[compost_tea] Re: Water pH

From: chriscreid <reidchris_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 14:25:05 -0000

I just re-read Elaine's post, which looks like she's responding to
someone else's question. Sorry - was reading my email on the fly.

One more pH related question especially for those with DO meters and
pH meters. Do you see a correlation between pH and oxygen levels?
I am wondering if people without DO meters could use pH as a proxy
to know a brew has gone south. Elaine Ingham says smell doesn't
work for about an hour or so after this has happened. How soon do
pH changes show up and how dramatic are they?

My asking is not just academic. As I said above, in trying to
create a series of "good enough" ways to detect tea conditions that
a home gardener can use, pH -- if it's helpful -- could be a
relatively inexpensive thing to monitor.

It would make sense that pH would change -- what does it look like
at e.g. DO reading of 5.5 ppm and what would we see? For example,
the drop may be relative (higher at 5.5 with a starting point of 8.0
pH than at 6.8 pH?) or what may be important might be a relatively
fast drop.

When a batch of tea drops into the below-6 ppm range, first there is
lack of oxygen, followed by a buildup of different chemicals
released by critters who live in anaerobic conditions, many of them
toxic to the good guys. Seems that either could be source of a pH
change.

Since it will be pretty obvious after awhile that there's a problem,
I guess the most useful window where pH might prove useful is in the
time period after the critters have used up the oxygen (by growing
faster than the oxygen they need can be added) but before the brew
starts to give off bad odors (that come from the new stuff released
by anaerobic metabolic processes).



Chris Reid



 
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Received on Mon Mar 01 2004 - 10:20:26 EST

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