Soil Ph changing during a run - real mystery here

[flylowgethigh]

Sat x RB, the plants were looking terrible, and now they have recovered somewhat. I just like to know where I screwed up, and what's going on. If a 6.8 reading means it's time to inoculate the soil then OK, I will.

The water coming from my soil, back to the reservoir, is increasing the Ph in the reservoir.

I do not know how those single probes work, but I suspect something to do with the different metals on the tip, and a galvanic situation. This is a real phenom, but what is the cause? What has inoculation have to do with the ion exchange?

 

[Guest]

The water coming from my soil, back to the reservoir, is increasing the Ph in the reservoir.

I do not know how those single probes work, but I suspect something to do with the different metals on the tip, and a galvanic situation. This is a real phenom, but what is the cause? What has inoculation have to do with the ion exchange?

That's right! That's what I said. The drainage from yr soil will be acid. (I 'm thinking you mean more acid when you say "increased".) Stop looking at yr meter and look at yr plants instead!

 

[flylowgethigh]

Higher Ph reading is less acid, lower Ph reading is more acid. I'm going down to the shed and getting some litmus strips.

 

[40degsouth]

Drumroll......


Yeah, I’m pretty sure what’s happening when you’re adding the aluminium sulphate to the muddy water is that it turns the fresh to salt water and makes it slightly denser, therefore pushing the particles out of solution. Of course the positive clay particle would also be grabbing hold of the negatively charged salt and making it slightly heavier than the liquid it’s in, or flocculating out of solution. This is why mud flats form when fresh water rivers, carrying sediments in solution, meet salt water in the tidal reaches of the same river, or of course, the ocean. Salt water is more dense than fresh.
Just as a side note, that some people may not know, aluminium can become toxic really quickly, from memory, in acidic soils lower than 5.5ph so, l wouldn’t add it on purpose.
Flylowgethigh, have you tried doing a soil aggregate test with your clay so yo know exactly what you’re dealing with; it’s really one of the easiest things you can do.
The addition of gypsum will break up clay particles and force them apart, depending on the type of clay you’ve got.
40.

 

[Hammerhead]

Measuring run off of soil is useless. OK in hydro ... but not soil. You will always get a 'too acid' reading. (Unless of course you've got super alkaline soil but then yr plants wouldn't be growing anyway.)

I'm not talking about your backyard soil lol. All bagged soil/soilless is buffered unless otherwise noted it doesn't. I use Promix this is a buffered medium that is mixed with lime to get ph 5.3 - 5.8. Any runoff should not be drastically different then your feed. This is what buffering does. Anyone that grows in soil/soilless well knows how to test the soil PH runoff. Then use that data to make appropriate changes. I've done it many times. I would not have suggested it otherwise. But what do I know It's only been 5 decades growing in soil/soilless lol.

 

[flylowgethigh]

I just tried to use pond strips to test the Ph of the soil by contact, and all it did was make the patch on the test strip dirty. Maybe my cheap chinese meter is reading galvanic activty, and the wetness is what makes it read low. But it doesn't do that in the other soil that hasn't been inoculated yet.

The new water in the reservoir went through two waterings, and went up in Ph from 6.5 to 7.1. This is the blumat meter. Maybe the air pump is filling the water with CO2. I dunno.

I am not doing anything about this, just observing. The CEC thing though, I would like to know more about in non-clay soil. What is the colloid?

 

[Hammerhead]

If your mix has any limestone/Dolimite this is a buffer. Depending on how much used it will make your soil ph more alkaline. It could be normal for a ph of 6.8 with lime in your mix.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Here is an article that somewhat satisfied my curiosity of what is the colloid in organic soil. I think organic soil needs to be pretty wet to work electrically and move the ions around. My spark-o-meter sure thinks so. Worms are wet, maybe that is another reason they help. Little electric eels. I wonder if I have any still.

http://www.css.cornell.edu/courses/260/Soil Colloids 3.pdf

The water gaining Ph (less acid) may be from the air pump.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Hey Flylowgethigh,
Steve Soloman has stated that humus cannot form without clay. Personally l think it’s an important addition to any soil right up there with biochar.
(Rico Swazi, over at the “Local Materials” thread has posted some information to the contrary, believing it to be carcinogenic and posting supporting links)
Are you trying to grow in the clay itself and get a garden bed going???
40

The sparking is in my soil bags inside, that I do not think have any clay. CEC applies to all soils I think, and I have been wondering what my problem was outside where I was using yellow dirt I dug from the lowest area of the place, before I dug even further and got white rock chirt, as topsoil and trying to grow grass in it.. The hole is one of the ponds, and the white chirt is still piled in the back. I have been fighting the yellow clay I used as topsoil here since I started. I suspected electrical charges by how it acted, and yup, LOW CEC got me. Lime, mixing in humus rich soil, and chicken chit did the trick. The soil test of that yellow clay was 5.0 Ph when I started. I don't know which name it is.

I have a outside garden I am gonna experiment with organic tec, and a also a couple acres I want to remediate from storing the yellow clay on top of a good red clay humus hill.

 

[flylowgethigh]

I am starting to see my Ph probe as a way to tell how the CEC is doing in my soil. If the meter swings wildly to a low Ph number, the sparks are probably flying.

Scrappy posted this back in 2012:

Soil Biology and pH by Jeff Lowenfels

The success of the AeroGarden, the first plug-and-grow aeroponic kitchen appliance, is testament to the fact that ordinary people do not understand the concept of pH and don't want to deal with it in their growing situations. Make it so you can practice hydroponics without this chemistry barrier and they will come, apparently.

Frankly, the concept of pH also confuses soil gardeners. Heck, the definition of pH was inadvertently reversed in my book "Teaming With Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web." (Yes, some readers noticed; I received two "you made a mistake" notes. But that's not as many as I thought I'd receive.) Fortunately, the mistake was corrected in time for the second printing.

In any case, soil gardeners have been told certain plants require acidic conditions- for example, rhododendrons and azaleas- or else they won't grow. The solution advocated by most experienced gardeners is not dissimilar from what a hydroponics grower would do: adjust the pH with chemicals, such as agricultural lime, to make the soil more alkaline. To make alkaline soil more acid, we are told to add sulfur. Because they are chemical changes, these solutions work for a short time. But to me pH is a biological matter.

A bit of quick pH review is in order (if only to make amends for the mistake in my book). You may remember that pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a scale of 1 to 14; 1 being most acidic and 14 being most alkaline. A more technical description is that pH is the measurement of the concentration of hydrogen ions, H+. If you have lots of H+, the pH is low, or acidic. If you have few of them, the pH is high, or alkaline.

If you are adding fertilizers and using chemicals, you are stuck in the chemical realm. Organic gardeners, soil food webbies in particular, realize that pH has more to do with biology than it does with chemistry. That's because of the way plant roots take up nutrients. Root hair surfaces are covered with positive electrical hydrogen cations. Think of these charges as ping-pong balls. If soil particles are small enough, their surfaces are covered by these ping-pong ball charges, both positive (cation) charges and negative (anion) charges. These cations are not limited to hydrogen; they also include calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and ammonium. All are important plant nutrients.

When a root encounters a clay or organic particle, it can exchange one of its hydrogen cation for another positive one from the particle. It can choose from calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, ammonium and hydrogen, as these are all cations carried by clay and silt and are all, as luck would have it, major plant nutrients.

This is known, incidentally, as cation exchange capacity, or CEC. Sand and silt have low CECs, because they comprised of particles that are too large to hold electrical charges. This is why humus and clay are needed to make soil good. They are extremely small particles and can carry cations.

So, back to pH. Every time a plant root exchanges a hydrogen ion for a nutrient ion, it increases the concentration of hydrogen ions in solution. Thus, the pH goes down and things should become more acidic.

Ah, but things usually balance out because the positive cations on the root surface also attract negative charges. Here, hydroxy ions (OH-) are the exchange ping-pong balls, and addition of hydroxy ions lowers the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution, and pH goes up.

I know this still sounds like chemistry and not biology. However, each plant has an optimum pH requirement. What soil growers need to know (and hydroponics growers don't) is that the type of bacteria and fungi attracted to a plant's rhizosphere by the plant's exudates has a lot to do with setting this optimal pH. Bacteria produce a slim that raises the pH, and fungi produce acids that lower the pH. Since the plant is in control of the biology it attracts, in a natural system, it is the plant that determines the pH, and not some chemistry teacher.

So, while you may forget the chemistry of pH, at least remember there is a biological side. Do no harm to it, and you shouldn't have to worry much about pH when you grow plants in soil. Moreover, the nutrient exchanges that occur above also have a lot to do with what kind of bacteria and fungi are attracted to the root zone as some like higher pH and others lower pH.

 

[40degsouth]

Hey everyone, I’m enjoying watching the thread come together Flylowgethigh.
That’s a great article explaining how the plant manipulates the root zone to suit it’s own needs and is the organic gardening philosophy of laissez faire or, leave alone. This is great but ph has to be in the “Goldilocks Zone” or, within a range that supports life for this situation to occur and as we now understand, flooding the grow media with say potassium, or sulphate of potash, pushes other nutrients off the exchange sites These nutrients become plant available but quickly move through and out of the soil with water, unless there’s another site for them to reside on, in a different horizon of the soil. Try and think of this as a person going from house to house looking for somewhere to stay but everywhere’s taken as they make their way down the street.
The part of the puzzle that l feel we need to address now is, how do we unlock the nutrients already in the soil that’s naturally balanced out to 6.5-7.5ph because all the exchange sites (houses) are taken up.
Well it’s really very simple, and thank you Tom Hill for this knowledge, you add an acid to your liquid feeds, PHing down to 5.5 flooding the soil with h+ ions ready to evict the squatters and be taken up by the plant or eaten by the biology.
As a side note I’ve recently learnt from Microbeman and Rico Swazi, over at the “Local Materials” thread, that this practice of “force feeding” plants is not strictly “organic” even although the inputs may be.
Now what sort of organic acids can we use?? Citric acid is one Microbeman used because it’s got the most h+ ions and he gave us a link to an article he wrote that gives all the organic acids to use and the number of h+ ions they contain. One I’ve used with great success is vinegar and l like it because it gets broken down in the soil quickly and it’s easy to get.

A bit off topic but not really Flylowgethigh is an old way to break up heavy clay ground is to plant a crop of potatoes. Dig a hole just big enough to drop the potato in broadcast some gypsum over the area and walk away. Of course you could top dress with a bit of compost or whatever and give them a bit of water to push them a bit but they don’t need much.
After harvest, broadcast globe turnip seed and top dress with a bit of compost, broadcast some gypsum and walk away, this is a fodder crop and not much good for anything else except breaking up the ground further.
If you’re pigs, cattle, sheep or chookens haven’t eaten this by the end of September here March there, dig them back in and plant a deep rooted crop that doesn’t need a lot, or any, water like thistle. Of course you could broadcast artichoke seeds, cover them in gypsum and compost and walk away for the season.
By the next September/October after chopping and dropping all the seed heads, as the thistle grows, turn the thistle back into the ground. Broadcast more gypsum, compost and a green manure crop seed, preparing for more traditional planting the following spring.
You could speed the process up with manual labour, water and a broad fork but this way the plants do all the work and all it takes is time.
Cheers,
40.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Thistle is considered a bad weed around here. I have been dropping my Ph in the reservoir water to 6.5 using Ph down, and I think the plants like it. I will try some vinegar in my tap water and see how much it takes to drop the Ph.

So I up potted 3 little dixie cups into 1 gallon pots, and mixed up a batch of inoculant (Rootwise complete and their enzyme elixer), got the pots good and wet with it. A little later I put my "spark-o-meter" in and the thing went straight down to 5.4, well one went to 6. The soil was 6.7 before, so they are sparking. I also mixed in some added vermeculite in those 1 gal tubs to increase the CEC. If the soil with the added Vermeculite wicks OK, I will add some to the rest I am preparing for the 2nd run.

 

[40degsouth]

If I’m PHing down, l always do it after l add all the ingredients into the liquid and let it mix for a bit.
Thistles are regarded as a noxious weed here also but other than cactus, what plants can you name that have the ability to thrive in extremely adverse conditions, in impoverished soil, with no water, no fertiliser and no care whatsoever on the growers part?? These things are so tough you’ve got to tip your hat to them and if that’s all that will grow in your ground, grow them but grow them with purpose and a plan and be prepared, with the eloquence and patience to educate your neighbours as to what “that madman up the road’s doing.” Time is the best educational tool in this instance and my new definition of what is a weed is, any plant grown without purpose and in the wrong position; makes sense, thistles are magnificent and beautiful.
As l said chop and drop the seed heads, before seed set......this is the key.....but......you might want one or two to go to seed to keep the process going. Goats thrive on thistle seed heads and pigs will eat the roots.
The minerals and nutrients in the plant tissue have been taken out of the depths of the soil and are now on top and will rapidly become plant available. Think about how much calcium and silica it takes to form spikes, sharp enough to penetrate skin and flesh
I also mentioned artichokes, these are part of the thistle family and do, not only what l mentioned but also give a small land holder a crop to sell.....wink, wink.
Eventually you’ll be able to stand at the gate and talk about who’s got the best crop of thistles this year.
l use thistles around my raised beds to catch any nutrients that pass through the soil and then cut them off and use them as mulch.
40

 

[flylowgethigh]

I added 4 gallons to my SIP reservoir last night, Ph'd it to 6.5, and this morning the reservoir is 7.2 Ph. I need to try using citric acid instead of Ph down, if it makes good H+ ions. Since my soil is 6.7 Ph, and the water I put in is 6.5, those H+ ions have to be going somewhere.

This soil isn't 4.0 Ph. It's sparkin'!!

So is one of the plants I transplanted and inoculated yesterday..

 

[40degsouth]

You could unlock a world of problems as well though??

 

[40degsouth]

 

[flylowgethigh]

That is public enemy #1 around my place!

I have two tubs of soil in my shed. One is kinda a worm farm, and the other is for the next run. Both have been sweetened with oyster to bring the Ph to 6.7. The thing is, the spark-o-meter swings to almost 8 when I put it in, and settles down to 6.7. Now that I know I need cal-mag in the feed water, I want to add some other basic mineral with magnesium. I added a bunch (1 gallon into 50) vermeculite, because the bigger 10 gallon fabric pots will need more wicking, and to increase the soil CEC.

It was further right, but the camera takes a while to focus.

The soil is not sparking when there is no plant activity. Add plants, get the CEC of the soil working, and it shows up on the meter.

This is the Runtz Rabbit soil reading. Goes straight down.

Here is a meter similar.

https://www.amazon.com/Gain-Express-.../dp/B00NTPVHOG

 

[flylowgethigh]

Here is an article that has to do with this ionization and colloids - what a bunch of micro science. What is chelated mean?

https://www.life-enthusiast.com/articles/minerals-chelated-colloidal-and-ionized/

 

[40degsouth]

Chelates, as l can best describe them, grab hold of nutrients and make them plant available. Acids are chelates, acids like vinegar, lactic, citric and humic.
I remember reading somewhere that certain trace minerals are chelated on some sort of detrimental media; l can’t remember exactly but glass is ringing a bell.....so......do your research.
Thistles used as mulch can do things like this.