Do you pH balance your neem spray?

I've mixed Dyna-Gro neem according to the label directions (1 gallon water, 1 oz neem, 1 1/3 tsp clear dish soap) dozens of times, and used it with no ill effects on my plants - as a foliar spray and even a couple of times as a dip.

Then I did a soil treatment with Azamax and the directions for it said it works best in a certain pH range, so I made the "brilliant" logical assumption that regular neem spray might also be better if pH'ed to match the plant's feeding preferences. Tried that this weekend, and the girls looked like hell yesterday: drooping, top leaves yellow and curling under, still very waxy/oily looking when that usually fades in this amount of time. And no, I don't have pics. My partner (who is a much more experienced grower than me) has pretty much banned me from the garden until/unless the girls recover, because I'm the one who mixed and applied the neem.

I tried searching the forum, but I've only found two mentions: one person who said they pH their neem to 6.3 and didn't seem to have any problems (didn't mark the thread, though, sorry), and another who said he did have problems after adjusting the pH and was advised by his local hydro store not to do it (here).

So, for those of you who use neem, do you adjust the pH or not?

I'm 99% sure the problem is related to the neem in some way, because the plants looked perfect before this treatment and nothing else changed in our set-up, which is why I'm not elaborating more about media, nutes, etc. The other possibilities I see are that I spaced while mixing it (kind of unlikely, because I had to mix more than one batch and the problem affects plants from both batches), I sprayed too much on (which seems possible on one hand, because the leaves are so waxy looking and the damage does look like the plant is suffocating, but on the other hand, we've dipped plants before, and I don't think I could have sprayed more on than dipping would have deposited), or the water I used was too cold (which could have either prevented the neem from dispersing thoroughly, or could have shocked the plants). I know some people say that the directions call for too much dish soap, but I've always used that amount with no ill effects, so I doubt that's the issue this time.

Anyone else have any other thoughts? And to anyone who waded through this whole post: thanks! I can be pretty wordy, especially when I'm freaking out, which I am right now. I'd really appreciate any insight anyone can offer.

Since this got a fair number of views and no replies, I figured I'd post an update. Maybe it'll help the next "genius" who has the same idea I did:

I ended up contacting Dyna-Gro, and the response was, "You should not adjust the pH of your neem solution . . . It is hard to specify what caused the problem because of the number of variables but I suspect the pH adjustment caused the problem." They also advised that we should rinse the plants with plain water, which we've done, and they're improving slowly. But this was a fiasco: we had a bunch of gorgeous, healthy plants that were probably within a week of moving into flowering, and now they're super-stressed and we're going to spend a lot of time babying them back to health. So, note to self (and to anyone who checks this thread): next time you have a super-awesome idea, try it out on one of the girls before subjecting them all to it. *sigh* Oh, yeah, and don't pH the f'ing neem again.

Adjust your ph FROM WHAT to WHAT?

I can tell you that I have Neem products (Azadirachtin 3,2%), like the many AzaXYZ products and the instructions say to ph your spraying solution to 4-6. I have NOT done this yet and so far I have not seen any negative results. (In fact, each time when I hose my plants with water and then spray with insecticidal soap emulsion and Neem, they AT FIRST look extremely awful, after the hosing off, but two hours later the plants look awesome!)

HOWEVER - and here's the deal: For any Neem oil product you need to make an emulsion, preferrably with insecticidal (potassium) soap. Because you can not just mix oil and water together.

And ANY soap water has an extremely high ph, like 11 or 12. Even if I didn't see any negatives yet after spraying like this, today I DID actually take the advice and phed my solution down to 5. I mean there is a reason they say ph 4-6, otherwise they wouldn't say so, right? I can see ph 5 "healthier" than spraying them with something that is ph 12!

Edit: Of course, if all my plants are dead tomorrow I will retract what I just said but I don't see a reason why this would be the case.