To Flush, or not to flush....

[The HSIC]

If your pondering that old saying right about now.....
If it's yellow let it mellow, or if it's brown flush it down
Your obviously in the wrong forum!




Moving on, I've read lots of discussions on flushing. One side of the fence says you have to flush. Simple as that.
Another says that if you are growing organically, why flush?

As I think about the last statement, that makes the most sense at first glance to me. I mean to have a need to do a periodic flush when growing organically is like admitting that there is something in the soil that shouldnt be in there.

There cant be anything bad in my soil! I mean I mixed it myself. Too much bone meal maybe?

Two points, first flushing is actually the wrong term here, a flushing is something you do right before harvest, and we'll leave that for another "discussion".

What we are talking about here is called leaching, and it is so important to me, that when I do a soil grow, I leach, when I'm in the 2nd, 4th & 6th week of flowering.

As you grow, your soil changes, as does your root system too.
We are worried about both ph and nutrient lockout. The plants ability to buffer your ph changes as the plant ages, and you've been adding all those nutes. Nutrients have a limited window of opportunity to all be available to your plant. Meaning the ph range that you have to be in, is very small. 6.3 to 6.8 is proper ph range for soil.

While were talking about adding your nutes, they also have a salt build up around the roots and lockout your expensive new nutes that you bought for them. Starting to feel unappreciated yet?

Well it does happen, and you can easily fix this, and increase your yeilds.

While you may be able to get away without leaching, I've done it both ways myself, I can certainly tell you that I have always noticed a pronounced growth spurt after the leaching.

All you need to do is, determine the size of your grow pot, and triple it.
So if you flower in a one gallon pot, you'll want 3 gallons of room temperature, PH'd water. Pour this through your growpot, let it run out the bottom, and your all done.

Do not use the hot water side to adjust the temp of your water, as these pipes, typically have heavy metals built up indside of them, these metals will kill your ladies. Also if you have a public water supply, let the water sit for a day prior to using.

Don't over complicate this, it is easy to do, and by far, the easiest & cheapest thing you can do to increase your yeilds.

Heres hoping you have a very merry harvest!
Peace

[green_nobody]

well, sure if you use organic or chemical fertilizer, it is all based on the "same" salts... so flushing is needed to gain the peak in taste.
but that the hot water taps accumulate more heavy metals, well i don't think so. hack i use warm tab water to water my plants every day with and those in my grow don't look dead to me

[The HSIC]

No Green, yours defenitely do not look dead to me either, consider yourself one of the lucky ones though. It is common in older homes to have this metal buildup inside the hot water pipe, and it is toxic to the plants. I've killed a couple myself this way.
Peace

[midgradeindasouth]

I already new this stuff but, I have been slipping I should say.

This should be a sticky.

[green_nobody]

Originally Posted by videoman

No Green, yours defenitely do not look dead to me either, consider yourself one of the lucky ones though. It is common in older homes to have this metal buildup inside the hot water pipe, and it is toxic to the plants. I've killed a couple myself this way.
Peace

...oddish, my place is build in the late 50's, so here are lots of old pipes, but i had my water analyzed some month ago, no lead - tiny bit of copper and a bit of this and that but all far below the critical levels - 50bucks well spend i guess

i guess you better stick to bottled water then or video?

[The HSIC]

Hey Green, you may remember my grow some time ago, with mazar, I documented it.

When I flushed, I used a little bit of hot water, and it just about killed some of my ladies, so it can, and does happen. I'm just trying to cover my bases here, and protect everyones best interest.

Obviously, if you know differently, than go for it, but better safe, than sorry.
Peace

[green_nobody]

...you know, with hot water you also can damage the roots severely in no time, as soon the temps go across 149°F, that is about the water temp of my hot water, you actually unnaturalized your roots, and that will kill any plant you do it to. so maybe that was the real cause that the water heated the soil too much up and you cooked the roots...

[The HSIC]

I appreciate the info green, but I didnt heat my water up to that degree of heat, I only added "some" hot water to avoid shocking the plants with cold well water in the winter. It was only slightly warm.
Peace

[*GreenPassion*]

Leeching is done for a couple of reasons, first it can flush out excess salt and mineral buildup. Second is that it is useful for flushing out other organic waste products in the medium that are introduced by the roots and microrganisms. Third it can refresh stagnant voids in the medium(areas that are either wet or dry spots, or devoid of oxygen, deviant ph, etc).

Organic nutes are not as heavily derived from salts and thus that need is reduced however the other advantages still apply and perhaps more so since organic growing fosters a thriving herd of microorganisms in the medium, and ph fluctuation is more common.

Pre Harvest Flush is usually cited as being necessary to use up or flush the mobile nutrients N,P,K,Mg and to restrict the immobile nutes resulting in a finished product with fewer chemicals resulting in a better quality smoke.

The key here is really not to create a difficiency of immobile or mobile nutes during the flush, thus the use of mollases, but instead to create a tapering off so that after 7-10 days the plant is right at the end of its resources for harvesting. Flushing too long and without supplying immobile nutrients can result in stunted finishing. Flushing is a good practice with both organic and chemy nutes. It takes practice to get the timing just right, and once again strains differ widely.

If your plant is dark green at harvest you have probably not got it right, and if the leaves are all falling off you have probably gone too long.

[kennkenniff]

i just repot every 4 weeks to a pot twice the size and works great 1st large yogart container 2nd small 10" pot 3rd 2.5gal bucket it slows bud groth for about 1-3 days if at all

[ice#1]

i've never flushed my organicly grown pot and everybody that smokes it says how sweet it is and a few ask how i did it ie how long did i flush and want not as long as you don't go overbord with the organics why put 20 pounds of organics in a bucket when a handful of the right combonation will do. point being if you don't go overboard with organics you don't need no flushing or leaching which most useuly cuases more harm then good unless you got a seavere nute lock-up or build-up which unless your ph changes drasticly by either not watering with ph adjusted water or by watering with a tea that was unneeded at the time there's simply no need

[tokecrazy]

Mother Nature dose it. PEACE

[ice#1]

but mother nature is quit harsh only the strongest survive

[dursky]

I was flushing by tap water.. 2 gallons, followed by a gallon of properly PHed water. Thinking that the chlorine my help the flush. They look great shortly after.

[alba]

Im with ice on this one i dont really flush my meds.
I growing organic, and i pack on the crystals and weight right until the end.
And i love using molasses.

[ice#1]

but i do how ever flush when i use my technaflora kit the b.c. boost, grow, bloom, but i let my plants go an extra 2 weeks in which time is when i flush. which this is what i use when i start seeds for some reason. i don't know if it's just a fluke or what but my plants seem to preflower sooner useuly around 8" inches

[MR DONTH8]

some people that only put nutes in at the begining and then just use plain water dont always need to flush, but if your plants dont look like the trees in your neighborhood in fall, that is browns,yellows especially, reds, purples and the likes then you may wanna flush. I flush for 2-3 weeks faithfully because I want to taste the cannabis not the nutrients and I use all organic but if you light your weed through a pipe or bong and the ash turns or burns white, then your good, if its greyish, or darker, like black then its not flushed properly and your smoking chem. I occasionlaly can get mine so nice that anywhere the flame hits it, it turns greyish white or white. but if its a big bowl then about halfway through if you dont see more white ash than black ash and its not really whiteish at the end. FLUSH FLUSH FLUSH I SAY... example, my avatar is bubblicious i grew from Buydutch seeds my very first legal grow and its beautiful, look how bright green the leaves are! taste so bad, I almost couldnt smoke it, i had to buy the harshest blunts I could find to mask the after taste and that was a 7 day flush in NFT. and that strain yields so bad i kicked it out my garden, it looks pretty and has med potential if you grew a thousand and I purchased 30 of those seeds, my first grow was 25 killer mid seeds and 20 BDS

[Hobo]

where is fred farted to make a toilet humor reference

i think the whole "nutrient taste" thing is mostly hippy lore. mg will leave a residual effect if not flushed, and i'm sure other commercial soil nutes will too....

but i don't see the need in flushing a good chem nute or organics. the plant doesn't suck up nutrient solution raw, the ingredients are metabolized and converted into plant material. how many times have you ever heard of anyone flushing their tomatoes?

i've done side by side tests for over a year now, and i'm feeling safe to say that flushing is often unnecessary. i use gh and it tastes the same flush or no; the difference is yeild.......

we ALL know that plants gain the most weight in the final portion of the flower period. by flushing, you are robbing your plants. they could be blowing up, but instead, they are starving. when i flush, i use a flushing product, and go 24 hours prior to cut. no more. i usually don't even flush anymore.

and btw, my ash is white ;)

edit to say; nitrogen can cause a brackish taste if not allowed to cure. quick dried shows this the most. more n=more chlorophyll. chlorophyll can be broken down by curing.

[MR DONTH8]

well if you really believe you dont need to flush, then dont, but try to cut a nug off early to see how it is, and smoke it. if you been feeding regulary you will taste the nutes, conversion or not, I know plenty of beer drinkers who stink like beer the next day even though their body converted to usuable energy. but please smoke a 4 week nug or even 6week nug while flowering. If its just as good as a flushed and cured nug. well, then youll be happy. but my experience has been black ash. and teerrible taste , and i am not a hippie so I dont know what kinda storys they have at bedtimeLOL but I do grow some of the finest my neck of the woods and flushing is a must. to each his own, I dont want it in palate. Id rather taste blueberries instead of blueberries and perfume. or just perfume...but I could tell you some street lore, and thats, DONT GIMME NO BAMMER WEED... Final Phase doesn't even work in 24 hours, please enlighten me as to how you feed for the whole time and then flush to a perfect level and your ash is burning white, on nugs not leaves. and I will try it.... i got plenty of pots to try it out in right now. the only people i know who dont flush at the clinic only feed 2 times veg and onset of flower the rest of the time is GHE and mollasses, so I think everyone from my clinic could benefit from using nutes to the max and then not flushing, especially when yields are important to us. But i would love to have a tasters cup and see who's non flushed could contend with my flushed prod. would be fun, Im in Oregon. whats up?