Lonestargrower71
Member
Awesome, Thank You!
What do I add to organic soil to lower Ph?
- Thread starter Lonestargrower71
- Start date
Weedvin
Well-Known Member
1- cup lime/bushel of peat moss. Peat moss comes from the DESTRUCTION OF OUR WETLANDS. Sphagnum peat moss is renewable and has a 7.0 pH.
Lonestargrower71
Member
Ya, I made a slight mistake and used only coco when trying to lighten it up, Thanks, looks like it might have been a hybrid genetic issue more than a soil issue!
xtsho
Well-Known Member
They have found heavy metals in many of the designer cannabis nutrients as well. Many of the name brands have high levels of arsenic, cadmium, zinc, lead, etc... Most growers don't investigate the products they use and would be surprised if they realized how contaminated many of them are. Heavy metals of varying amounts are in most of the products out there. I wouldn't be concerned with the trace amounts in dolomite. There are going to be trace amounts of heavy metals in any limestone product.
Weedvin
Well-Known Member
Check OMRI WEBSITE
PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
Good info. Most people don't think about metals with Hydro. This is an interesting write up. Looks like Advanced Nutrients sounds like the safest.
Heavy Metals in Marijuana are Dangerous!
Marijuana crops are polluted by heavy metals and other dangerous materials that come from most cannabis hydroponics nutrients and fertilizers.
bigbudsmag.com
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Metals themselves aren't so much the issue, but how much of them even get absorbed into the plant via the Rhizosphere into your crops, their PPM content, and the rate of decomposition.
Consider "guano teas" vs top dressing, using Seabird Guano (0-11-0) as our example.
Top dressing with Guano, while it doesn't take long to decompose and become available in the soil, it is still significantly less time than in "tea" form.
When top dressing with the nutrients/minerals, we are at the mercy of their decomposition rates. Alfalfa and Guano take mere weeks to decompose, something like Greensand takes years.
Now, imagine if we "created a tea" out of these ingredients. Instead of allowing them to decompose naturally, we've supercharged them, and made it so EVERYTHING is immediately made available. For better or for worse.
Metals operate in a very similar fashion. In a naturally occurring environment, it takes nearly 50 years (at a minimum) for metal to fully decompose. In the meantime, while the metal is decomposing, it is "infecting" the soil, helping to facilitate proper CEC rates.
Metals decomposing 50 years is NOT the same as those metals being made immediately and readily available. THAT is the difference, whether they decompose naturally, or are synthesized and made readily available.
Metals in Azomite will cause little to no damage, because even if Azomite has metals in it, they aren't freely available and are at the mercy of time and decomposition. When they are part of synthesized nutrients? Much different, because they are now made readily available and are NOT at the mercy of time/decomposition.
Consider "guano teas" vs top dressing, using Seabird Guano (0-11-0) as our example.
Top dressing with Guano, while it doesn't take long to decompose and become available in the soil, it is still significantly less time than in "tea" form.
When top dressing with the nutrients/minerals, we are at the mercy of their decomposition rates. Alfalfa and Guano take mere weeks to decompose, something like Greensand takes years.
Now, imagine if we "created a tea" out of these ingredients. Instead of allowing them to decompose naturally, we've supercharged them, and made it so EVERYTHING is immediately made available. For better or for worse.
Metals operate in a very similar fashion. In a naturally occurring environment, it takes nearly 50 years (at a minimum) for metal to fully decompose. In the meantime, while the metal is decomposing, it is "infecting" the soil, helping to facilitate proper CEC rates.
Metals decomposing 50 years is NOT the same as those metals being made immediately and readily available. THAT is the difference, whether they decompose naturally, or are synthesized and made readily available.
Metals in Azomite will cause little to no damage, because even if Azomite has metals in it, they aren't freely available and are at the mercy of time and decomposition. When they are part of synthesized nutrients? Much different, because they are now made readily available and are NOT at the mercy of time/decomposition.
kratos015
Well-Known Member
We often believe minerals are responsible for CEC, but
"A metal refers to a chemical element with a relatively low electronegativity (and therefore a donor of electrons) and properties (e.g. electrical and heat conductivity, opacity, metallic luster) conferred by the high mobility of its valence electrons (Metal - Wikipedia).
A mineral refers to a naturally-occurring crystalline solid of a definite composition (usually formed without the influence of life).
Some metals do occur naturally as crystalline solids in Earth’s crust, and in their “native state”
Mineral definition: A solid inorganic substance of natural occurrence.
Metal definition: A solid material with high electrical conductivity.
"A native metal is any metal that is found pure in its metallic form in nature.[1][2] Metals that can be found as native deposits singly or in alloys include aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, rhenium, selenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, and zinc, as well as the gold group (gold, copper, lead, aluminium, mercury, silver) and the platinum group (platinum, iridium, osmium, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium). "
"Over geological time scales, very few metals can resist natural weathering processes like oxidation, so mainly the less reactive metals such as gold and platinum are found as native metals. The others usually occur as isolated pockets where a natural chemical process reduces a common compound or ore of the metal, leaving the pure metal behind as small flakes or inclusions."
To an extent, metals are actually crucial to a living soil due to their conductivity. No conductivity? No CEC. Period. You will have ZERO CEC without metals/minerals; this is why we add them in the first place.
Metals/minerals are the conduit through which nutrition is able to freely flow.
Lets observe a few examples.
Manganese: a hard brittle silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy uses, particularly in stainless steels.
Molybdenum: The name is from Neo-Latin molybdaenum, which is based on Ancient Greek Μόλυβδος molybdos, meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum does not occur naturally as a free metal on Earth; it is found only in various oxidation states in minerals.
Iron: A metal that belongs to the first transition serious and group 8 of the periodic table. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites.
Zinc: Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a silvery-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed.
Notice how the word "oxidation" frequently pops up. Part of the organic decomposition process. What happens when we let buds sit out in the open air for long enough? Oxidation, which changes things drastically. Oxidation is why we get CBD, the THC oxidizes into various cannabinoids.
Same thing with concentrates. Oxidation will change the texture of your concentrates. Leave shatter out for long enough, it'll wax up on you, why? Oxidation.
Even more interesting, we often hear Mn, Mo, Zn, Fe marketed to us growers as minerals. But, as pointed out above, they are more than simply minerals. They are metals.
Many minerals are also metals. Gold, silver, and copper are also "inorganic substances of natural occurrence". So, by definition, they are minerals. But, they are also metals with high conductivity.
As with anything else, its about balance, nothing else.
Arsenic is very much a "trigger word" due to it's power as a poison. However, as with any poison, it comes down to PPMs. Fact is, Arsenic is a naturally occurring substance found in many minerals. It only becomes poisonous when concentrated!
If your soil has Sulfur in it, it likely has traces of Arsenic too that formed naturally.
Arsenic (etc.) content isn't the problem, the quantity is, as well as if things are in balance.
Allow me to use tobacco as another example. Some people can smoke their whole lives, live to be 90, and die of natural causes. Others die before their 40s. While tobacco/nicotine certain is a variable in the equation, its also about how the recipient of the variable reacts to it.
Speaking of nicotine. Not immediately poisonous when you smoke it in cigarette form, yes? Even a pack a day, likely it takes years for you to die from being a "pack a day smoker".
But, if you took an entire pack of cigarettes, boiled it in water, and then boiled the nicotine infused water down to mere tablespoons. You could take a dropper, fill it with the boiled down nicotine, squirt a couple drops of the concentrated nicotine into someone's coffee. They'll never notice anything "funny tasting", will proceed to have the worst acid trip of their life until they drop dead because of how rapidly their heart begins to beat.
A pack of cigarettes would never cause this reaction on it's own. But concentrated and processed? Different story.
It's not so much the substance, but how it's processed and concentrated!
As always, sorry for the book, and all the best.
tl;dr: metals are naturally occurring and relatively harmless. Concentrated and synthesized metals are the source of any and all issues.
"A metal refers to a chemical element with a relatively low electronegativity (and therefore a donor of electrons) and properties (e.g. electrical and heat conductivity, opacity, metallic luster) conferred by the high mobility of its valence electrons (Metal - Wikipedia).
A mineral refers to a naturally-occurring crystalline solid of a definite composition (usually formed without the influence of life).
Some metals do occur naturally as crystalline solids in Earth’s crust, and in their “native state”
Mineral definition: A solid inorganic substance of natural occurrence.
Metal definition: A solid material with high electrical conductivity.
"A native metal is any metal that is found pure in its metallic form in nature.[1][2] Metals that can be found as native deposits singly or in alloys include aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, rhenium, selenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, and zinc, as well as the gold group (gold, copper, lead, aluminium, mercury, silver) and the platinum group (platinum, iridium, osmium, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium). "
"Over geological time scales, very few metals can resist natural weathering processes like oxidation, so mainly the less reactive metals such as gold and platinum are found as native metals. The others usually occur as isolated pockets where a natural chemical process reduces a common compound or ore of the metal, leaving the pure metal behind as small flakes or inclusions."
To an extent, metals are actually crucial to a living soil due to their conductivity. No conductivity? No CEC. Period. You will have ZERO CEC without metals/minerals; this is why we add them in the first place.
Metals/minerals are the conduit through which nutrition is able to freely flow.
Lets observe a few examples.
Manganese: a hard brittle silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy uses, particularly in stainless steels.
Molybdenum: The name is from Neo-Latin molybdaenum, which is based on Ancient Greek Μόλυβδος molybdos, meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum does not occur naturally as a free metal on Earth; it is found only in various oxidation states in minerals.
Iron: A metal that belongs to the first transition serious and group 8 of the periodic table. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites.
Zinc: Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a silvery-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed.
Notice how the word "oxidation" frequently pops up. Part of the organic decomposition process. What happens when we let buds sit out in the open air for long enough? Oxidation, which changes things drastically. Oxidation is why we get CBD, the THC oxidizes into various cannabinoids.
Same thing with concentrates. Oxidation will change the texture of your concentrates. Leave shatter out for long enough, it'll wax up on you, why? Oxidation.
Even more interesting, we often hear Mn, Mo, Zn, Fe marketed to us growers as minerals. But, as pointed out above, they are more than simply minerals. They are metals.
Many minerals are also metals. Gold, silver, and copper are also "inorganic substances of natural occurrence". So, by definition, they are minerals. But, they are also metals with high conductivity.
As with anything else, its about balance, nothing else.
Arsenic is very much a "trigger word" due to it's power as a poison. However, as with any poison, it comes down to PPMs. Fact is, Arsenic is a naturally occurring substance found in many minerals. It only becomes poisonous when concentrated!
If your soil has Sulfur in it, it likely has traces of Arsenic too that formed naturally.
Arsenic (etc.) content isn't the problem, the quantity is, as well as if things are in balance.
Allow me to use tobacco as another example. Some people can smoke their whole lives, live to be 90, and die of natural causes. Others die before their 40s. While tobacco/nicotine certain is a variable in the equation, its also about how the recipient of the variable reacts to it.
Speaking of nicotine. Not immediately poisonous when you smoke it in cigarette form, yes? Even a pack a day, likely it takes years for you to die from being a "pack a day smoker".
But, if you took an entire pack of cigarettes, boiled it in water, and then boiled the nicotine infused water down to mere tablespoons. You could take a dropper, fill it with the boiled down nicotine, squirt a couple drops of the concentrated nicotine into someone's coffee. They'll never notice anything "funny tasting", will proceed to have the worst acid trip of their life until they drop dead because of how rapidly their heart begins to beat.
A pack of cigarettes would never cause this reaction on it's own. But concentrated and processed? Different story.
It's not so much the substance, but how it's processed and concentrated!
As always, sorry for the book, and all the best.
tl;dr: metals are naturally occurring and relatively harmless. Concentrated and synthesized metals are the source of any and all issues.
xtsho
Well-Known Member
OMRI does not prohibit naturally occuring heavy metals. Products just need to fall under the MRL.
ComfortCreator
Well-Known Member
Good lord we are a total bunch of stoners!
You ask a simple question and with the exception of 2 posters (including the always right with the basics xtsho) get an incredibly diverse set of answers that dont address the question.
SIMPLE. Dont complicate basic sxxx!
Peat moss.
The ph of peat is very low. Simply mix in a relatively small amount and cook it another 30 days and you have lowered the ph.
Peat = acid in basic soil
Compost = nutrition
Aeration = oxygen
If you are already running it or dont have time to cook again, at 7 it's fine for an organic grow. Just make sure you water in at 6.5 or less to give it a swing range. Or don't, if everybody is gonna freak about ph the water lol. Too much worry about the Church of Organic vs the basics of organic.
707Patrick
Well-Known Member
Hoping to get there as well
Am I good with a 7.0 Ph? I keep reading it needs to be 6.3 to 6.5? My water is sitting at about 8.1 with a ton of chlorine, running it through a filter to remove chlorine, and had a cal/mag deficiency on first run with this soil mix, just trying to further dial it in. appreciate the replies.
707Patrick
Well-Known Member
vitamin C (ascorbic acid) will not only get rid of your chlorine but it will also drop the ph in the water. My question would be what is your EC-PPM. I don't have the time or patience to read any more of the thread... Hope you solved your issue.Not chasing, just trying to dial it in