The correct pH directly affects the roots of your cannabis plants and their ability to absorb nutrients. Getting the pH value right will result in optimal growth and high yields.
The ideal pH range for cannabis during both the vegetative and flowering stages is between 6.5 and 7. This allows your plants to absorb the nutrients they need without becoming too acidic or too alkaline.
Soil
When growing cannabis, maintaining an ideal pH is just as important as any other aspect of your growing process. The effects of different pH levels on your crops can be significant, and are often the reason that many growers fail to achieve optimum results.
The pH range of a soil is affected by various factors, including how the soil has been prepared, what nutrients it contains, and how much it has been exposed to the sun, water and air over time. The most effective method of keeping a soil pH at its optimum level is to add organic materials, like compost and worm castings. These products contain living bacteria and fungi that promote healthy microbial life and keep the pH of your soil at its optimal levels.
A high pH can negatively affect nutrient solubility and uptake, while a low one can make it more difficult for plants to absorb essential nutrients. This is known as nutrient lockout and can have a major impact on plant health and growth, sometimes even causing stunted development as early as the seedling stage.
This is why it’s so important to regularly test the pH of your soil using a simple pH meter. You can purchase a kit from garden centers or use a DIY kit to measure your soil’s pH yourself.
Ideally, your cannabis soil will have a pH of around 5.5 to 7.0 to ensure that all important elements are available to your plants in an adequate amount. If your soil’s pH is outside of this range, it could cause your crops to be deficient in vital nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, and zinc, among others.
Maintaining an ideal pH for your cannabis is easy to do with the right organic mediums. These include manure, worm casts, compost, compost teas, lemon juice, vinegar, lime, limestone, pine needles, or wood shavings.
The best way to determine the proper pH level for your cannabis is to experiment with different soils and potting mixes until you find one that works for you. You may need to amend your soil after each successful harvest, or whenever you add a new nutrient to it.
Water
Optimal pH is essential for a wide range of plants, including cannabis. The right pH allows cannabis to take in all of the nutrients it needs for growth. Without optimal pH, it gets stunted or fails to grow properly.
The ideal pH level for growing cannabis is a slightly acidic soil condition, around 5.8-6.2. If your soil is too acidic, you can easily correct it by adding limestone and other alkaline agents to your soil mix. Rain can also change the pH of your soil, but it’s not the only factor.
In addition to preventing nutrient deficiencies, pH is a key element in determining the size and quality of your harvest. It triggers a plant’s hunger, driving it to seek out the nutrients that make it thrive.
When it comes to cannabis, pH is especially important during vegging and flowering. The ideal pH levels allow your cannabis to absorb massive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, which it needs for both vegetative and flowering growth.
This is an essential part of proper nutrition, and the only way to ensure a healthy, high-quality harvest. Nutrient lockout, which happens when your cannabis can’t absorb nutrients, is a common problem that’s often caused by pH imbalances.
To combat this, it’s essential to test your soil’s pH and adjust accordingly as needed. It’s also important to remember that pH is measured logarithmically, so even a single number up or down can have an impact on your cannabis growth.
Getting pH wrong can result in a buildup of salts near the root zone, which prevent your cannabis from taking in any nutrients. This can also be a problem when you’re using mineral fertilisers that contain high concentrations of salts.
Another effect of improper pH is that it can cause your cannabis to become brittle, prone to bud breakage and rot. This can be particularly a problem when you’re trying to grow indoors in the winter or early spring.
The best pH for cannabis resides within a narrow window, and it can vary depending on your growing method. Hydroponics and soilless grows should have an optimal reading of between 5.5 and 6.5, while outdoor growers can choose to plant directly in the ground or use a potting medium like coco coir.
Nutrients
The correct pH is critical to the health of your cannabis plants, as it directly impacts their root system and ability to absorb nutrients. This is why it is so important to test your water, fertiliser, and soil for pH levels.
The pH scale is a logarithmic scale that determines the amount of acidity or alkalinity in your growing medium, and it can have a massive impact on how your cannabis grows. As a rule, hydroponic and soilless growers should aim for a pH range of 5.5 to 6.5.
Whether you are using soil or a soilless medium like coco, it is important to keep the pH in this range to ensure your plant receives all of the nutrients it needs for healthy growth. This is because the nutrients in nutrient solution will be less accessible if your substrate’s pH is higher or lower than 6-7.
Incorrect pH levels can also lead to a buildup of salts in your growing medium, which act as a blocker. This can prevent your cannabis plants from absorbing essential nutrients. This can cause stunted growth, wilting, and brown or yellow leaves.
These symptoms can be caused by a number of different things, and it is often difficult to know what the culprit is without getting a reading. But knowing the signs and symptoms of incorrect pH levels will help you to diagnose the problem more easily.
As we mentioned before, the soil pH level determines how acidic or basic the growing medium is, and this is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions in your soil. As the pH scale is logarithmic, even small changes can have a big effect.
One of the biggest changes is in the amount of calcium and magnesium available to the plant. These minerals are crucial for plant tissue health, and without them your plants will struggle to stay strong, resulting in poor yields.
Another nutrient that is important for your cannabis plants is nitrogen. Providing this nutrient at the right time will help them grow strong and produce a large harvest. Nitrogen is a macronutrient that helps with the development of protein in cannabis tissues, and is vital for bud formation.
Light
When growing cannabis indoors, the pH level of your grow medium is a critical factor in plant health and yield. If the pH is too acidic, the plants may not be able to take up nutrients like nitrogen, potassium or phosphorus. This will lead to nutrient burn or deficiency, and in turn affect the amount of harvests you can expect.
The pH level of your grow medium can also affect the size and strength of your harvests. Cannabis plants prefer a slightly acidic environment because it supports the growth of beneficial fungi.
In addition to the pH of your grow medium, the amount of light that a plant receives is also important for its success. During the vegetative phase, cannabis plants need up to 18 hours of blue-spectrum light, which catalyzes peak chlorophyll pigment absorption and establishes the roots and stem structure that will support flowering and fruiting.
Once the vegetative stage is complete, cannabis plants need more high-end red light to stimulate stem and leaf growth. This light spectrum is also known as photosynthetically active radiation, or PAR, and it spans the 400-500 nm range.
For this reason, experts recommend that you reach a minimum of 1800 micromoles per square foot (PPFD) during the flowering stage to help your hemp plant maximize its potential. As a grower, you can achieve this by choosing lights that provide the proper spectrums at the right times and using a PAR meter to ensure your lights are providing the optimal lighting intensity.
Another important consideration when choosing your grow lights is the distance that they will be placed from your plants. If the grow lights are too close to your plants, they can become obstructed and fail to produce enough light for healthy growth.
As a result, your plants will not reach their full potential and your harvests will be less than stellar. A good way to overcome this problem is to use LED grow lights, which can be programmed to emit a range of different spectrums and intensities depending on the needs of your plants.
