Hi all, My plants are looking like shit right now. My tap water comes out at ph 7.2-7.5. When I add a teaspoon of earth juice it goes to 3-4 and I have to add a teaspoon or more of ph up (general hydroponics, blue stuff) to bring it up to 6.5. I was wondering if the ph up can burn plants. I know its meant for them but usually just a few drops, not spoonfulls at a time. Even nitrogen can become toxic to plants when in to large of quantities. I am hoping someone that uses earth juice can tell me if they ever had problems with this, and what they use to correct ph. Also how often do you feed with earth juice? any problems/advice with earth juice in general? I really like the idea of fertilizing with organics but I may switch to synthetics to simplify the process and eliminate any variables. thanks in advance for any help/advice. Sorry for any mispellings/ grammatical errors. I've had to type this out multiple times because my lame ass, less than one month old modem keeps shutting down. CLEARWIRE SUCKS and is making me very frustrated.
The PH up won't directly burn you plants per se, but they will kill off your microbial colonies. It's better to just pick one, you know? Go TLO the whole way, or go hydro/hempy/conventional soiless. I've been there done that with the whole "psuedo organics", in which one tries to get the quality of organic without actually going the whole nine yards. My plants were fine with synthetics before, and they're fine with proper organics now, but that was a rough transition period. . . Anyway, pics are worth a thousand words. Which may be a bitch with a broken modem and all, but. . .
"psuedo organics" ha! You're so right. It sounded to good to be true, should of known better. I am done with EJ, looks like I have some very expensive ph down. Thanks for your reply Sam
You do realize that you can buy molasses or organic blue agave nectar at almost any grocery store? Lot cheaper...just sayin' Wholesome sweeteners brand carries both the unsulphered blackstrap, and the agave.. HTH
Just to clarify. I was refering to the fertilizer itself when i wrote "very expensive ph down" not ej up/down. It is very effective at lowering ph. A single drop.. 1 drop... lowered my ph from 7 to 5.7 and my meter was still moving downward when I stopped. Thanks for everyones input. Love GC!
so your saying that molasses can be used as a nute? this is completely new to me. and anyone care to expound upon the concept of earth juice being 'psuedo-synthetic'? that ph issue sounds rather serious and wouldn't want to deal with nute burn.
dutchembassy "Molasses" is used by some (certainly not all) growers as a way to provide carbohydrates to feed the microherd in an organic soil grow. There any number of urban myths about using molasses like stupidity that it will make the buds sweeter or even larger. What molasses CAN do is provide a food source (according to some) for bacteria primarily. Molasses does little, if anything, for feeding microbes other than bacteria - i.e. fungi, nematodes, protozoa, et al. Many growers use molasses and grow store mixtures containing some form of sugar (the source doesn't really matter in the whole scheme of things) with little to show for their efforts, IMHO. YMMV LD [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtqJfFeITiY]YouTube - iJahman Levi - Jah Heavy Load[/ame]
I used EJ for years with great results, and it is 100% organic. You should let your tap water sit for at least 48 hrs before using to water your plants. The Chlorine will off gas and the Ph will stabilize. Also the EJ line of Ph +/- works great and is very concentrated. Are you using the catalyst in conjunction with the grow or bloom? This is critical for success.
To answer your other ?'s I need to know what your medium is. I use a hydro organic system (at least thats what i called it) with EJ. The medium was a 50/50 mix of coco and perlite (zero nutrients). It works great in that it dries out super fast roots can shoot through it, it's Ph balanced and is easy to flush when switching to bloom and or if you f-up and over fertilize.
A google search led me here. Earth Juice PH up/down SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS. For starters it is crystal form, so it raises the TDS/EC astronomically. Yes its very strong when you are using low nutrient levels, like 200-400 EC, but if you have higher levels like in flowering, it takes TONS of Earth Juice PH up/down to make a change, and all the while its adding 100's of PPM's to the nutrient solution because its a dissolved solid. Today i was PH'ing 1 gallon of water for a soil based plant that had some Botanicare Pure Blend Pro in it. The PH of the water was 6.8 and the EC was 900. By the time i added enough PH down to get the water to 6.5, my EC was 1600!!!! So to lower the PH a couple points, it added 700EC to the total nutrient levels.. Unusable in my opinion. Back on the hunt for organic PH adjusters...