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oxboy555

Burning Nutrient Uptake Question

oxboy555
10 years ago

I was going to post this in the Plant Nutrient forum but then I realized there wasn't one...so I'll try here...

(I know I'm WAY overthinking but the OCD in me has to know, since I've been scouring the web for info and am not satisfied with what I have or have not found)

Say you have a couple of 1-gallon containers of irrigation water -- one has a pH of 8.8 and the other has a pH of 5.8. Yet they BOTH have an identical alkalinity of 100ppm. I put 5 drops of Foliage Pro in each. Now...we know water alkalinity is ultimately more influential in plant health than water pH. We also know that the pH of the pot media factors in more than water pH.

Question: does the higher pH water *do* anything to the introduced fert nutrients to make them any less effective BEFORE even applying to the plant? Put another way - will the fert nutrients be 100% equally available for plant uptake from either watering solution? Does the 8.8 pH scientifically and definitively render those nutrients any less soluble/ less "releasable" than the 5.8 pH solution?

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