soilless ph and watering

[se3dl3ss]

good day everyone i woke this morning packed bowl and took a fat hit,and realized i didnt watered my crop last night, when i got home from work. so i got up, got everything ready but found my self thinkin wat should my ph by in the fox farm soilless mix i was veggin in. now the plants are vary happy right now wit a ph of 6.5 to 6.8. but i was read something last night at work about hydro ph needing to be 6.0 to 6.5. i dont want to change wat has worked for me so far but i cant help thinking that my ph could be wrong. a lil info for any one who replys to this thread. i am using house & garden 1 part aarde in light warrior. i will be flowering in a organic soil called power flower when i 12/12 the plants so i will only be vegging and watering for three weeks. should change my ph for the ff soilless or is it ok i always used FF Ocenforest. i change to light warrior cuz it help wit root growth and boi it does too . plus im veggin under a 2ft T5 and some 23 watt cfl's and the plants just would grow as fast in the ocenforest as it does in the light warrior. thanks for ur replays

 

[Alistair]

I don't quite understand everything you're trying to say, but as for FFOF soil, it is a fine soil to use, and it is buffered to maintain proper soil pH. Do yourself a favor and add one tablespoon dolomite lime per gallon of soil. The lime will help maintain proper soil pH, plus it provides magnesium.

6.5-6.8 is a good pH range for soil, not hydro. Proper pH for hydro is I believe, 5.3-5.8; I think.

 

[dirtyolsouth]

HI,

LW is a great medium... I tried using LW straight for a couple test plants years ago and they came out great but with a bit less yield than plants flowered in what I usually used to use which was a mixture of 2 bags FFOF to 1 bag of LW. Maybe some of the yield could be made up with heavier nute feedings as in hindsight I fed them the same nute strength as the plants in FFOF/LW, just more frequently... I always had great results adjusting ph as I do for soil feeding... Between 6.3 and 6.5 ph. I like to mix LW with FFOF to get the explosive root zone benefits of the LW along with the organic amendments of the FFOF. If you do your whole cycle this time around with LW and/or any soiless grow medium that has little or no nute value, the biggest difference is in how much you're going to lean on feeding them from the bottle. I've used FFOF for many years and it's a fairly 'hot' organic soil that imho only requires a gentle push from bottled nutes for mj to perform at it's peak. I've found that when I really push the synthetic nutes in FFOF it can actually slow down flowering and trich production... so more can be less...

Since the LW is fairly neutral as far as NPK values you'll be able to feed your plants closer to full strength with your bottled nutes. I'd still start with less than full recommended strength cuz the manufacturers are always trying to sell more nutes... Start around 1/2 strength and slowly increase the strength if you don't see any hint of nute burn on new growth emerging on your plant. If you see some slight nute burn give them plain water and then the next feeding back off on the nute strength. Ideally you'll want to peak your feeding around week 4 for an 8 week strain and extend the feeding at that peak strength for weeks ie 4, 5, 6 for as many weeks over 8 that they require in flowering until about two weeks before harvest when you ramp the nute strength back down and eventually flush them with plain water for their final week of flowering. If you use LW you'll need to feed/water more frequently than you do in soil as well but make sure your containers drain well and the roots don't stand in water/nutes...

Happy Growing!

 

[se3dl3ss]

ya i think i will use LW for veggin, but i have this all organic flower only soil that i have used for about three years now.i was thinking back to when i used only LW for my first few grows and i remember having great yields wit LW.having to watered everyday during weeks 4 5 6 cuz the buds really packed on at that time, im growing purple kush. but i changed to the power flower bloom only soil so i dont have to water so much i also changed from one gallon pot to two gallon ones. i think wat ill do is mix in some LW & power flower and see if this works ill still add my additives like my fox farm three part at 1/4 dosage thou. if anyone has used power flower hit me up :holysheep: