I have heard not to use pH up/down products in Living Organic soil and pH does not matter, as long as you’re using quality water with a low ppm. The microlife acts as a buffer for pH. Currently growing in living soil and using rainwater that I notice is a little alkaline, would putting some pH down in the water kill microlife in the water/medium? Thanks DGC community for all the knowledge !
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chem up and down no, organic up and down yes.. you absolutely have to watch ph in living soil.. i took the advice of not, and wound up with major lockout, nearly killing my genetics.. definitely monitor it.
Totally depends on your water.
If you have decent tap water that you can drink without hating it, it’s probably fine for use in living soil. It just had to be somewhat in the ballpark pH wise and you’ll be fine.
If you are using super crappy well water with a really high ph or something like that… then ya you should probably adjust that just to get it down into the appropriate range.
Microbes will do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to managing ph in living soil. All the grower really needs to do is make sure the input pH isn’t anything too crazy. As long as you are somewhat close to the appropriate range, the microbes will sort out the rest.
If you want to manage your input ph more carefully that’s fine too, it’s just often not necessary. Ph up/down won’t harm your soil or your microbes. Most pH adjusters are technically not “organic” but you are using such a small amount that it really won’t have any effect on your microbes.