PauliBhoy
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Ph in soil/peat and ph in coco are very different you cannot compare them in that aspect because not only is coco is usually not mixed with a buffer it also had a very different CEC and will hold onto calcium, magnesium and iron while leeching sodium, phosphorus and potassium.Hey so I'm dialing in a coco-based super soil mix. Yeah really
In the late winter I mixed up a modified SS recipe with a 50/50 coco/perlite base plus 5% EWC and 5% biochar plus zeolite (CEC buffers) plus necessary minerals and 1.5 lbs pf nitrogen/cy (chicken litter compost, blood, and feather meals). It worked great for my spring crop but there wasn't quite enough N late in flower so I had to supplement.
So I then mixed up a new recipe in May exactly like the previous, except with approx 2 lbs nitrogen/cy (replaced alfalfa N with the chicken compost and added feather meal) as these would be in veg a couple weeks longer and wanted to make sure there was enough N to finish without supplementation.
The C99 plants I potted up in June have done great. No issues. Just cut them down and they look sweet!
I had a bunch of media left over that was stored in a white super sack outside through the summer and I decided to use it again two months later to pot up some clones for a super late crop. Yeah I can pull off a greenhouse crop in flower from now through early December in my climate.
Anyway I checked the pH of the mix from my (adjusted) pH ~6.0 water and omfg the pH was 4.5!!!! People say "pH doesn't matter" with organic soil so I put a few teens in it in 3 gallon pots. Half I watered with (pH modified) 5.5-6.0 water and the other half I watered with unmodified 7.4 pH water. The former burnt up and died within a few weeks. The latter look great! #pHmatters
Okay so I know that the mineralization process of organic nitrogen can acidify unbuffered soilless media (that includes peat) but I add a ton of buffers and here's the really crazy thing:
The runoff from the same soil mix that I planted into in June and harvested last week is identical to the input water (6.2).
Also the runoff from the leftover soil mix I mixed in the winter (that sat around for 7 months) is also identical to the input water (tested at 5.9 pH).
Yet the runoff from the 2nd mix that sat around for a few months is 1.4 pH lower than the input water.
Any thoughts? Anyone out there growing in coco- based organic "hot soil"?
Hello you seem to know a lot about mixing coco, i have a issue with my PH being to high in my coco mix.Ph in soil/peat and ph in coco are very different you cannot compare them in that aspect because not only is coco is usually not mixed with a buffer it also had a very different CEC and will hold onto calcium, magnesium and iron while leeching sodium, phosphorus and potassium.
This is why sometimes depending on your base nutes you need extra calmag which conveniently also contains iron most cases.
In soil you don't need to PH and even if you do the soil will change the PH to its makeup anyways.
In coco this is not the case and if growing organically you shouldn't be watering to runoff and should be adding a buffering capacity as needed.
Then you'd probably see very different results. PH is about 25% of the story and is a terrible way to try to use as reference for end results. Why? Because PH is a result not the cause.
PH control is done through a balance of alkaline and acidic sources and the volume of them. The more alkalinity the more acid or acidic materials need to be added and the more of each there is the more stable it becomes. That's can't just PH you nutes and expect the soil to change to your input.. . The soil has far more influence on pH than your tiny amount in the nutrients
What is your water source? Ppm?Hello you seem to know a lot about mixing coco, i have a issue with my PH being to high in my coco mix.
I use 50%coco 30%perlite 20%wormcastings,
My runoff shows 7.0PH and i fed them with 5.8PH.
What could i add to the mix or maybe even topdress to lower my PH ?
thanks a lot!
Thats what I have..soil, coir, burnt rice husks, biochar, perlite, peat, clam shell dust, marine algae and 1 year old compost w/azomite/guano/dolomite lime/sand/colored tiny rocksFollowing, I am a coco/perlite grower but, I did run SS as a youngster and this was my intent until @Aquaman & my grow buddy got me into Coco. I'd like to try a coco/SS mix just to experiment with. SS grower
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