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soil Question about "soil" vs. "soil-less medium" and ph of water

SichuaneseFoodFan

SichuaneseFoodFan

I hear that a simple mix of properly ph'd peat moss and perlite by itself is a "soil-less" medium, and that you should treat it more like "hydro" in terms of using a lower-ph water.

It seems to me that the main difference between what I've just described and "soil" are amendments, namely humus (compost / castings / whatever). I understand those things add *nutrients*, so you don't need to rely on "hydro" nutes. But my question is: what about the difference between "soil-less" medium and "soil" changes the ideal ph of the water you use? I don't get that.

Thanks for any insight!
 
Ideally, the media surrounding the roots should be somewhere in the 5.5 to 6.5 range for peppers. A medium-low pH ensures that nutrients can stay available. If the pH goes too low or high, you can get nutrient lockout where the nutes are available, but can't be soaked up by the roots. For soil media, there's a lot going on, especially if you have microorganisms like fungi/bacteria in your soil. Usually, water pH doesn't matter too much for soil media because whatever's in the soil will find a way to balance it out so everybody's happy. For hydro, there's only the plant, water, and nutrients so everything that's normally regulated by bacteria and the sheer amount of media available has to be regulated by the grower.
 
I would imagine so. If not, then there is at least an abundance of buffer molecules in soil. The point is that in hydro, you have to control a ton of variables that are normally taken care of by the microbiome/slow release nutrients.
 
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