New Grower Alkaline water.....any difference in yields? ..good? ..bad...?

[Night Rider 77]

Peace,


Need some advice, I've been doing too much reading I think, Has anyone used only alkaline water with soil from seedling to harvest? If so, did it make any difference than using any other water?

Thanks,

NR '77

 

[Archer]

What do you mean by alkaline water? Do you mean water that happens to have a high pH, or do you mean water that you purposefully increase the pH of? I've never heard of doing the latter, but then again, I haven't been doing this long enough to have heard everything.

My local tap water is very alkaline, with a pH in the range of 9 to 10 (though the pH usually lowers a bit when I add nutrients). Occasionally I'll water with plain tap water, and the high pH doesn't appear to have affected my grow all that much. Then again, I'm growing in natural soil with a fairly low pH. If you were growing in a soilless mix, like coco and perlite, your medium would have little to no pH buffering ability. In that situation, you'd want to carefully adjust the pH of your water to make sure it's in the sweet spot.

What kind of growing medium are you using?

 

[Night Rider 77]

Hi, Thanks for the reply... I'm going to try it for my second grow....wtf right?

I'm using soil

I got this from Ryan Rliey at 420.com

One of the most crucial elements any budding marijuana plant needs is that of high quality, pure and alkaline water.
To understand the VAST importance water has on your buds, let's take a look at the growing medium.
Inside any growing medium, there is a whole host of beneficial bacteria at any give time. These beneficial microbes produce nutrient rich fertilizer that the plant then uses as powerful nutrition to produce many different parts of the plant. Including, buds, flowers, stems, leaves, intracellular fluid -- you name it!!!
When you water your buds with tap water, it contains vast amounts of chlorine [as well as many other chemicals], that not only DESTROYS these micro-organism colonies that leave your plants deficient in essential nutrition, but it also creates a very acidic environment for your precious buds! Not to mention the horrible artificial taste!!!
People always ask me how I get my buds so big and with and incredible deep, aromatic flavour we all have grown to love & enjoy. I tell them to start with the basics. Lots of light, a great temperature, and of course, WATER!!!!

Reverse Osmosis Blues

So many veteran professionals will turn to Reverse Osmosis Water filtration. This is a great start, BUT, it comes with a caveat.
Reverse Osmosis is a multi-stage filter purification system that strips all the bullshit out your water supply, taking out up to 99.9% of fluoride, chlorine, and any other VOC's as well as harmful sediments and whatnot.

The Problem
1. By stripping out the TRACE MINERALS, you are vastly reducing the enzymatic capabilities of your plant tissue. Without going into too much advanced into Botany here (Oh, college days..), I'll just say this: certain metabolic processes inside the plant cells only activate when certain trace minerals are present, and ONLY then.
What this means is, if you're zinc deficient in your grow medium, certain "building blocks" of healthy buds will be snoozing. They WONT go into producing incredible jaw-dropping nugs that are sticky & sweaty with crystals!
In Nature, whenever a plant is not getting what it needs, it enters into a reserved state of dormancy. Your plant will literally wait and wait and wait until it gets adequate amounts of crucial nutrients until it starts producing big, heavy buds for you!!!!! And some growers never supply their plants with the proper nutrition, right up until Harvest Time!!!!
2. The second reason Reverse Osmosis isn't a complete solution (albeit 1-million times better than tap water) is because it filters the water, sure, but it does absolutely NOTHING for the pH balance of the water.
Municipal water tends to be highly acidic, and reverse osmosis alone WILL NOT buffer the pH and make your water alkaline. To do this from an RO system, I suggest you add on a special filter that re-adds trace minerals back into the water as well as alkalizing your solution.
Many of my students call me up FREAKING OUT at their growth rate yield increase after incorporating this one crucial tip.
Conclusion

So my fellow 420 lovers, I encourage you to get ahold of the highest quality, purest alkaline water that you possibly can.
Cannabis DOES NOT thrive in an overly acidic environment, whether your chosen grow medium is in Hydroponics or Soil.
For More Killer Top-shelf Herb Growing Information, Check Out My Complete Guide: Growing Elite Marijuana.
Until next time, Keep it GREEN LOVING and full of LIGHT.

 

[Archer]

I'm not sure I buy his logic about how tap water runs acidic. It's been my experience that most municipal tapwater -- at least in the United States -- runs mildly to moderately alkaline. This is because of the treatment process, and because of the dissolved solids (alkaline salts) in the water by the time it reaches your faucet.

His point about chlorine (and chloramine) is spot on. However, a very easy way to treat this problem is to add a Vitamin C pill to the water. No joke. Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) reacts with chloramine, "neutralizing" the chloride and ammonia in the tap water. Of course, you could also let the water sit out for 24 hours to evaporate the chlorine -- but that may be impractical in many cases.

Cannabis does not thrive in overly acidic soil, but it also does not thrive in overly alkaline soil. There is a general pH range -- a "sweet spot" -- at which various nutrients in the soil are best absorbed. All nutrients have slightly different availabilities at slightly different pH values, due to their ionic bonds. But generally speaking, you want a pH of about 5.8 to 6.5 in a soil-based grow. That's your soil pH, not your water pH. But your water pH almost doesn't matter in a soil-based grow, so long as the water isn't wildly acidic or alkaline, and so long as the soil is an adequate pH buffer.

I agree that reverse osmosis water removes too many trace chemicals, which generally lowers the alkalinity of the water in the process. But alkalinity, in and of itself, is not the issue. It's the trace minerals. If you're using RO water, you'll want to add some minerals back in. Generally calcium and magnesium. Incidentally, adding calcium and magnesium tends to raise pH.

In so far as most garden-variety organic soils run a bit too acidic, I can see his point about the need to raise pH a little. But one shouldn't treat alkalinity as some unalloyed good. There is definitely such a thing as too high a pH.