Organics and Ph.

[Tom Hill]

Rckmt, always glad to hear what works for you amigo.

Clackamas,

Another thing you will never see is an agronomist without his field meters, you see, he likes to know what the hell is going on & knows it's a little more complex than "following directions" in that sticky lessin he'd like to end up with crap between his toes. When you take your soil sample to either the private or state site they slap the soil solution pH right there at the top of the page- always. My farm is different than most all of you guys'. I've been doing this for decades & I always recycle my living soil, doing this requires careful consideration & monitoring- your techniques can be rife with mistakes & still keep a plant happy enough for a two month cycle you know, I hope you guys know that... Here are my results in the 7-10 pound range, where are yours? I'd love to see some filberts or something??

 

[BurnOne]

Keep looking guys (or try growing it) & you WILL find that there is a tolerable range that is MUCH narrower than this pH 4-9 that -according to some around here- is "no problem". Lol, if they'd retract that to be a little more friggen realistic- say- 5.8-7.5, I wouldn't be here hastling you guys, but there has been no retraction, only poor advice that requires a leap of faith & has the capacity to bring certain death. Bums me out man.

When that pH 4 or 9 solution hits a good organic soil mix with dolomite and humic acids in it, it immediately goes to around 7. My soil adjusts and buffers my pH. Not by pH up or down solutions.
What's so hard to understand about that?
Burn1

 

[Clackamas Coot]

TomHill

It's clear that you're very passionate about this subject and perhaps that is why it is so difficult to discuss facts with you.

For one thing you keep moving the goal posts.

For example you bring up the subject of aerated compost teas with regard to PH ranges. If your position is that compost teas should be brewed within a specific PH range then you've obviously have done your homework.

So we're in agreement on the need for starting with a correct PH when brewing teas, okay?

Then you shift the goal posts again and bring up the subject of soil PH - obviously an important consideration in growing plants. No question about that at all.

What does water PH have to do with soil PH? You can't seriously make an argument and claim that there is a direct-causal relationship between the PH of the water and the soil are you? Assuming that we're not talking about water inoculated with alkaline residue from Death Valley.

You belittled the search terms I used and told me to basically pull my head out of my ass and use your search terms - which I did. The first 2 links (one was from a university and the other was a legitimate horticulture info site) that I found based on YOUR search terms did absolutely NOTHING to support your argument. I quit looking & reading after the first 2 because as I scanned down the list of links the ol' standards started popping up -like PlanetGanga, CannibisThis, CannabisThat and I lost all interest.

Consider this for a second - the first cannabis 'grow book' was published by Cervantes in the early 1980's. A terrible book that's only gotten worse but the one thing that it did do a great job on was to establish the urban legends surrounding the cultivation of cannabis.

The overwhelming majority of work done on soil health and how it relates to increased plant growth and production began in the late 1980's with much of the heavy lifting done in the past 13 years in the area of fulvic & humic acids and how they work to facilitate plant growth. Almost none of this research was available at the beginning of the cannabis growing supply industry.

Show me some viable information that supports your contention that water PH directly affects the soil's PH ranges.

If the evidence is so absolute as you're arguing then it should be a slam-dunk deal to back it up.

Cheers!

CC

 

[GDB]

don't believe the hype.. pH is one of the most important factors for uptake

don't believe the hype.. pH is one of the most important factors for uptake

Tom's made a very valuable point about keeping a consistency and continuity to your grows. It amazes me people fail to realize that is the key to a measurably successful one. Do you even keep track of your harvests over time or try to tweak them? Go ahead be lazy and akin to a novice all you want, its your choice. People might question how professional you are, does it matter to you? Nobody on here is going to question how professional Tom is about his grows, the pics and genetics speak for themselves. 7-10lb per plant is a CAKEWALK for him, well a back breaking one im sure, how many of us have/can pull that? To be honest I've only ever known two growers in real life who were able to achieve anything close and they wouldn't consider sharing their recipe. Tom's shown how anyone (myself included) can have a sustainable outdoor footprint that's pretty much never been touched on these forums. Which is surely a genuine notion so why all the back talk and bs? I'd rather consider myself one of the more humble and thankful ones who appreciates the importance of good advice and especially GOOD WILL.

Meanwhile enough with the infomercials and disinformation, getting rid of your pH meter is like driving a car without air in the tires. Sure it's going to get somewhere but it ain't gonna be pretty.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

It should be a fairly simple task to provide some legitimate research information to back-up Tom's claims. Especially his perceived position that water PH affects soil PH - I'm really looking forward to reading something on that other than simple anecdotal information that is the hallmark of cannabis growing.

Thanks! I'll be looking forward to reading about this new and mysterious cannabis-based growing science...........

 

[Dignan]

Tom's the man, we all know that ... but his success doesn't prove his argument. pH is crucial... adjusting the pH of our solutions is not. Not in a healthy, properly buffered soil.

Dig

 

[Dignan]

If you had truly been there & done that, I can't believe you'd lay that down Dignan. One day we'll all see room for improvement through more control, & there's nothing un-natural about that. Do you think if the ancient taoists had pH meters they'd shun them? Shit no, they'd have used them plenty to locate exact pools to meditate at the bottom of, lol. You can go there if you like, but please accept it for what it is, & it ain't got nothing to do with being closer to nature amigo. You're killing off beneficial life in the soil for no good reason that I can see, a whole lotta death.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of folks that have "been there" & tossed their meters away were working with less than $100 meters (read cheap ass pens & laughable probes) & they got the hell out of the fire before they burned the house down with their bogus ass readings that they were over-correcting for. Yeah, I've been there too. You can bring Elain, or Amigo in here & I'll recognize their wrap, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is this: Cannabis grows best when your paying attention & giving it what it wants @ the proper pH, period. If you don't wanna do it, fine, but please don't think anybody with half a brain will swallow the load of "it doesn't matter" etc "just add lime & castings", that's bs man, & it always will be.

Best Regards,
Tom

You completely missed my point, Tom. I hope others didn't.

Dig

 

[Suby]

Tom's the man, we all know that ... but his success doesn't prove his argument. pH is crucial... adjusting the pH of our solutions is not. Not in a healthy, properly buffered soil.

Dig

YESSS, thank you, you hit the nail on the head.

:

 

[jaykush]

this thread is funny i knew the shit would hit the fan.

"Here are my results in the 7-10 pound range, where are yours? I'd love to see some filberts or something??"

im sure we would all post our monster plants but not everyone has a giant field to work with or less worries about going to jail for that much weed. plus ive seen plants twice as big with people who don't check ph and nugs were TOP quality, its all on the grower and how they do things, everyones different. WHO GIVES A FUCK JUST SMOKE WEED.

 

[Guest]

Organics and PH and organics vs chemweed. The two subjects that make weed smokers mad as hell.( this is strange)

I test my soil ph. That said I do not do a whole lot about it.
You never know that new miracle in a bottle may screw every thing all up.

My ph has never been 9 or 5. Usually it lumbers between 6.2 and 7.
If I change the mix of dirt and amendments I will do a few soil ph tests. I will test after 24 hours, three days, then after a week. I also test the PH when finished because I do reuse the soil.
This is all just so if something does go wrong I know my soil ph is not 9 or 5.
Thats one thing eliminated.

Murphy's law does apply to smoke. Murphy was a cannabis smoker.
I believe this is a given and not up for debate.

My grandfather was a no nonsense farmer in the good old days. He knew more from the taste and feel of soil than all the fancy testers combined. Yes he did taste soil he did this to determine the PH.

I would not taste dirt I will just do a test for reference. I practice careful monitoring I just do not do anything. I had in the past. I had plant tinkeritus. Plant tinkeritus will usually wind up being the death of a garden. Mostly we tend to over water over fertilize and over care plants. We just love them to death.

My official opinion on ph-ing organics is........if you want to then by all means go right ahead.

 

[Suby]

that will do just fine Octo

I for one have no problem with peeps who monitor, power to you all for having the patience.
I have trouble with peeps saying you HAVE TO and that you are somehow cheating yourself by not measuring.
If your plants look sick then soil composition and thus ph is going to be a concern, if they look great and your smoke is top shelf well...if it ain`t broke don`t fix it.

:

S

 

[swampdank]

damn, i go to bed, wake up and almost burned my fingers when i got to this thread.

sorry, for starting shit here, just seeking information.

i think,in the end. a ph meter is a good investment. if for ant other reason, to stay in the know if my soil is buffered as it should. did i add enough dolemite?

with all of the back and forth here, and hearing responses from the folks i respect and trust, i have drawn my own conclusion. i havent been fucking up by not testing ph, but i also dont know what high and low ph soil tastes like either.

so, in the end, swampdank isnt runing to go get one but if i see it on ebay, i will get it.

the coolest thing about this thread is i got a chance to see how certain folks react to hot subjects. now i know who to ask.

thanks everybody.

 

[BurnOne]

Tom's the man, we all know that ... but his success doesn't prove his argument. pH is crucial... adjusting the pH of our solutions is not. Not in a healthy, properly buffered soil.

Dig

That's correct. I use soil mix to correct my pH.
Burn1

 

[rckymtnthuglife]

damn, i go to bed, wake up and almost burned my fingers when i got to this thread.

sorry, for starting shit here, just seeking information.

i think,in the end. a ph meter is a good investment. if for ant other reason, to stay in the know if my soil is buffered as it should. did i add enough dolemite?

with all of the back and forth here, and hearing responses from the folks i respect and trust, i have drawn my own conclusion. i havent been fucking up by not testing ph, but i also dont know what high and low ph soil tastes like either.

so, in the end, swampdank isnt runing to go get one but if i see it on ebay, i will get it.

the coolest thing about this thread is i got a chance to see how certain folks react to hot subjects. now i know who to ask.

thanks everybody.

Note to self....gather up all my shitty old pH meters and put them on Ebay immediately!

 

[BurnOne]

Note to self....gather up all my shitty old pH meters and put them on Ebay immediately!

LMAO

 

[Mr Celsius]

I don't know how many of you have studied soil science (at a college level)... but ph matters, a lot.

I could sulfur an entire field to lower the ph, but guess what, after time, that ph would slowly rise again.

Growing on a level that Tom does, is nothing like our little plants in closets with some premade organic mix and compost teas going into them. He's dealing with very large amounts of medium and very large amounts of water. If his water was 8.0+ all his plants would be dead shortly. The fact is, the soil cannot compete with a wack ph if its constantly exposed to it.

Look at rain, its 6.5 (because of atmospheric nitrogen). Nature, for the most part, deals with ph very well and has created a balance. We are gardeners attempt to harness nature and create "soil" with 100% O.M. which would never happen in nature because it takes hundreds of thousands of years to create 1 foot of top soil.

Ph does matter. If you've found a formula and aren't constantly altering the ph of the soil, then you're fine. Personally? I do not use a ph meter, thats because I know my tap water is 7.6 with 250ppm of Calcium carbonate, so I use fulvic acid and earth juice to lower my ph. I also buffer my peat based mixes (which I'm not using anymore) with oyster shells. I use coco now which is near neutral and my tap water adds enough cal mag.

Fact is, if it aint broke, don't fix it. We can blah blah blah all day about how we don't use ph meters or pay attention to ph and we're fine; well thats fine, but its not science, but it still works, so fuck it. While Tom is not giving scientific facts, he is right.

If anybody wishes, after work, I'll go home and copy some text from my soil science book about ph and the mathematics behind it.

As J said, smoke weed.

 

[swampdank]

Note to self....gather up all my shitty old pH meters and put them on Ebay immediately!

i wouldnt hold my breath.

 

[BurnOne]

Okay, let's settle this issue once and for all.
Do this for yourself. Grow two crops side by side. Use clones of the same plant. Use one of LC's mixes EXACTLY like the recipe but use the same mix for both grows. Check and adjust the pH of your nute solutions and/or soil mix in one grow and don't check and adjust pH in the other.
Theories are fine but application is fact.
Burn1

 

[swampdank]

i agree.

however, i think i will continue doing what i do. it seems to be working fine.

i will still get a meter, if for no other reason than i plan to run a few coco grows this summer. so i will have one. but i dont think i will use it much for my heady crop.

thanks to all who gave advice/opinoins instead of attitude. it says alot about character.

 

[Dignan]

This thread was far less contentious than the other 2 dozen organics & pH threads we've had around here. I think we're all finaly learning to not take soil pH so personally.

"Hey man!! You don't talk about a man's Momma! And you never, EVER talk about a man's gardening methods!!"