• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

Ph lockout, I never knew

Ghost Pepper Revolution

Ghost Pepper Revolution

So after racking my brain to figure out why my seedlings and live pepper plants are stalled or yellowing foliage. Checked the PH finally and its low across the board, local pepper grower clues me in that my high end soil was treated with lime making so much more sense. Todays changes should stop the insanity and help my grow get back on track. Also did a little homemade hydro which turned out nice, Scorpion BT happier now.


Do you guys typically check ph when growing in soil?
 

Attachments

  • 470E1EC0-6B12-46BC-8D4D-84F4BAD57F79.jpeg
    470E1EC0-6B12-46BC-8D4D-84F4BAD57F79.jpeg
    72.4 KB · Views: 108
  • C1D86E27-EE05-4ED0-8DD2-07A0CAF730DE.jpeg
    C1D86E27-EE05-4ED0-8DD2-07A0CAF730DE.jpeg
    107.8 KB · Views: 76
Ph checking in hydro is a must for growing, but i have not checked ph in coco coir growing ever so far..I go with the flow and how the plants looks overall+ use fertilizers that do some of that ph correction. Peppers usually do best when the ph is around 6.
 
True, for hydro it made sense and thats what made me start checking the others. I had thought that for soil it didnt matter much as long as you had 1/3 good soil,composted cow manure and sand or perlite. Now that I know the local garden shop adds crap to the what would be a more acidic soil I can fix it. Its been tough watching you guys grow so effortlessly lol.
 
Ghostpepperevolution said:
True, for hydro it made sense and thats what made me start checking the others. I had thought that for soil it didnt matter much as long as you had 1/3 good soil,composted cow manure and sand or perlite. Now that I know the local garden shop adds crap to the what would be a more acidic soil I can fix it. Its been tough watching you guys grow so effortlessly lol.
Click to expand...
Lime will usually buffer your ph closer to neutral and above 7 if it's reacted with acids typically found in chemical fertilizers, not the other way around. If it's low ph as you indicated there may indeed be a lack of lime or one of the amenities in the soil is the culprit, such as if you're using an uncomposted peat moss etc.

Regards,
-Tristan
 
My tap water pH is typically around 7.5-8.0, my pepper plants haven't seemed to care if I pH it or not, but depending on how lazy I'm feeling I don't always do it. When I do pH the water, I shoot for 6.5 and I randomly fluctuate +/-0.2 from 6.5 so the nutrient soil mobility is more balanced. I don't pH my RO.

That being said, if you're growing entirely indoors, some plants are far more finicky when it comes to the pH of the water, and even with peppers it's a good idea to at least get it in the ballpark of acceptable.
 
Makes sense, Im still learning the art of it. The soil from what I was told is a little more acidic and the gardening joint added lime to balance it at 7.5. My newfound friend said he refused the truck when he found out it had lime added. He grows like 200 varieties at a time and has way less issues. As for the hydros its just to get them big enough that my FL heat doesnt kill them, trying to grow as natural as possible because you eventually eat what you feed your peppers.

I did a soil ph test with a reagent and my new mixed batch at least read around 6.5 so I think the peat moss is helping to get my soil up to par.
 
So after getting a liquid PH tester everything doing much better. Amazing how small things affect these plants.
 

Attachments

  • 7B741EBA-5C32-485C-84BC-17B0E7900560.jpeg
    7B741EBA-5C32-485C-84BC-17B0E7900560.jpeg
    76.8 KB · Views: 66
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top