Correcting soil pH

[highchome]

What is your preferred way of correcting soil pH?

My water's pH is over 8.1 , that is easy enough to correct to ~6.5-6.8 with pH down. My soil is currently around 8.0.

I've seen two bits of advice given online which no clear indication of which is better, or both? 

1. Use a soil additive to drop the pH (but which one?)
   1. Flowers of sulphur
   2. Something less harsh like coffee grounds
2. Just water with a lower pH (but how low?)
   1. Water with the pH I'm after, e.g. water at 6.5
   2. Water with an lower pH (e.g. 6) to bring it down faster

 

I'd imagine that the advice for raising pH would correspond to this. 

Thanks for any advice.

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by highchome

[Pat999]

Organic for soil go with Lemon Juice for pH Down and Bicarb Soda (blue box) for pH Up. Both can be bought at Checkers, PnP, Spar. I use FF soil and go in at 5.3-5.8

Sent from my G3312 using Tapatalk

[Pat999]

You'd also have to flush with a feed. So not just clean water but with how you would normally feed to make sure you don't flush the nutes in the soil out mostly. Well I donno if that makes sense

Sent from my G3312 using Tapatalk

[Trailblazer420]

Organic for soil go with Lemon Juice for pH Down and Bicarb Soda (blue box) for pH Up. Both can be bought at Checkers, PnP, Spar. I use FF soil and go in at 5.3-5.8

Sent from my G3312 using Tapatalk

The amount of of lemon juice I've poured into my grows over the years.... Best organic alternative to pH down. In emergencies, vinegar can also work...

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

[highchome]

44 minutes ago, Pat999 said:

You'd also have to flush with a feed

Not quite with you on that one, no  Do you mean I need to flush before each feed, or flush with the nutrients in the water?

6 minutes ago, Trailblazer420 said:

The amount of of lemon juice I've poured into my grows over the year

lol. 

But are you putting water with a lower pH than the target pH to drop the soil. E.g. in my case soil is 8, so I put pH ~6 water in?

[Trailblazer420]

Big fan of hydro, which is where I used A LOT of lemon juice (pH down was not something I could buy over the counter, small town) . Remember first grow, figured I could start at 1200ppm liquid, wow was I wrong. PH would literally go out of range within 4 - 5 hours.

Live and learn :)

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

[Pat999]

Think of it like feeding the soil by adding the lower pH feed in. So make up a batch lets say you usually use 5L, make up 10L then go in, feed the 5L. Give it an hour and go in and feed the other 5L again. Make sure the pH is correct before the second feed. This is like a feed flush where you changing the soil pH and retaining the microbes.

Sent from my G3312 using Tapatalk