Drew, I would be real carefull with that sulfer. Its easy to over use and using the words "Tons of sulfer" give me chills. Ive had some bad experiences with sulfer. Alittle goes along way!

interesting discussion.

Would like to know whether applying ammonium sulfate can be considered as Organic?

Ammonium sulfate is not organic. Here's a video that shows a couple of small batches of ammonium sulfate in liquid form being mixed up. I'm not sure why he's cooking the powder at the end. Looks like a highlight from a "Breaking Bad" episode doesn't it? Non-organic growers take the crystalline form of either mix method, dilute with water and fertilize plants (including food plants) with it. Subway uses ammonium sulfate in their bread dough.

This post was edited by mrclint on Tue, Jul 9, 13 at 3:18

Follow-up on this thread,

it has been three weeks since I started applying AS to my blueberries and all of my plants now has new growth/sprouts. First freeze in Dallas usually occurs in the first week of Nov, considering this freeze timeline, please let me know when to stop applying AS to my blueberries.

Thanks

Resurrecting a year old thread . . .
BR wrote:
I have been using 4 cups to 300 gallons of acid treated water. I guess with our rains salt build up probably is not an issue.If my math is right, that is 0.64 tsp/gallon. That is in comparison to fruitnut using 0.4 tsp/gallon. And, do I understand correctly, that in contrast to FN typically applying the solution weekly, you are using the 0.64 tsp/gallon every time you water? Or do you only periodically add ammonium sulfate to the 300 gallon tank?

As I've read suggestions from various extension services and other sources regarding per plant rates of nitrogen, I've noted wide variation. Almost all give rates for application of dry granules to the soil. Rates range (standardized to a per week rate - often given in application rates of monthly or every 4-6 weeks) from a high of 3/4 tsp per plant per week (OR State), to 0.12 tsp per plant per week (Arthur E. Gaus KS State) for young plants. Higher rates for older plants.

I'm not as amenable to the idea of dry granule application as I am to the dissolved application talked about in this thread, and in the ARS presentation FN linked to. I can see why many would be, as it is a pretty simple spread it and forget it method. If I understand correctly, salt burn to roots is going to occur as a function of concentration rate, which when applied as a solute, is known and controlled. Add a cup of solute, or drench the entire root zone, the concentration where the solute goes is still the same (or less, but never higher - unless the media does not receive enough water at once to flush it). Granular application could create localized hot-spots, and concentration is dependent on irrigation amounts and on the area over which it is spread. With a solute, even if you water 1/2 the plant's roots, those roots still will not be subjected to a concentration that will cause damage.

FN is using a very safe amount, you could easily double it, as stated in the first few posts. FN himself caculated BR could use even more and still be in bounds. But i too like the safe rate and take no chances. I only use it once a month anyway. I could double the rate with no issues.

I do 1 tablespoon of AS diluted in 4 gallons of water per bush, 2-3 times per week. They don't burn at all, but mine are in the ground and I kinda spread the solution over a wider area for maximum root coverage, so that alone may allow me to have a higher concentration and dosage per week.

I don't apply just water unless it hasn't rained in over a week, but in the spring that is mostly a non issue since it rains regularly. That is mostly during the summer when the plants need more water due to the heat.

I can attest that FN's strategy works well. My bushes have grown 2-3 feet since trying it out last July. I also use BR's battery acid strategy to bring the water pH down to around 5.

So you use a concentration of 3/4 teaspoon per gallon, with plain water (rain in spring, irrigation in summer) in between.

I agree that spreading 4 gallons over a larger area will let you get away with greater dosage but it won't let you get away with greater concentration. It's primarily the concentration that causes tissue damage.

Charina,

I use the AS once a week. I only apply P and K once per year. There is a huge difference between growing in a pot and growing in the ground. My 3 BB beds are mulched 10" thick to try to retain as much moisture as possible and because of that I do not find it necessary to irrigate more often than once a week. If I did I would probably just use the overhead freeze protect sprinklers instead of the ground level micro spray heads and just use untreated water and then when I used the tank just drop the PH a bit lower than my normal PH 5 corrected water. Like I said though I have not found more frequent watering needed using my method. Note I said needed as in they show no water stress.

My plants grow like weeds.....my Windsors are pushing 8' tall even though they are pruned back to less than 5' each summer. The Sweetcrisps though are growing even more wispy which is not a good thing:) I tend to have to wade through a jungle to pick.

Would it be better to use half the amount of AS and water twice a week? Yes but while I am retired I have a LOT of plants....pushing 200 varieties of figs, grapes, blackberries, peaches, plums etc etc.....you name it I have it and I only have so much time.

I have been using this method with AS with my blueberries this year so far so good little liners planted the end of Feb. have quadrupled in size my issue is and will be hard water, I do not have rain barrels yet and being in Peoria, AZ. there really isn't much to collect anyway so with the weather heating up I will have to be watering more obviously, will the AS be building up to much salt along with city water or will it even matter with the amount of salt in the city water, I have been thinking of a couple ways to lower ph in water by buying barrels filling with city water and soften with peat before watering or vinegar, I know it will not remove bicarbonates, I have also heard of using sulfuric acid to neutralize bicarbonates, but at what concentration?

Thanks for the additional info BR. I can’t recall how many blueberry plants you have even though I recall reading it previously. Presumably 300 gallons is enough to thoroughly wet the soil around each and flush out any buildup rather than allowing evap/osmosis to create a concentration situation. That was part of my primary driver for understanding if you fertigated each time, or periodically as others seem to do. I seem to recall that your primary irrigating season (dry season) is during fruit production, so thought there may not be enough rains to flush the mulch/soil. Apparently it is not an issue in your situation. I suppose that the microbes in the mulch also bind up some proportion of the nitrogen in composting it.

CaptainInsano:
No one is going to be able to give you a recipe to treat your water with sulfuric acid without data on your water, and your acid concentration. It will depend on several factors. What you want to do is use just enough acid to reduce it to a pH of 5. That will neutralize about 80-90% of the bicarbonates. To figure out how much acid that is, you use titration. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water, add a small amount of acid, mix, and test with pH testing strips. Add more if needed until you reach a pH of 5. From my tap, with better than average UT water, it takes about .75ml of 98% sulfuric acid per 5 gallons of water. At least you get periodic monsoonal flows down there to catch rain over the summer. Those flushes of rain rarely reach us up north of you. We are much drier (both humidity and rainfall) in the summer.

You won’t be building up too much salt in the media/soil if you make sure to flush it periodically. What you don’t want to do is to water in sips with just enough to wet the soil. Evap and plant uptake can leave the excess salts behind, building up each time. Periodically you want to thoroughly water the soil and have 25% or more of the water flow through and past the root zone. This will carry out excess buildup. Doing this with water not containing AS works very well, but doing it with AS of a low concentration will also work. A well draining soil/media will greatly aid in avoiding salt buildup.

Charina,

How many bushes......that is a good question but currently somewhere approaching 200, I should end up with 240 or so when the Ravens are available and then the BB will be done. When I add the indigo crisps I will use those to replace other bushes, probably the 50 emeralds even though they are productive the berries are so so at best.

Btw I do not irrigate with 300 gallons it is 900 gallons.......the BB are in 3 distinct beds and each bed gets the 300 gallons of water with 1 cup of 96% sulfuric acid and 4 cups AS. In fact as we speak the last bed is getting irrigated.

If you want to figure out the dosage be my guest:) the back bed is 30x50' and has 6 rows of 13 bushes, so 78 bushes. So 78 bushes are sharing 4 cups of AS and 300 gallons of water.

I'll pass on dosage calculation, but thanks for the opportunity. :-) It is the concentration that is my primary consideration, as was the research linked to in the OP.

Here in 6b UT, my BBs are just now waking up. Leaves out on about 1/2, swollen buds on the other 1/2. Fertilization is top issue on my mind now that I have water acidification semi-automated.

How do you have it semi automated? Here I am just approaching peak harvest. Of course today I applied PH 2 water to one of the BB beds.

Venturi siphon. I intend to do a post on it when I get photos but I haven't taken any photos yet. Right now I have it hooked up to a hose and hose-end shower sprayer. But as I install the drip irrigation line I will be including an acid venturi injector on there. Probably a fertilizer injection line as well. The way I have it now I only have to touch the acid once every third or fourth week or so with the every-other-day watering of the 22 bushes. pH of 5 out the hose end.

BR,
Why Ph of 2?

Stupidity mostly:) I have a well pump mounted on a 300 gallon tank. In the tank is a float switch which shuts the pump off when the water in the tank gets too low. I also have a timed switch so I set it for 1 hour and at the end it kills the power..but it is bad have have not replaced it.

So I watered one BB bed and when it finished I started the water going in the tank for the next bed and set the timer on my phone for 16 minutes and when it goes off I know the tank is full and can shut the water off. So I start the water.set the timer.add the AS and the cup of 96% acid and walk away.....I forgot to unplug the float switch. So when the water level in the tank rose about a foot the float switch kicked the power to the pump back on. I was potting figs when I heard a noise...took me a minute to realize it was the ground level spray heads watering the center BB bed.....that is the reason I added the timed switch in the first place, to eliminate such things from happening. It is in fact the second time I have done it. I shut the pump down and just ran straight well water for 20 minutes so I'm sure they are fine. I need to get a new switch.

I have obtained a copy of the full paper whose technical abstract was linked to in the OP by Fruitnut. Here is the results and discussion regarding the portion of the paper dealing with ammonium sulfate concentration rates. The plants were tested in 8 liter pots with 1:1 peat and fir bark. For all concentration levels, the AS was supplemented with macro and micronutrients.
Leaf and new root dry weight were significantly affected by fertilizer rate (P≤0.05) and were lower when 1.5 g•L-1 of ammonium sulfate was applied than when 0 (leaf) or 0.25 (roots) g•L-1 was applied (Fig. 2). Plants fertilized with 0.75 and 1.5 g•L-1 also had lower leaf:stem ratios and allocated relative less biomass to new roots than plants given 0.25 g•L-1 (data not shown). Reductions in leaf:stem ratios were due to less leaf growth and to leaf senescence. Older leaves tended to become necrotic and drop from plants fertilized with 0.75 and 1.5 g•L-1 ammonium sulfate (ECw=1.5-3.0 dS•m-1; Table 1), which is a common symptom of salt stress in blueberry (Caruso and Ramsdell, 1995). Bryla and Machado (2011) and Bañados et al. (2012) observed similar symptoms of salt stress in ‘Bluecrop’ blueberry when plants were fertilized with ammonium sulfate at rates of 100-200 kg•ha-1 N during the first year after planting in the field. R.M.A Machado, D.R. Bryla, and O. Vargas, “Effects of Salinity Induced by Ammonium Sulfate Fertilizer on Root and Shoot Growth of Highbush Blueberry” Acta Horticulture (2014)

One reason I obtained the full paper were my questions regarding results at the 0.75g/l rate that were missing from the technical abstract. While stems and leaves did ok during the 8 week experiment under the 0.75g/l treatment, the difference in root growth rate between 0.25g/l and 0.75g/l is dramatic. 0.75g/l had just over 1/2 the new growth rate that 0.25g/l had. It does make me wonder whether or not stem and leaf growth at 0.75g/l would have measurably lagged behind 0.25g/l given more time.
{{gwi:121525}}

Given the above, I am not as confident to presume that 0.5g/l is 1/2 of a potentially harmful concentration of ammonium sulfate. “Older leaves tended to become necrotic and drop from plants fertilized with 0.75 and 1.5 g/l ammonium sulfate” 0.3 might be a more ‘safe harbor’ level with some margin of error, but provide for vigorous growth.

Also of interest in the paper in confirmation that more frequent applications is generally advantageous. “On average, plants fertilized with ammonium sulfate produced greater leaf and root dry weights than those fertilized with urea and produced greater dry weight in all plant parts when fertilized 3 days per week or weekly than when fertilized every 28 days (Fig. 3). Ammonium sulfate also resulted in higher total plant N uptake than urea as well as significantly higher tissue N concentrations (P≤0.05) in both the roots (1.92 vs. 1.70%) and crown (1.21 vs. 1.07%), whereas frequency had no effect on N uptake and resulted in higher N concentrations in each plant part when plants were fertilized every 28 days than when fertilized three times per week or weekly (data not shown).”
{{gwi:121526}}

I’ll add one more tidbit to this post from a different paper: David R. Bryla and Rui M. A. Machado “Comparative effects of nitrogen fertigation and granular fertilizer application on growth and availability of soil nitrogen during establishment of highbush blueberry” Frontiers in Plant Science (2006) As seemed logical (quite frankly, patently obvious) to me, fertigation creates much less “spikes” in soil salt concentrations as compared to granular application. Esp infrequent granular applications of larger doses as some have advocated.

The paper is publically available at http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpls.2011.00046/full Of note is the following graph regarding % of dead plants at different rates via fertigation and granular application. One weakness I see in this paper though is that the drip irrigation may have been only applying fertigation in between plants. A later paper, (D.R. Bryla, O. Vargas “Nitrogen Fertilizer Practices for Rapid Establishment of Highbush Blueberry: a Review of Six Years of Research” Acta Horticulture (2014)) touches upon this as they review different drip configurations and application of the fertigation directly to the roots.
{{gwi:121527}}
The conclusion remains that fertigation results in less soil salt concentration than granular application at equal rates.

Charina:

Thank you for the detailed accounting. I take it your recommendation is 0.3g 21-0-0 per liter. Which if my measure of 4.6g 21-0-0 per teaspoon is correct, I come out at ~0.25 teaspoon per gallon. And this might well be applied 3 times per week to max benefit. Does that sound right?

That is pretty close to the conclusion I'm reaching, from an armchair.

One difference: The only source I have for the weight/volume conversion of AS indicates 5.57 g/tsp. See http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight I haven't broken out the triple beam balance and tried weighing some. And I suspect that there are differences between granule sizes by manufacturer that makes volume measurements less accurate (but probably plenty close enough).

So, at 1 gal = 3.78541178 liters, and 1 tsp AS = 5.57g, I get:
0.25g/l = 0.17 tsp/gal
0.3g/l = 0.20 tsp/gal
0.4g/l = 0.27 tsp/gal
0.5g/l = 0.34 tsp/gal

I don't know but what you have weighed your AS, but if it happens to actually be 5.57g/tsp, then at 2.5 gallons, 1/2 tsp = 0.3g/l.

If your 4.6 g/tsp is accurate, then I get:
0.25g/l = 0.21 tsp/gal
0.3g/l = 0.25 tsp/gal
0.4g/l = 0.33 tsp/gal
0.5g/l = 0.41 tsp/gal

Of course, for simplicity sake, I'll probably just use a slightly under-filled 1/4 tsp / gallon once a week for now.

I guess Oscar Vargas (jr author in two of the papers above) is in the process of writing his dissertation. I look forwarding to reading that.

Interesting read.

Although i do not have any experience when it comes to fertilizing Blueberries this way, i know from experience from growing other plants in pots that a lot comes down to the size of the container.

In the test they used 8 liter pots, and the less soil/substrate you have, the faster the build up of stacked salts will be. Bigger pots are a lot more forgiving.

When applied the same dose, i've seen plants in 12 liter pots killed, while the once in 25 liter flourished. Maybe one of the BB experts here can try this out on blueberries?

Using enzymes once a week on a flush day is also a good way to get rid of stacked salts. It will break 'em down and make them absorbable for the plants.

Excuse my bad english but i felt l had to share my experience. It is a missed chance they did not use different pot sizes in their test.

Robster,

You make a good point and I would argue that the bigger the pot, the more fertilizer the plant can handle to an extent.

As I said before, my plants seem to grow just fine at 1tsp per gallon 2-3 times per week, but keep in mind they are in grown in-ground. Moreover, I have a thick layer of mulch that absorbs a lot of the fertilizer solution and I typically spread the solution over a wider area.

I would have loved to see if the results changed with bigger pots, because an 8 liter pot just seems too small for a blueberry bush.

Dosage vs concentration:

Pot size is not as critical of a factor as the method of application. I’m confident I could apply 1,000 grams of AS to a single plant in a single watering session in an 8 liter pot without any burn. As long as the concentration of the fertigation is low, the soil concentration level will not rise far above the fertigation mix concentration level when fertigation is properly applied (applied so that a portion of the fertigation solution flows through and drains out of the media).

On the other hand, I’m as equally confident I could burn a plant’s roots within a couple waterings with only 1/4 gram AS per liter of water in a 100 liter pot. Improperly applied fertigation ( applying just enough fertigation solution to wet the soil) will lead to accumulation in the soil, and high concentrations that will cause plasmolysis of the roots (burn). Been there, done that, even with very very small dosages of fertilizer.

There is a reason that the authors of this, and other studies, measure salts as a concentration, not a dosage. It’s the soil’s concentration that matters, and the best way to control that is via the fertigation/irrigation applied, and applying it in an appropriate manner.
For further reading see: Fertilizing Containerized Plants IV

Charina,

I agree that pot size is not as critical of a factor as concentration, but pot size is still an important factor because pot size can affect root density, which would then affect the nitrogen absorption rate.

I would also consider pot drainage, soil medium, and dosage. The dosage will matter if it is too high and the pots aren't draining very well. Moreover, the soil medium will matter because certain mediums will absorb water more which will then keep that solution for the plant's roots to absorb for longer durations.

Those are just my observations, however.

This post was edited by ROFLwTIME on Mon, May 5, 14 at 15:20

When i watered my plants with an EC of 2.3 it killed my 12 liters, while my 25 liters showed no signs of burn at all. Also the residue water drained out of the 12 liter pots showed a much higher EC than that of the 25 liters. So in some way container size did matter.

On a hot day a lot of water evaporates from the medium, leaving the soluble fertilizers behind. This is where this size of the container starts to matter and why a bigger container is more forgiving. It can simply hold a lot more water, thereby slowing down the build up of stacked salts.

I recently purchased a bag of ammonium sulfate to try on my blueberries and it is in granule form as in the picture. It doesn't dissolve much in water. Is there a powdered form I could get instead? Or can I grind up this form with a mortor and pestle to make it dissolve better? I have struggled to find AS locally...only one farm store had it in the granule form. If a powdered form is better, anywhere online I can order it from?

Also, can I add this to my water+vinegar mixture? We have hard water and I'm using 1/4 cup vinegar with 2 gallons of water to bring the pH down to 4-5.

Thanks.

It's slow to dissolve even in small granules, not real slow. Best bet would be to give it 24 hrs and stir a couple times if possible. It could be ground up but that sounds like a mess and it will eat up steel tools.....and plant roots if not careful.

You could mix in with vinegar and water.

That doesn't look like ammonium sulfate to me. The stuff I have has no hint of brown in it and is completely transparent

Thanks guys. I left some in water and it finally dissolved so I will just pre-dissolve some before watering.

The link below shows that ammonium sulfate can also be brown

Here is a link that might be useful: white or brown

After reading your post sharppa,I tried something.I have some Hi-Yield brand Ammonium Sulfate,probably not quite as big as the largest grains of your kind,but still somewhat chunky.
I took containers and put cold tap water in one and hot in the other,about 130F.After adding about 1/4 teaspoon of AS and gently swirling both,the hot water dissolved it in about a minute and after a few minutes,the cold water still had some solids.
So hot water will speed the process. Brady

At my local feed and fertilizer co-op--which I am lucky to have nearby--they offer AS in two forms. One is a water soluble crystal, and the other is pelletized. The pelletized form is usually harder to find. I like the water soluble when fertigating. The pelletized form is useful when spreading around the base of trees and bushes in early spring, when you don't want it dissolved and taken up all at once. It's a great fertilizer for acid-loving plants such as blueberries and pawpaws. My other fruit trees get pelletized urea, or a 19-19-19 if they need the other macros.

Marc

Hi guys

I've done a lot of reading on blueberry care, and wondering if I have the AS rates right. I transplanted a bunch of SHB and RE BBs into the ground a couple of months ago, and theyve been growing well for about a month or so, some have even just finished blooming. I've got about 30 bushes right now, ranging in size from 6' to new cuttings. It's my first year trying to do it right, and look to expand into a big garden in the future. I don't mind working, but I want to keep costs down. I added a bit of aged chicken manure to some of the planting areas, and peat moss to all. I was glad to find AS localy cheap for 15kg for about 10$ or so. It looks like slightly rough sugar. I was impressed with results show here such as Fruitnuts potted blueberries rapid 1 year growth ( can't find the thread now). My BBs will all be outdoors year round.

Today I gave AS for the first time. I added about 1 teaspoon per gallon, mixed well. Large bushes got about 2 spoons (2 gallons), smallest plants got about 1/2 spoon. I gave during downpour that will last all night and tommorow.

I plan to repeat this maybe 2 or 3 times a week.

Is this good?

Alternately, could I just sprinkle a double dose of crystals on top soil once a week? We get a lot of rain here, and the soil is well drained.

Edit: bonus question- I was surprised to find that AS is a good amendment for citrus. I have a bunch of young trees that look a bit pekid after the winter sleep. I gave then the same water treatment described above for my BBs, except I doubled the dose. While I was at it, I gave some to my grapes, peaches, raspberry, blackberrie, and strawberries. Is this good for them? Can they also be given this dose say once a week?

Strawberries may only produce foliage with it. I only feed them once a year. I use AS too, but only once a month. I'm not a big fan of using it on a regular basis. It's super easy to kill your plants with it.

Thanks. The 2 gardens require a car to get to, so not super convenient thus maybe once a week.

No I'd not use AS on all those plants. Not because it's dangerous although it can be. But because they don't need or like the pH as low as blueberries. Urea or another nitrogen source would be better. It doesn't push down pH like AS.

In your climate pH might be low enough even for blueberry without AS. High rainfall areas often have low pH soils because rain leaches out the basic elements like Ca and Mg.

Have you had your soils pH tested by a good laboratory?

Strawberries don't mind high acidity but don't need that much food.
Raspberries like it maybe at about 6.5, can tolerate lower or higher pH's. I
would use a simple organic fertilizer for the other plants, it lasts 6 weeks or
so. Remember too AS is only nitrogen, trace minerals and other nutrients should
be added too. A good organic can supply that. I use AS and organic with my
blueberries. Why I only use it once a month. They are being fed with the
organics. I use Holly-Tone. Not sure what is available there? Any acid
fertilizer will work. Cottonseed meal etc. You need something else besides the
AS for the blueberries. A soil test will tell you if low on any particular
nutrient.

Thanks guys. Not sure the exact soil qualities - am trying to find where to get a soil test done but may be some hassle with the language barrier. I know a neighboring farmer said it was "red" soil and good quality for growing lots of stuff. I would think the soils here are at least slightly acidic.

As I've been reclaiming the land, I noticed the old cedar plantation was planted in rows, maybe 2 or 3 meters apart. The bedrock seems pretty close to the surface (at least along the ridge) - my shovel doesn't go more than a foot before I hit it - maybe that's one reason they all got knocked over in the typhoon. Anyway, since those tree stumps have been rotting for 10 years, I was thinking of planting the BB bushes on or next to the stumps - making nice rows. Not sure the ph of rotted cedar.

Big bags of 8-8-8 pellet fertilizer are cheap here. Would that be an ok general supplement for blueberries and the rest of the garden? I'm growing a large variety of fruits and vegetables, and I don't want to have the expense and hassle of lots of different types of fertilizers. I'd like to keep it as simple as possible.

The 8-8-8 may work,but if the Nitrogen portion comes from a Nitrate source rather than Ammonium or Urea based,it's not real good for Blueberries.Ammonium fertilizer also has the ability to lower the pH of the soil,if your location's is high.Check also to see if it contains Muriate of Potash(Potassium chloride).An experienced grower in Florida,wrote that some friends of his used some leftover fertilizer they had laying around,which contained it and their plants died.I think it's the Chloride part that is bad.Sulfate of Potash is better. Brady

Thanks, I've got amonia sulfate already I will use, just wondering if there's anything else cheap I can add. I'm glad we got the local extension to accept 8 soil samples for testing, so I'll know exactly the soil conditions soon.

Well the lady from the office called with the soil sample results, left a message with my wife today. Very interesting.

I took 3 natural unaltered samples from the area I'm developing for blueberries, as well as 2 more much farther down the slope with different trees and soil. The three were pH: 4.62; 4.58; 4.77. The other two are: 4.76; 4.88. That sounds pretty damned perfect.

They said the E.C. (I assume this is Electical Continuity) was 0.01. This is a new concept for me. But she said it means the citrus we grow there will need fertilizer. How about the blueberries? I imagine I'll need to be careful with the ammonia sulfate as it will lower the pH, and I may be in the unusual position of the pH being too acidic for blueberries. What's good cheap fertilizer I can buy for this location for blueberries?

As a side, I slipped in 3 more samples from different locations: The area most of my blueberry plants are being temporarily held right now (5.42) ; nice looking large vegetable garden plot I made (6.19 with EC of 0.42); and my backyard (7.24).

So everything looks to be right on track. I thought my backyard was interesting, as this is an old suburban area and there's a lot of concrete and gravel around and it must've leached into the soil. That's my guess anyway.

Use nitrogen source with urea instead of ammonium sulfate. This will not lower your pH anymore. Try looking at the lawn fertilizers as many have urea as the source.

So only nitrogen is ok? There are fancy blueberry/azalea etc complete fertilizers at 10x the price. Looking for more common cheap stuff. Does the low EC test mean there's no nutrients at all in the soil?

Cottonseed meal, or alfalfa meal would probably feed them cheaply. Miracid is not expensive and will supply other nutrients.

So as to not start another thread, I would like to ask has anyone used the AS solution on watermelon, I can't seem to get them started this year they sprout get a few true leaves and wither, I use it on my blueberries, so I am already making the solution, I assume it would be fine and why not if they are dying anyway right?

So I went off the initial advice of this thread and am a little confused. I added 2 teaspoons of ammonium sulfate to 5 gallons of rain water and checked the pH. It read 7.20. The pH meter I used is a very accurate one that is calibrated daily. My pH of plain rain water should have been around 6-7 I would have assumed and after adding the ammonium sulfate I thought it would be closer to 5 due to the sulfate? I also made sure the granules disolved by using warm water initially then adding it to the bulk. Should I up the ammount I am using to lower the pH more?

When the plant utilizes the nitrogen, sulfur is free to lower pH. So until the molecule is broken up by plants, bacteria, soil interaction, the pH is not going to change. If you wait 24 hours the pH of the water should be lower. Adding more AS risks burning the plant. Add more sulfur if you still need to adjust pH or use sulfuric acid in the water. This too, you need to give sulfuric acid an hour to lower pH in the water. It will change quickly, but you need some time for the osmotic action to spread it around. Their is a rebound effect that happens in 24 hours. The pH of sulfuric acid treated waters will rise slightly in 24 hours. I guess it takes time for carbonates and acid to interact and stabilize.

Ammonium sulfate barely lowers the pH of the soil. You really aren't going to notice a difference and it isn't something you worry about affecting your plants because the dose is so small.