I currently have 4 plants going, Veg Week 4.
As every one of you knows, you never stop learning, and I’m currently looking into information about run-off values after watering.
Embarrassingly enough, in my 6 previous grows I have never checked or measured this.
Plant 1 is the only one that seems to be lagging behind in growth to me and handles the topping and LST the least well. Otherwise, all plants get the same treatment and are doing really, really well.
So far I have been watering with PH 6.1 - 6.3
I am grateful for any knowledge and insights and look forward to every response
OK, so organic. That means you don’t need to / shouldn’t water to runoff, so the runoff EC is irrelevant to you. These kinds of things are only important with synthetic/mineral fertilizers to avoid salt buildup and for monitoring.
In organic growing, you only check the pH before watering. Water until the soil is saturated and without runoff. Flushing doesn’t do anything in organic anyway.
You can ignore the different values you measured. If you measure them in organic growing, it’ll drive you crazy. No matter what you do, they will always fluctuate. If you try to adjust your grow based on those values, you’ll ruin more than you can save.
I would think that bags of soil aren’t consistent, so if you didn’t mix everything together throughly that could make a difference. But the way I understand PH fluctuations in my environment is if the PH drops then the plant is drinking and feeding less or if the PH rises then it’s feeding more.
If they are uniform, and even if they vary a little, it will hardly be anything, quality controls are required of them.
besides, pH depends on the ion charge, I never thought about it, but it’s counterintuitive to think that you can measure pH from the tray water.
how does it work? do you put distilled water? deionized? tap water? if salt and ion charges mix when passing through the substrate, and you drag minerals to the bottom, I don’t see how it’s possible to measure pH like that, EC yes, but pH???
likewise the substrate is never homogeneous, there are areas that naturally retain more salts, vermiculite, clay pebbles, expanded clay, coco, charcoal, plant remains, physical barriers, it’s normal for different amounts to accumulate, with different EC.
it would be good to know if doing this measuring of the tray water actually has any real usefulness or if it’s bro science
I’ve also learned now that checking the runoff water isn’t necessary with my organic grow.
I’ve only been growing for 1 1/2 years and thought I should finally fill this knowledge gap .
I water with tap water left to stand for 24h
I’m still in a very active learning process and grateful for comments like yours
I do know that PH is a thing since they do sell soil for acid loving plants. And I would assume that when a plant eats from that soil that it would change the PH of that soil. Just as if you add something to the soil the PH would change. I personally don’t check the run off or the EC of my plants in soil. But in DWC I learned to adjust the amount of my nutrients and PH of my inputs after I checked my starting PH. But I am still learning.
I’ve been doing this for a really long time now and got caught up in the topic of measuring 2 years ago. What can I say, I tested and tested and tried to adjust everything. The result was the shittiest grow I’ve had up to that point. Now I only check the pH of the feed and everything is good again. You learn from your mistakes, or at least it should be that way.
helloo, hahaha we are all new
if you can measure the pH of something, measure the tap water, as long as it’s not something exaggerated like 8 pH or so, nothing happens
I would tell you that it’s never necessary to check the runoff water, unless you need to know the soil EC for some reason, because in principle it’s the plant that gives you the first warning sign, I’ll tell you right now that if you grow organically, what isn’t measured is the EC, and the reason why is precisely because it’s not mineral, it’s literally organic matter, which the plant can’t eat, it’s the microorganisms in your soil that eat that fertilizer, and transform it into food for the plant.
any EC measurement of organics makes no sense.
EC is measured on mineral products, mineral products are precisely the opposite of organic ones, these don’t need microorganisms, they are food that is already processed and ready for the plant, as in this case, if it’s the plant that will eat the fertilizer, measuring EC is mandatory.
many, though not the majority, believe they grow organically and use products that, without knowing it, are mineral, like some calcium, magnesium supplements, etc., so if you don’t adjust the pH, you will have deficiencies.
it’s always good to measure pH, if you’re in organic too, it’s just that you have the advantage that 5.9 or 6.5 is almost the same, they are acceptable ranges for organic, if it were mineral, it must be exact.
the same with EC, the plant eats mineral, pH and EC need to be very calibrated.
I’d swear that a few days ago someone created a post explaining this in detail, but stick with the idea that organic feeds the microorganisms, not the plant, and mineral feeds the plant, it doesn’t need microorganisms in the soil.
