What causes soil acidification!?

[mimistow]

I use biobizz(lightmix) and for feeding biobizz tripack + bioheaven + algamic.Temp is 21-26C when ligts on and 16-18C when off. RH is around 40%. In week 5 to 6 leafs started getting discolorated and having some patches of burn on them that i assume thats its not a fert overdose cause i was very moderate with the feedings.The story goes as follows.I firstly watered too much the sprouted seeds when i put them in the soil then i waited for a month to dry out and i stated feeding them once a week with biobizz starting with 0.5 lts upscaling to 1 lt till now(week7) most of the times i only watered them once a week and let the soil dry a lot causing a bit of droopiness but thats all.After week 5 things started getting worse with the leaves turning yellow from tthe bottom to the top .so in the middle of week 6 i decided to test the soil pH which turned out to range between 5.3 to 5.7 that led me to believe that a nutrient lock out is going on considering things getting worse .Now(week7) im yet in search on how to raise soil pH and why this happened and if thats the root of the problem .The other thing that im thinking is if the tap water im using that has chlorine killed the beneficial bacteria and turned the medium into "dead soil" so it cant manage the ph at itself but even if that happened why pH is so low (below 6) when at the same time the solution im feeding them stands at 6-6.2? tap water pH without and biobizz ferts has around 7.2 pH! Thank you for instance.Ill attach some photos of their recent look(week7).

 

[slownickel]

I use biobizz(lightmix) and for feeding biobizz tripack + bioheaven + algamic.Temp is 21-26C when ligts on and 16-18C when off. RH is around 40%. In week 5 to 6 leafs started getting discolorated and having some patches of burn on them that i assume thats its not a fert overdose cause i was very moderate with the feedings.The story goes as follows.I firstly watered too much the sprouted seeds when i put them in the soil then i waited for a month to dry out and i stated feeding them once a week with biobizz starting with 0.5 lts upscaling to 1 lt till now(week7) most of the times i only watered them once a week and let the soil dry a lot causing a bit of droopiness but thats all.After week 5 things started getting worse with the leaves turning yellow from tthe bottom to the top .so in the middle of week 6 i decided to test the soil pH which turned out to range between 5.3 to 5.7 that led me to believe that a nutrient lock out is going on considering things getting worse .Now(week7) im yet in search on how to raise soil pH and why this happened and if thats the root of the problem .The other thing that im thinking is if the tap water im using that has chlorine killed the beneficial bacteria and turned the medium into "dead soil" so it cant manage the ph at itself but even if that happened why pH is so low (below 6) when at the same time the solution im feeding them stands at 6-6.2? tap water pH without and biobizz ferts has around 7.2 pH! Thank you for instance.Ill attach some photos of their recent look(week7).

Ran out of calcium. dust with some good lime.

 

[Mattbho]

You can tell they drooped more than 1x by the early yellow fan leafs .

Ride it out ..
5 is early to be getting yellow leaves but week 7 your almost done!!

If reusing the soil after this grow it will definitely need some work. How did you ph your soil?

 

[thailer]

chlorine chloramine are not toxic to plants at the levels that are in drinking water. i had a different source that said the organisms are protected by the organic matter but i found this quick read article that says chlorine and chloramine are safe at the levels used for tap water. https://www.gardenmyths.com/chlorine-chloramine-plants/

i think it is mostly for compost tea and when using microbe innoculants that you should remove the chlorine because they are not protected by the organic matter in the soil.

 

[mimistow]

Ran out of calcium. dust with some good lime.

I found one that is in granule form from my local store but it only have instructions for a big scale field like a handfull for some square meters.Ill throw some and pray they dont burn...

 

[mimistow]

You can tell they drooped more than 1x by the early yellow fan leafs .

Ride it out ..
5 is early to be getting yellow leaves but week 7 your almost done!!

If reusing the soil after this grow it will definitely need some work. How did you ph your soil?

well you are correct.The whole problem started with droopines of the whole plant back when it was healthy(week 5 or so) and green.I pHed the soil with a hanna soil pH meter.But its a bit frustrating that i didnt manage to find out what caused the problem.

 

[mimistow]

chlorine chloramine are not toxic to plants at the levels that are in drinking water. i had a different source that said the organisms are protected by the organic matter but i found this quick read article that says chlorine and chloramine are safe at the levels used for tap water. https://www.gardenmyths.com/chlorine-chloramine-plants/

i think it is mostly for compost tea and when using microbe innoculants that you should remove the chlorine because they are not protected by the organic matter in the soil.

yeah you are right ,althouhg what could cause such a low ph in the soil?

 

[thailer]

yeah you are right ,althouhg what could cause such a low ph in the soil?

organic acids? peat moss is acidic for starters. compost has humic acids and stuff like that.

 

[flylowgethigh]

The dirt I got from a pond to raise another area had a low PH like that. I tilled in a bunch of ag lime (it comes from a limestone quarry BTW), but the chemical process is rumored to take a few months. Meanwhile the growth is slow and yellow.

Would adding some baking soda to the water before watering do any good? That may fix the PH quicker, but I have no idea if it can hurt.

 

[mimistow]

The dirt I got from a pond to raise another area had a low PH like that. I tilled in a bunch of ag lime (it comes from a limestone quarry BTW), but the chemical process is rumored to take a few months. Meanwhile the growth is slow and yellow.

Would adding some baking soda to the water before watering do any good? That may fix the PH quicker, but I have no idea if it can hurt.

Well i bought a ph up to raise the nutrient solution im feeding with but imo that wont make any drastic difference in the soil.Maybe a flush with 7ph water would help but the main reason i came to the forum is to find out what caused that problem

 

[G.O. Joe]

Certain fertilizers change the pH one way or another as part of the plant/root zone nutrient metabolism. No idea whether your fert will always do this if unflushed. You need runoff when you water.

 

[mimistow]

Certain fertilizers change the pH one way or another as part of the plant/root zone nutrient metabolism. No idea whether your fert will always do this if unflushed. You need runoff when you water.

Well im using the same brand as the soil for the ferts so i thought they would be compatible but who knows!

 

[G.O. Joe]

It boils down to an imbalance between H3O and OH. You do not have enough buffer capacity for the acid produced by the plant under the conditions you're using. There could be many reasons.

 

[mimistow]

It boils down to an imbalance between H3O and OH. You do not have enough buffer capacity for the acid produced by the plant under the conditions you're using. There could be many reasons.

Yeah ill be checking pH for often for know on!

 

[chiesesganja]

check the ppm or ec if not over 1.0 you need to feed more maybe add calmag

 

[troutman]

Garden limestone is the cheapest way to raise pH.