madseason: I hope this thread had answered your questions. Sorry it devolved like this. Seems to happen more frequently these days, as summer season approaches. Must be in the air.

lampost: Looking back, sometimes I type too fast. I have a profound respect for higher education and I didn't mean to say your credentials are lame, but did mean they are lame in regards to growing cannabis. I hope you see the difference and accept my appology.

Now, about your experience with 'precise' testing and calibration. The main reason for asking about your testing, is that the aquarium test kits and test strips and dependant on color-coded results. The tinting of the runoff skews the results. Sometimes, not even in the ballpark. With your credentials, I'd have thought you would understand this.
You didn't by chance set (calibrate) your ph pen to the runoff results, did you? (just curious)

I was being facetious about the missing buffers, and was offering you a way out of this conversation gracefully. :jointsmile: Doubtful bag was bad from the factory, as most companies have a QC to prevent any product inconsistency, and keeping the customer from killing all their plants. (bad for business) A more reasonable possibility is that if the soil is bad, it was was a victim of inadequate or long term storage, overmoistened, stored in direct sun...whether at the retailers or in your backyard.