From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Grittyville, WA

Probably most of us are coming from non-chemistry backgrounds. If I may make a comment based my limited high school & college chemistry (its a shame I've only retained half of it) it would be that ph is the tip of the iceberg... Ph is a way to quantify hydrogen and hydroxide ions.

For some reason ph gets all the attention, but Id caution growers to not miss the bigger picture which is that every nutrient is an ion, and they all interact with/ affect all the others. All of these interactions are probably equally important (it would be so much easier ph alone controlled everything, but I think it is a small slice of a big pie).

As for that big pie, mulders diagram is one gateway to understanding those additional relationships. Its much different than this chart, but I think it actually shows the same thing, and oddly ph is always omitted even though it could be included.

Diving much deeper is masters degree or phd stuff, which is not for me. But a person can basically take this road as far as they want.

[Last edit: 05/31/24 2:07:23 AM]

5/31/2024 1:47:04 AM

valtierra/spain

You should also find the ph graph where the Fusarium, Phythium, and more diseases are most reproduced. With pn 6.0 to 7.0 is where the most diseases occur. For me, the ideal is a ph somewhat less than 6.0 until pollination, before pollinating to gain more phosphorus you can go up from 6.0, and in fattening, approach 7 where the roots will take more potassium, calcium, magnesium, The first 2 months, with foliar applications of mg, phosphorus, calcium, you ensure that the plant takes those nutrients, but you have 2 months, that diseases take to damage the roots. Also if you have a very excess nutrient, you can look for a pH so that the plant takes it less. In my case it is calcium, but there are others that have excess sulphur, or phosphorus.. adjusting the ph of the irrigation is a good idea when the soil is not well balanced.

5/31/2024 8:52:27 AM

Eugene,OR

Awareness of how & why a concept/process works is the starting place for mastering it! Hopefully a chart like this can help put us on the right path to achieving success.

5/31/2024 9:00:57 AM

Torrance, Ca.

Good stuff Russ. I'm like Rmen and run it really low at the beginning than back to 6.9 to 7.0 once I'm pollinated. Someone up your way was telling me about this a few years back.

5/31/2024 10:43:01 AM