# Irrigation Water Acidification?



## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Has anyone, who has both alkaline soil and alkaline irrigation water ever tried something like this for their lawns? I have been debating the merits of some sort of irrigation water acidification plan (as my reclaimed water is very basic as is the soil) and Im wondering if a simple irrigation injection system using this type of product would help.

https://cdn.website-editor.net/075195fa80fe4ae79e4d622d79dac10e/files/uploaded/pekacid_%2520booklet_2016_USA_6_ae1AOiC9QfevmyWuXVly.pdf


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

I wonder if using Citric Acid in an EZFLO would be a good solution? It would basically acidify the irrigation water and in time eventually bring your pH down.


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Mightyquinn said:


> I wonder if using Citric Acid in an EZFLO would be a good solution? It would basically acidify the irrigation water and in time eventually bring your pH down.


Interesting thought, researching it now  The catch maybe I would probably go through many many pounds of citric acid per year..... But no matter what I do with alkaline water and alkaline soil the efforts will probably need to be significant to make a notable difference.


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## TheZMan (9 mo ago)

Same boat as poster. Municipality yearly test reported 9.5. My home meter confirms this with 9.4. Soil pH is 7.7. Not typical for Connecticut to have a 7.7.

I've seen sulfuric acid injection but I don't know if this is home owner level stuff or is this 10's of thousands of dollars like farming or nursery level.....


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## TheZMan (9 mo ago)

Mightyquinn said:


> I wonder if using Citric Acid in an EZFLO would be a good solution? It would basically acidify the irrigation water and in time eventually bring your pH down.


I bought the 50lb tub of CA on Duda. Seriously lawn is looking crazy green regardless of my 7.7 pH and water of 9.4-9.5. 1 lb CA per 1 Gallon per 1K sq feet is safe? I planned on spraying it with my backpack sprayer. Stuff scares me.

I added 1 tsp CA to 1 gallon of water and the pH was 2.2. I know many use this stuff but I'm just scared!!!!! I didn't know it was that strong.


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

I know this member had success with it.

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=400786#p400786


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

I just received my latest soil test and my pH is at 8.4 :-( I've instantly become even more motivated&#129322; to try to acidify my irrigation water as I know that it too is 8+ pH.


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## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

I am curious as to how much of an impact the acidic water would actually have in amending the soil, as opposed to just not making the situation worse.


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Grizzly Adam said:


> I am curious as to how much of an impact the acidic water would actually have in amending the soil, as opposed to just not making the situation worse.


Same here. I probably do not have enough depth of understanding to see how it could make it worse, but I also don't understand how changing the pH of the irrigation water can affect soil pH over time. I believe my soil is just insanely high in calcium carbonate so perhaps I'll just have to work around this by over fertilizing.


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## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

TampaBayFL said:


> Same here. I probably do not have enough depth of understanding to see how it could make it worse, but I also don't understand how changing the pH of the irrigation water can affect soil pH over time. I believe my soil is just insanely high in calcium carbonate so perhaps I'll just have to work around this by over fertilizing.


I know soil can act as a filter and remove things from the water, I just don't know if there is enough time for much acid to leach out of the irrigation water in the time that it takes to pass through the top 6" of soil.


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

I checked my incoming water pH this morning and found that the domestic potable water was just about neutral, the reclaimed irrigation water pegged my test strips :-(. It's something north of 8.4 :-(


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

I did a citric acid experiment. today using the reclaimed water as well as regular domestic water and found that 1/4 tsp tends to drop the pH of a quart of water by ~4 pts. That seemed high to me, but my results seem to match what this website found so I suspect the trend is reasonable.

https://mattgadient.com/my-attempts-at-adjusting-ph-for-plants-with-vinegar-and-citric-acid/


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## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

That's impressive. I would have never thought it would be that much. I wonder what a similar ammount of other chemicals would do.


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Grizzly Adam said:


> That's impressive. I would have never thought it would be that much. I wonder what a similar ammount of other chemicals would do.


I believe with something like muriatic acid the same effect could be achieved with a much smaller quantity of the acid, but the risk gets a lot higher.


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## Grizzly Adam (May 5, 2017)

TampaBayFL said:


> Grizzly Adam said:
> 
> 
> > That's impressive. I would have never thought it would be that much. I wonder what a similar ammount of other chemicals would do.
> ...


In the past I have considered running water for ammendments through a 50 gallon chemical barrel. Adding muriatic acid at that scale becomes much safer.


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Grizzly Adam said:


> TampaBayFL said:
> 
> 
> > Grizzly Adam said:
> ...


That's a good idea, you can keep your rather stout mixtures completely separate and then dose them in accordingly.

I've been pondering putting an ezfloin my main irrigation feed and seeing how that works to both acidify the irrigation water and add other water soluble supplements. I think the problem is going to be the sheer volume of acidifying components that will be needed to make a meaningful difference (aka maybe a 2 pt drop in pH).


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## TampaBayFL (Jul 24, 2020)

Some quick calculations seem to suggest roughly 1 pound of CA will drop the pH of about 125-130 gallons of irrigation water approximately two points.

Looking at a typical irrigation system, even for my small yard, seems to indicate that I would be going through a ton of this stuff (so it's probably not practical). 1 lb would probably acididify for 10-20 minutes worth of run time&#129322;


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