so how important is it for your ph meter to be calibrated well in this video we're going to get
into it you're here with mark bowell and dave hansen on perfectgardens.com please remember to
like share and subscribe and make sure to check us out on facebook and instagram and make sure
to hit the notifications for future video release make sure to check out our monthly membership for
as little as 2.99 a month you can access now to 105 members 2586 photos 274 videos 21 files
1 106 shared links and much much more so dave you created just a great presentation with this we go
ahead and share your screen and tell us about how important this is what's up what's up this
one for me this one is extremely important you know and and i've seen youtube videos
i've seen forums and i've seen people like saying there's no need to ph your pen it's just a gimmick
for companies to keep selling you their solutions and the the calibration solutions and keep getting
money from you and for me this could be farther farther from the truth so we're going to dive into
just some basic pointers and guidance to help you along with your gross so why calibrate your ph
pen it's a big question well one we need to establish accurate readings of the water if we're
coming for help and people are asking you certain questions and you're giving them misinformation
because your pen is not calibrated properly it's really going to also affect the potential solution
that any individual is going to give you so that's why i state it will help potentially diagnose
deficiencies caused by the water improper ph water can lead to specific nutrients not being available
so i'm i'm pretty sure we're all pretty familiar with the chart showing the different
nutrients iron nitrogen calcium and then they kind of give a range of at what ph do they get
locked out or potentially less available the ph balance of the water affects the acidity
and or alkalinity content of your soil potentially so if you're using certain medias like cocoa
pure peat moss hydroponics hydroponics right hydroponics it's going to potentially alter
that substrate and where organics a lot of people depending on what amendments or inputs they have
they might have a little bit more of a buffer so what the soil is doing underneath it but for
these other medias it could have a direct impact really bad and for me most importantly
it's furthering your understanding of the relationship of the components of your water
and how they affect your results meaning how your plant is going to grow and if you get in the veg
yeah big point to this real fast is just be be clear for everyone your microbiology are your
chemists and your micro and your biologists right when you remove that and you grow with
synthetic it shuts all them down and you are the chemist and the biologists and what you have to do
is you have to use these tools to measure this stuff and if you don't and things going off it's i
mean really just slight changes and if i remember straight every single time it drops down to 0.1 if
i remember straight it doesn't just drop down to 0.1 it actually drops down by the 10th power so
every single time and i could be wrong it's either dropping down by one full point or dropping down
by every point one i don't know everything i have to double check this but the significant
thing about this is it's not just dropping by this little tiny bit when it drops just a little bit it
gets exponentially stronger on the acidity or the alkalinity and that's why unlocking these minerals
and thinking about minerals or rocks right or the salts these things have to dissolve they have to
become bioavailable in a certain size so they get absorbed back into the plant yeah and like you
stated with especially with the microbiology you know certain things can thrive in a more acidic
um solution things can thrive more in alkaline it's the same thing like in our oceans you have
thermals with they never would think life could even be around them and then they find these crabs
and tubular animals that are living in extremely hot sulfuric waters and if you're trying to
balance that and you're on one end or the other because you're not getting accurate readings
you either go you could potentially get bad or kill at all so going back to what i stated where
people are like you don't need to calibrate it because it's just a way for companies to get money
so does it cost a lot of money to keep my ph pen calibrated for this example this is a blue
lab this is what i personally use and here is the cost breakdown for this you need a ph 7 and a ph4
to proper calibrate it so two points on the spectrum one acidity and one alkaline
so here's the cost and at the end of it per test just round it to two dollars but it's a dollar and
ninety cents per test blue labs wants you to calibrate minimal every 30 days so if
you take that it's 22. call it 25 a year to properly calibrate your pen and have accurate
results of your water and what you're putting into your plants that's not a lot of money no
i mean you think about how many spontaneous things we purchase and then we have buyers regret
like round it to 30 if you want you know like it's nothing my father always told me that most people
when they're trying to cut the budget they go to the closet with the paper clips and they're like
you know they're like where can i start saving money at the end they just this one
little thing your ph okay there's one little thing think about how many other minerals it
affects and if you're using microbiology think about how many workers this affects it's like
it's like imagine if we were all working outside and there was a thunderstorm right versus a sunny
day or a winter storm or whatever like who's going to be inside versus outside on the sunny
day versus the snowy day will people be outside in the snow absolutely there's people out there that
look that don't get cold you know that's it's very interesting but the majority of your workforce are
going to be out there when that is not too hot there's the right environment to exist in and at
the end of the day all they're asking you to do to do is just pay a dollar 90 cents to to create
the right environment for them to go work their ass off for you so just flip your perspective
around this and and i want to say too this this is based off of uh 25 mls this is what i measured
out what it took to to properly cover the probe and have adequate amounts as like you see in the
picture where they're putting it into the cup so i measured it out it's about 25 mils of of each and
yeah 30 bucks um general tips so if you have a blue labs look for that that check mark then you
know you're within 30 days but start off with a quality pen blue labs or apera i hear too many
times people like i've been through five six seven of the yellow amazon ones save your money have a
garage sale it's really really worth having a quality piece of equipment always follow the
manufacturer's instructions i'm i'm big on that with anything they their blue labs is very clear
on their instructions on how to maintain your ph pen how to calibrate it when to calibrate it the
do's and the don'ts is very important that way you're always ensuring your accuracy of your pen
always keep the probe clean this is a big one blue labs does have a cleaner and and the reason that
you have to keep that probe clean is that it's a very very specific type of glass that is made for
these probes and it has to deal with its ability to provide the conductivity needed to take that
reading so if you're using ro water you might not have the build up as you would obviously with like
tap water or city water where over time you might see the calcification the crust the whiteness of
it that stuff needs to be cleaned off properly to ensure those those readings not all pens have the
same features find one that suits your needs um there's combo pens you know that show ppms and
also ph ranges they also have different ph ranges as well so apera has a model that goes all the
way up to like 12 or 14 for the alkalinity but that means you're going to have three different
points when you do your calibrations and i think their kit does come with that so you're going to
be on the acidity end probably around four you're gonna be then in the alkalinity probably around
seven which is neutral or eight and then they have another one up at twelve um so just know with your
device the calibrations might be a little bit different between the manufacturers ph pens are
precision tools and need to be handled with care i'm big on that like treat it like you're working
in a lab with a white coat and you're walking with this very expensive piece of equipment treat it
with care you see youtube videos people throwing them in the bucket just because they're waterproof
don't throw them put them in the water very nicely and to ensure the longevity
and the quality of the reading even though it's waterproof probably still don't
just throw the entire meter in there there's cracks you do drop it occasionally over time
things expand contract you're in dif constantly changing environments whatever happens like just
dave said you know do a good job just put it in there and stand there one thing at a time and
wait and see what happens with your ph don't have 12 different things going in your life
drop it in there and come back in 10 minutes mixing your nutrients do all this stuff just
this is why you have problems as you're doing too much all at once and it's creating issues one time
slow it down it's a very sensitive tool that glass probe and stuff is very sensitive and subject to
not being able to take abuse so and i write it this is the next line was if you drop your pen
on the ground you should recalibrate it to ensure accuracy i think it was canucks everyone's pretty
familiar with mr canucks he had some plant issues and he's and he's like i dropped my pen the day
before and i wanted to calibrate it i forgot and when he recalibrated he was like three points off
and that's why his plants were starting to to show what they were because his water was three points
off so if you drop it stuff happens even if you have the check mark just for a dollar and ninety
cents you can recalibrate it and be rest assured that you're going to have an accurate reading and
then the last thing is to make sure that the glass probe does not dry out use manufacturer solutions
to submerge that glass probe so for an example blue labs has what they call a kci solution
and then right in the bottom of the cap they have a little reservoir with a sponge
drop a few drops in there and when you close the cap it's going to be fully submerged so
you know it's one of those things you really got to be thoughtful when you use this tool
you know if you leave the cap open and leave it on the table for a few days you know i can't
ensure that it's going to be accurate even if you properly calibrate it and then rehydrate it and
they say do not use water or or water as well to keep it submerged it's a very specific solution
when i was in the military my upper sergeants would always tell me that your gear is what saves
your life so if you if you have to change your language around your tools and your equipment
and the people around you that if you do have a disconnection with these people or this stuff
so you don't care about it change that language so that you create a healthier relationship or
a relationship that you end up caring more about what you got going on on a daily basis yeah yeah
and then lastly you guys can see that graph right here just showing that you know the
availability through the different ranges of the ph and if you're if you're recording your ph's
and then you start seeing a deficiency of some sort and you resort back maybe this chart will
show you like you know um i was at ph seven and oh shoot iron starts to slim out around there
you know so you can kind of formulate you know the cause and effect of
what you put into your into your plants and that's the importance of calibrating your ph pen please
remember to like share and subscribe only on perfect gardens tv have a great girl everyone
this is a very big subject a lot of things are being labeled as bio stimulants and so like
i said in part one we're breaking this up into three parts what are different carbon sources and
how they are now labeling them as biostimulants so the first two really because they're fairly
similar right humic acid again fulvic acid why are they considering these to be bioceilins