Super soil goof

[Mrniceguy420]

This is my new veg tent as I'm making the full transition into organics from bottled nutes. The base mix for my soil is 40% lava rock, 20% spaghnum peat moss, 20% e.w.c, 10% top soil, and 10% charged bio char. Kelp meal, alfalfa, gypsum, mineral mix at 4 1/2 cups per cubic foot, crustacean meal, neem cake. Top dress with comfrey and worm casting once in my 15 gal pots

I didnt realize when I originally mixed the soil, that I needed something like dolomite lime as a ph buffer.

Can I top dress with oyster shell every so often and just water it in. I did a slurry test and found my soil is getting a bit alkaline(blue)

 

[oldskol4evr]

are you trying to raise ph or lower it,lime will bring your soil to a 7.0 neutral?

 

[Mrniceguy420]

Lower it. The soil test told me I'm sitting at like 8.0 which is alkaline. And I know nutrient lock out can occur when you dont have your ph dialed in

 

[oldskol4evr]

Lower it. The soil test told me I'm sitting at like 8.0 which is alkaline. And I know nutrient lock out can occur when you dont have your ph dialed in

acidfier lowers ph but use with catuion,i do the peat moss to drop my ph before i plant,you have cover crop on top,it looks great,are you sure of your ph,acidifier is sulfur mainly i tried it last year while growing potato plants,it did drop the ph but hurt yield

 

[oldskol4evr]

acidfier lowers ph but use with catuion,i do the peat moss to drop my ph before i plant,you have cover crop on top,it looks great,are you sure of your ph,acidifier is sulfur mainly i tried it last year while growing potato plants,it did drop the ph but hurt yield

if you use lime it might bite ya in the long run and at 8 your gonna use more then you think,i believe this would shock the crap out of your plants,did you do a slurry test to make sure of the ph?i dont see your cover crop doing as well as it is at 8 is why i ask

 

[OldManRiver]

You would need aluminum sulphate or iron sulphate. Are you sure that pH is that high? Your plant would look very unhappy if that were the case. In my experience, even 7.0 in soil is noticeably suboptimal for the girls. They don't thrive. Those plants aren't hurting badly; color is good, vigor is OK. I don't believe your test. You would be seeing signs of lockout at 8.0.

I'd check the test with something like this: . These are accurate enough in my experience. Everytime I ook a reading and acted on it, it worked as expected. Use it in moist soil, and give it a minute before you read it.

If you do try the sulphates, go easy so you don't go too far.

 

[Mrniceguy420]

Sorry to go Mia, but I was waiting for my 3 way meter, for moisture, ph, and light. Kicks ass btw. Anyway it shows my plants as being between 6 and 7, which is where I wanna be. I dumped half a cup of oyster shell as a top dress in my super soil mix about a week ago, watered it in thoroughly. I figured out oyster shell is a ph regulator and just helps to keep things in check, So the top dress wont hurt anything

 

[Mrniceguy420]

What the meter shows

 

[OldManRiver]

Toldja your first test was off. The plant knows...