So I’m on my first grow and I’m using happy frog soil,when I started watering my plants I would set the water to a 7.8 PH or there abouts but when I checked run off it came out in the 3-4 PH range, Since then I’ve had to bump the lvl up to around a 10.5 PH to have my runoff be in the 6-7 PH range is this normal or am I doing something wrong with during the tests
Um, sounds odd to me. If I were you I would just ph your water to 6.0-6.5 and not worry about the ph run off.
2 Likes
I don’t grow in soil anymore but I can assure you that testing runoff in soil is almost useless . . . accurate soil pH is best determined by a slurry test using samples from a couple of different soil depths. Soil is alive and has natural pH buffers, microbes, enzymes, etc. that affect runoff pH . . . basically, what you see in the runoff is not what your plants are seeing at various levels in the pot.
Also Happy Frog is notorious for low pH issues . . . just Google “happy frog ph issues” and you get hundreds of hits with growers commenting on the same issue.
Testing pH and EC of runoff is better left to those growing in an inert medium such as coco if you want accurate results.
2 Likes
Absolutely correct. 