trace elements can be had from kelp. Mix powdered dolomite lime into your soil mix @ 2 tbs./gal. of mix. Bone meal needs a couple of weeks to break down before using it. You don't want worms, you want worm shit. Worm castings and garden compost add humates to your soil which (among other things) will buffer the pH of your nutes.
Burn1

 

[Bones]

Thanks BurnOne - I'll keep an eye out for kelp, I imagine my compost must contain a lot of worm castings cuz the heap's full of worms (gonna b great for a spot of fishin'!).

Should my mix be made with kitchen compost, or store bought cutting/seedling compost as the base?? I can't find anything like FF around here - just stuff like miracle grow and multipurpose compost.

Can u help me with some rough ratio's for the following ingredients?? I've looked through a lot of posts about soil mixes but can't find any that have these specific ingredients!!! Having never done organics before I haven't really got a clue how I could mix these up nice for my ladies!!

Garden Lime,
Fish Blood and Bone,
Kitchen Compost,
Seedling/Cutting Compost,
Kelp (if I can find it........if not will seaweed extract do the job???)

Thanks for the help,

Bones =)