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soil Testing and adjusting soil ph

PepperJam

PepperJam

Ive noticed some people use distilled water for testing soil ph , but why? If you are going to be using tap water to water your plants, shouldn't you be testing the soil ph with the tap water?

What i do is mix 1 part soil, 5 parts tap water. Mix it and let it stand, use a micro strainer and pour the mix to filter out big pieces. Im using a hannah ph meter so i dont want the sensor to be clogged with big particles.

My tap water ph is around 7.3 - 7.4. If i have a soil ph of like 7.8, i would add aluminum sulfate to lower it. I also read that peat is acidic, so adding Peat to your soil mix lowers your soil ph. I did this with my raised bed.

Am i measuring ph correctly and ok to adjust by adding more peat?

Thanks
 
distilled water should not alter the ph of w/e is being dissolved into the water significantly. so you take a sample of soil soak it in distilled water for a while... what you are measuring supposedly is what is constitutes soil ph dissolved into the water. ph meters can only measure solutions from what i know, not solids.

when you measure with tap water, you are altering the solution by adding the carbonates and such that alter the ph of the soil-water elute . you live in sugar land right? so do i! the carbonate content of our water is like 200mg/l!!! it sucks! its strongly resistant to changes in ph because of this. this is called alkalninty. lol it takes like 1 gallon of acid to drop the ph of my pool by .5-.7 depending on how much tap water verses rainwater we get in a year. i used to use hydrostore ph down products, but they are made from ' weak acids' like nitic or phosphoric...i use plain hcl now, way easier i use a pippet now not a damn beaker :banghead: .

im no ag expert, but its my understanding that your technique(but with distilled water substituted) is the standard method for determining ph of soils. im not sure how much it effects your readings to use alkaline tap water like that, so i would repeat it with distilled water imo. it seems like it would skew your results towards the basic side of the scale, i could be wrong tho. post your results if you get around to it please!

btw anectdotally, pure h20 isnt actually free of all charge like you might think, water undergoes something i loosly understand called auto ionization. it spontaniously boinks out an electron to make an oh- and h30-. this is the case with alot of stuff i understand.
 
If you have the money to add that much peat to your soil you can afford a real soil test and get all the nutrients measured. Then use sulfur to lower the ph and not peat which is expensive and not really renewable.
 
3cf compressed at lowes is 10 bux. That is 6cf uncompressed. I may get a bale or two to see how much i need to adjust my mix.

Anyways i use tap water because that is what ill be watering the plants with. So the soil will have a ph that has been affected by tap water. If my soil is 6.5 with distilled, but i water with tap which causes the soil ph to be like 7.3. That is why im using tap. Im no expert, so let me know if my logic is incorrect quee.
 
Yea I can not tell you why it works it just does lol. I water with tap using a bark mix, and bark is 5.0 ph. the watering with the higher ph must do something to make it work and it works well.
I think you should use peat to lower the ph like you said.
 
PepperJam said:
3cf compressed at lowes is 10 bux. That is 6cf uncompressed. I may get a bale or two to see how much i need to adjust my mix.

Anyways i use tap water because that is what ill be watering the plants with. So the soil will have a ph that has been affected by tap water. If my soil is 6.5 with distilled, but i water with tap which causes the soil ph to be like 7.3. That is why im using tap. Im no expert, so let me know if my logic is incorrect quee.
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i guess i see your point. if you are just interested in the ph of the soil/tapwater slurry or w/e. but that value will be dependent on the ratio of water to soil. tap water can also accumulate dissolved co2 under certain conditions which gasses out when not under pressure increasing the ph of the water somewhat, chlorination also effects ph some what.
idk though i dont know much about real soil, i take the easyway out and grow hydroponically. i grow in big pots with a drip to waste fertigation system, im 10x more worried about the ph of the nutrient solution than the medium. i just make sure that the ph of my peat mix is between 5.5 and 6.5 when i mix it thats it.
 
queequeg152 said:
i guess i see your point. if you are just interested in the ph of the soil/tapwater slurry or w/e. but that value will be dependent on the ratio of water to soil. tap water can also accumulate dissolved co2 under certain conditions which gasses out when not under pressure increasing the ph of the water somewhat, chlorination also effects ph some what.
idk though i dont know much about real soil, i take the easyway out and grow hydroponically. i grow in big pots with a drip to waste fertigation system, im 10x more worried about the ph of the nutrient solution than the medium. i just make sure that the ph of my peat mix is between 5.5 and 6.5 when i mix it thats it.
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Ok good to know. I read maybe a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of soil to water is better. I'll try using distilled water as 1:5 ratio is probably too much.

Thanks
 
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