Liquid pH v Soil pH, a final question today

I'm old school. I'm also old. I'm pro the 'less is more' meme, particularly in terms of fertilization/nutrients.

back in the dark ages when I first grew weed, we didn't know anything about pH..........or much of anything else. the major suggestion gleaned from the only book (self-published) we had, we followed. each morning we'd urinate on the plants. these were grown in ground and it certainly didn't hurt them.

the new school of cultivation has a lot of rules and I'm attempting to learn. hope you can help.

for nutes, I use kelp extract, bat guano, chicken manure and fish emulsion in a tea using an aquarium air pump (48 hrs and up) and always with black strap molasses. I mix each at approximately 1Tbsp/gallon and then halve that tea for the weed, full strength for the veggies. all are in plastic pots.

I've mixed worm casings into soil and tried it in teas. I've mulched in peat moss, which reduces drainage http://boards.cannabis.com/images/smilies/frown.png but have not tried it in a tea. the first soils I've used already do not drain very well. the newest soil (back two postings) does.

I use a Rapidtest multi meter to test both liquid in and soil pH. with 'tap' water, I've cross checked that meter with a fish tank test kit. my 'tap' water is well water and with both, testers measure ph 7.

when I test my teas, it also reads 7 but I think my meter is only reading the water. am I correct?

in any case, the only way I was able to get a 'solution' to measure below 7 (and show good fertility, per the meter) was to make mud of 1Tbsp 15-15-15 with 1 Tbsp distilled water. obviously, this was only a test. after one round of chemical ferts a year ago, I dropped them entirely.

so I have two questions but this is the more important and I can't get this answered specifically so far in my research: what is the correlation between the pH of the liquid fed to the soil and the pH of the soil?

second, using the ingredients I have, how do I lower the pH or, indeed, do I need to even worry about this? I'm a day's plane ride from Home Depot; cannot buy name brand stuff here. I may or may not be able to find it at the local chemist.

yes, I've tried vinegar, though cider vinegar (very expensive locally). there is a temporary down turn in pH and then it goes back up. and I've had to add more than a quart to my three gallon (?) tea tank to get it to budge at all. the plants were not happy.

so far, I've not found anything to bring the soil pH below 7 and I'm wondering if my 'tap' water is not allowing this.

your comments?

I see you are a bit worried that nobody replies... So here is one :)

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Hope this helps :) And makes you feel good !!

S.L.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

'twas a response though it didn't answer a single question. but thank you, nonetheless.

I've seen this chart multiple times but it doesn't answer any of my questions.

using organic ferts/nutes, how does this drive the pH of my feeding solution drive the pH down? how does the food offered using my pH 7 water with my nutes impact the soil pH?

tell me I'm worrying over nothing.

tell me that the intake pH has no impact whatsoever on soil pH.

tell me soil pH has no impact on the overall health/output of the plant.

tell me, coming from a very old school of growing from 45 years ago, that nothing much has really changed and I can ignore all these rules from the new college of cultivation.

I'll be happy to go away, if virtually nothing the new school says is true is verifiably true.

tell me the truth.

that's all I'm asking.

"in any case, the only way I was able to get a 'solution' to measure below 7 (and show good fertility, per the meter) was to make mud of 1Tbsp 15-15-15 with 1 Tbsp distilled water."

In this case, I'd suspect the meter.

Aloha,
Weeze

I've been wondering about this meter, but as I said, somewhere, it checks out against my fish tank pH test kit.