Buffering action is the mixture's ability to hold nutrients for a longer time.

"We have better buffering action, a quality that you cannot get with peat mixes."

One aspect of buffer action is transformation of impedances.

Soil and compost also provide buffering action, thus dispensing with the exacting attention to plant feeding and soil acidity demanded by soil-less mixes.

It is not clear why: a pH change would affect other creatures and a few bales of straw are unlikely to affect the natural buffering action of the large amount of silt and decaying plant material already present.

It would take time to assemble all the crew personnel and get them where they needed to be, and probably longer still for the buffer action of their bodies to work any change on the ship's engines, but if there was a way to make it work, Mr. Scott would find it.