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  • From: Allan Balliett <allan.balliett AT gmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] pH adjustment for irrigating tomatoes with high pH well water.
  • Date: Sun, 1 May 2011 08:47:02 -0400

Andy - Thanks for the info. My math is pretty rusty. Can you tell me what it costs to adjust the pH in x-gallons of water and what that translates into in beds or sq ft watered? (not trying to make a math problem for you, either, I've just always thought this was too expensive for us to try) Thanks!! -Allan in WV

On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 7:20 AM, Andy Fellenz <artisanfarms AT gmail.com> wrote:
Allan,

The Citric Acid with an OMRI blessing is expensive, ~$250 for 50#, but I haven't found anything else which works as well in the greenhouse.  In the high tunnels I have amended fairly heavily with peat to try to keep the pH OK and balance the alkalinity of my groundwater (I'm also sitting on limestone and the drilled well is pulling water from 180' through about 150' of limestone).  Despite the expense, I am planning to add citric acid to my high tunnel irrigation water this season because I have started seeing some nutrient take-up issues attributable to hard water in my oldest tunnel. 

I would love to be able to use rain water for irrigation, at least in the greenhouse but ideally in my high tunnels also. So far, I haven't been able to figure out a capture and pumping system which won't break the bank
Andy


On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 6:48 AM, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett AT gmail.com> wrote:
Just for the record, our water pH runs 8+ (we have limestone protruding from the ground in our fields) but I don't have gray wall problems with tomatoes but I'll have to admit that the last several seasons (well, me and most everyone else in the region) we haven't had a good tomato crop. I've been told that with adequate organic matter in the soil plants will control the pH within their own root balls (through microbial symbiosis) and be able to overcome pH problems like this. You, of course, need the right N-P-K-trace minerals ratios within your soils, which I imagine you have, to allow this to be productive.

Have you done tissue tests on your tomato leaves? I'm just curious.

Andy, isn't the citric acid really really expensive?

It is the situation here that EVERYTHING grows better with rain water (well, this spring is an extreme in the mid-Atlantic!) We say 'irrigation keeps our plant alive but it takes rain to make them actually grow!"

Amazingly, for us, this doesn't apply in the hoophouse where everything seems to grow very well with the same irrigation water the fields get. The greenhouse, though, has always been composted as heavily as Coleman suggests (and double dug with regularity ) Oh, I'm talking in ground plantings in the house, though.

Just my experience.

-Allan in WV


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