pH adjustment at scale

[austin87]

Hey all, I live in Oakland, CA and our water here is pretty high pH around 8-8.5.

I know peppers prefer 5.5-6.5 (or at least neutral 7).

How do people with similar water adjust pH to water 10-15 (or more) plants on a regular basis?

Filling up a 2 gallon watering can and adjusting it one drop at a time with hydro pH Down solution is a pain in the butt and not very efficient and there has to be a better way.

 

[Uncle Eckley]

Fill bigger containers, adjust those.  Fill your watering cans from the big containers.

 

[solid7]

I don't adjust it at all.  I just keep lots and lots of organic material in my beds/containers.  Microbial excrement is acidic, and the more microbes you have, the better buffer you'll have.  Even if your measurements don't align with the ideal numbers.  You argue a lot of things, but pods on plants isn't one of them.
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My environment is so alkaline, that even rainwater quickly shoots up to ~8.5 here.  It's just not a problem.  I don't even check it anymore.  I am of the school of thought that pH is much more critical in a hydroponics situation, where every parameter is to be accounted for, for optimal workings.  But you can't really control nature the same way.
 

 

[juanitos]

water ph adjustment is really only necessary in hydroponic systems.
 
if you are testing ph you test the ph of your medium, aka what your roots are sitting in.
In hydroponics water is the medium so you have to control it.
In normal garden the soil / soilmix is the medium so you control it (or let it control itself in living soil webs).
 
Water / rain ph doesn't matter so much as it will get buffered by the soil / soilmix.
 
 
==== 
but to answer your question, how to do large scale ph adjustment?
 
In hydroponics you inject the nutrients and ph adjustment the same way.
you get a tub of the necessary ph adjustment (up or down) (or both if you have a fancy controller setup but it is unlikely your source ph will change that much...) and inject an amount of it to change the ph.
This is all mixed in line, no big containers to maintain besides the stock pots.
see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTKFpAd44E
 
But for a smaller person you just get a trashcan and mix your nutrients and ph in there. so you don't have to do as  often.
 
In soil you test your soil every year, and apply lime or other amendment to change ph.

 

[solid7]

water ph adjustment is really only necessary in hydroponic systems.
 
if you are testing ph you test the ph of your medium, aka what your roots are sitting in.
In hydroponics water is the medium which roots are sitting so you have to control it.
In normal garden the soil / soilmix is the medium so you ph test it. 
 
Water / rain ph doesn't matter so much as it will get buffered by the soil / soilmix.

 
Even then, you really only ever need to do a slurry test one time on your soil or mix. (barring some disaster, or the use of a product like sulfur)
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It can sometimes be helpful to do a sanity check on pH if you're using a purely inorganic (mineral/synthetic) feeding regimen.  But even then, I wholeheartedly agree with the virtual non-necessity of testing pH in this case.

 

[juanitos]

 
Even then, you really only ever need to do a slurry test one time on your soil or mix. (barring some disaster, or the use of a product like sulfur)
.
It can sometimes be helpful to do a sanity check on pH if you're using a purely inorganic (mineral/synthetic) feeding regimen.  But even then, I wholeheartedly agree with the virtual non-necessity of testing pH in this case.

 
yeah for normal gardeners not a problem, unless you have some reallly bad soil.
 
i meant like farmers with fields rotating crops targeting a specific ph or whatever they will usually test it and amend every year. 
 
But for organic especially you are kinda letting the soil manage itself.