I have rid myself of
Man I'm trying to be nice here but your info is plain wrong on many levels. Why don't you call the makers of promix and ask them why they don't recommend ph'ing when using their mix. It's on their website. They clearly state that the medium buffers PH, NOT THE SOLUTION OR WATER. Of course im sure your "friends" growing in 100 gallon buckets know more than them. It seems like your the one without the open mind.
I understand quite well how medias buffer pH. Again I prefer less salts and a stable n-p-k in my media thank you very much.
Key word, BUFFER.
Buffer Definition:
A buffer is a
solution containing either a
weak acid and its
salt or a
weak base and its
salt , which is
resistant to changes in
pH .
Key word here, RESISTANT.
Does not mean impervious. Natural salts can leech away, albeit slowly.
So pHing the water for professionalism, accuracy, and consistency is WRONG?
Complete news to any PRO grower (indoor). Depending on the grower, nutes don't even get used in the same amounts the WEBSITE or INSTRUCTIONS say.
Even cannabis cup winners using promix, pH.
First result, with a nice google pop-out answer,
http://kylekushman.com/topic/best-ph-for-promix/.
And finding any info not on the promix site that agrees with what you said, is seeming impossible. I'm finding 9/10-10/10 are saying to pH between 6.2 and 6.6 for promix. Very few insist on adding more limestone to the mix, most if not all are saying to pH the water to adjust the rhizosphere pH, basically giving 6.5 to a 4.9 pot, and 5.0 to a 7.0, etc.
Huh? Strange.... All the professional growers are pHing the promix... why, if they are wrong?
I have an open mind, but no one has yet to give an answer with any actual grounding great enough to sway me. All i need are repeatable, reputable facts to change my opinion. And those facts should be RELEVANT. "The company website says to." Is that why you stand by that opinion? I'm not saying its the case here, but ever heard of "corporate agenda?"
And btw, where is it CLEARLY stated WHY NOT to pH anyways. It just says its
not necessary in soilless, and ro water will harm them. Sounds fishy, almost exactly like a marketing scheme to me. Not NECESSARY, but
very beneficial. Again, I'm a Soil Enthusiast, not Hydrohead/soilless expert, so If you can provide a good grouping of pics showing the negatives of properly pHing in soilless, all power to you..
I also have some experience, and obviously have a better understanding of the do's and don'ts of industrial ag. For CONSISTENCY, you pH no matter what. Not saying you can't have buffers, you just have to pH on top of that, even if its unnecessary. 30 years from now, if growing is anything like it is now, you'll grow up and start pHing. Especially after the pollution builds up and rains average pH becomes 4.5 instead of 5.5, or maybe after you get unlucky and ruin 20 plants with non-pHed water. Or over-buffer and kill the plants.
Buffers are good, but again, they are not MY choice. Anything under 25 gallons of water, I'd pH. If I continued having the problems with pH in pro-mix, then I'd do the more permanent, higher risk choice and add limestone, etc. Buffers are great for acre sized adjustments.Thats how large scale farmers save on pHing. Otherwise they'd have to pH millions of gallons. So pHing the water is not feasible.
To produce an acre of corn, takes 350,000 gallons of water over a 100-day growing season. http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4DMG/Xeris/howmuch.htm
Acidic (sour) soil is counteracted by applying finely ground limestone, and alkaline (sweet) soil is treated with gypsum (calcium sulfate) or ground sulfur.
http://www.almanac.com/content/ph-preferences
Anyways, in actual-factual-fucking-reality, how am I not keeping an open mind? I'm listening, and all I'm hearing is nonsense. Defending peroxide, while listing the known negatives, and insisting on pH for
consistency. That must mean I or my friends know all and refuse to listen to any VALUABLE knowledge.....
I know you can grow without pHing. Done it before, and did this entire year without a pH meter because all I had was old test strips, and they were too humid I guess. But it is VERY OBVIOUS the plants suffered because of this. Not professional at all. If I wasn't broke as shit and could afford more than the $15-20 I spent on fert, soil, and pots this year....... Damn straight i'd have a ph meter, TDS meter, d/o meter, reservoir and air pump w/air stones for a stabilized aerated water, soil fertility test kit (professional if I want to figure out the exact nute needs of a strain on a weekly basis,) compost bin, green housing material, organic or light synthetics, teas, castings, blood-meal, bone-meal, crab-meal, guanos, fish emulsions, rock dusts, fungal and bacterial compost etc..
Just watch some growing your greens to get an idea of what I agree with.
But yeah, because the WEBSITE says its not necessary, and because there is apparently only one way to use a product,
I must be wrong.
Fucking ignorance.
Oh, get some bug strips and let your medium dry out. Keep airflow on the pots. Bugs gone in two weeks guaranteed.
And this....
I'm so sick of this retarded, constantly repeated advice. Heres an excerpt from something you should read before giving advice. Just letting the pot dry normally does not work. I should know, I got rid of fungus gnats and root aphids in
one h202 watering after a 16 day dry+fan combo did NOT work. It didn't matter to me that the bennies were half dead after, because t
hey grow back, unlike everything the pests destroy. And I didn't have to wait and have pests for another minimum 2 week treatment while those damn pests fed.
Fungus gnat broods will overlap, because every 1 1/2 to 4 weeks there is a new brood of flies. The life cycle (egg
laying to fly emergence) is 18 to 26 days at 65-75 degrees F. The adults live about one week.
http://pss.uvm.edu/ppp/pubs/el50.htm
What do i get when your guarantee isn't worth shit? All your rep? A 14 day fan treatment seems outright hilarious to anyone informed who is familiar with how long insect eggs can lay dormant waiting for rain. And those strips catch adults, not eggs. So you get an outbreak every watering day. The way this doesn't happen is if you use 1 to 1 &1/4 cup vermiculite/perlite (varying sizes) to 2 cups soil. Which as I stated earlier, is not an option in this case. So I suggest sand/aquarium gravel, h202, or organic pesticides (that don't normally work).
Next time you "help" be able to back it up. Theres a million techniques. I just prefer the ones based in fact that are tried and true. Keep it rather simple, but not below the basics. Then you'll be less likely to have problems. You philosophy of keep it as simple as possible to have as few problems as possible needs some major re-adjustment. I recommend reading a few books on botany, plant biology, and other agricultural literature. NOT SPECIFICALLY ABOUT MJ.