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What Happens if My PH in Plant Food Was Too High?

Having a properly balanced pH in your plant’s soil is essential to its growth. The pH level is the level of acidity in your soil, and a certain amount of acid is necessary for the chemical reaction that allows the plants to absorb nutrients to take place. Accordingly, if the pH in your plant food is too high, then your plants will become malnourished.

  1. The PH Scale

    • The pH levels are measured on a scale from 0 to 14. The scale measures the ratio of hydrogen and hydroxide ions; at a pH level of 7, which is the pH of pure water, the ratio between the two is 1 to 1. A solution with more hydrogen ions is acidic and has a pH level less than 7, while a solution with more hydroxide ions is alkaline and has a pH level greater than 7.

    Reading the PH Scale

    • With each point decrease on the pH scale, the proportion of hydrogen ions increases exponentially compared to hydroxide ions. Therefore, while a pH of 7 has a ratio of 1 hydrogen to 1 hydroxide ion, a pH of 6 has a ratio of 10 to 1, a pH of 5 has a ratio of 100 to 1, and so on until the pH level reaches 0, which indicates that there are 10,000,000 or more hydrogen ions to 1 hydroxide ion.

    Cations

    • Cations are positively charged atoms that some nutrients that appear in soil, such as hydrogen and potassium, can contain. These positively charged atoms are drawn to and bond with negatively charged hydrogen ions. Therefore, soil that contains more hydrogen ions then hydroxide ions -- as indicated by a lower pH level -- has a greater ability to retain nutrients that contain cations.

    The Exchange

    • The process of changing nutrients into energy in plants is very similar to the exchange of positive and negative ions in a car battery. It’s a chemical reaction that can only occur effectively if there are enough negative ions to interact with positive atoms. Therefore, a plant food with an excessively high pH would be unable to supply your plants with the proper energy.

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