WOW Riddle has a question???

[riddleme]

I disagree with flushing. Backing the dose down some, yes. Cut them out completely, no. I think of it this way. Why would you want to starve your plant during one of the most critical times? When it is producingthe most resin and bud weight. Has never made any sense too me. Grow 2 plants side by side. Everything the same until the final 2 weeks. Flush one and continue to feed the other. After a proper drying and cure. The only way you will be able to tell them apart. The one that continued to get fed, probaly will be a bit stickier. Nitrogen and chlorophyl DO NOT make the smoke harsh. Poor drying and curing habits make smoke harsh.

exactly it is the sugars that the plant produces for energy that make harsh smoke and proper curing is what converts these sugars into the taste we all love

 

[jondamon]

HI everyone

a special HIGH lol to Riddleme.

I have had 2 grows so far since starting in Dec09. The first grow was from seed and i grew this without an EC meter and unfortunately she was constantly starved of N as i couldnt measure exactly how much nutes she was getting ( in know this now as i have an EC meter and cant believe how much nutes it takes to get to 1.5). The smoke still came out great (probably some of the strongest ive had) with this grow i was using coco and coco specific nutes. ANd i still flushed for 10days prior to harvest.

My second i grew from some clones which a friend gave me to grow out for him while my 1st grow was in flower and for these clones i used CANNA TERRA FLORES as i was also growing in soil at this point. During week 5 of flower of these clones i started finding the odd male banana so in my noobness decided to tweez these out and didnt do a very good job and they started developing immature seeds here and there. So in order to get a harvest from these clones i decided to run some GHE RIPEN through them for what i decided would be a 7week grow. ( i know RIDDLEME you will probably slate me for using something like this remember i was a noob) so i basically was feeding these clones right up to harvest. I did not flush and after drying they went through a 2 week initial cure. total cure was around 4 weeks before i smoked it all lol. I did not find that there were any ill tastes after the 4weeks. Initially after a week or so it wasnt the greatest but it got better with more curing.

I am currently in the middle of my 3rd grow and i am planning on keeping a tight control of EC to stop excess salts etc from building up by reducing my EC level if they begin to burn etc.

I have been reading an article about EC control and that how flushing a plant with Plain ph'd water can have detrimental and physialogical effects on plants due to the osmotic pressure being reduced in the root zone.

In this article it talks about flushing with plain PH'd water to actually be bad for the plant due to the fact that the plant has been sitting in a normal or high EC medium. It also says it is not recommended to do this as it causes the plant cells to suddenly take up huge volumes of water because the osmotic pressure has been dropped in the root zone which can cause cells to burst and create major physiological problems. Splitting of tomatoe fruit is one common one many other fruits and vegetables do the same thing. Even a low strength nutrient can do this, any changes in EC in the root zone should be done slowly (ie over days) so a gradual dropping back of the EC over a few days should be done rather than flushing with water. Or better still dont let EC build up in the first place.


Now i understand that this is related to tomatoes etc but the theory would be the same for all plants i would have thought.

So on this new grow i as mentioned above rather than flushing my plants to remove built up salts i will be gradually lowering the EC to allow the plant to gently get back on track. Now i know this may not be the norm but i am treating this grow as an experiment as i am using up my bagseed before i grow a WW mother.
I will be using nutes right up until the last 2 waterings the plants get when i will use a flush additive on 1 watering and then a good flush with plain ph6 water on the last then allow them to dry a little before the harvest.

So far RIU has helped me to successfully grow 2 crops and i too can sometimes give conflicting information as i seem to get brain fry from time to time due to all the research i do. EC crop steering is my latest research.

I have an old grow guru on hand whenever i need to call him who used to MED grow in the US and he told me that he never used to flush any of his plants like they do now. He told me that he would back off the strength of his nutes during the final 2 weeks but never cut them completely.

So i can see where all you older growers are coming from and it is something which is sinking into this 30yr old brain, why let your girls starve when they need food the most during those final few weeks.

I think i have been converted to never flushing madly for 10days before harvest ever again.

thanks Riddleme for the good advice and knowledge you have shared and i hope this post was informative even if sometimes slightly off topic lol.

TOLD YOU BRAIN FRY lol

If anyone wants to hear about Crop steering using EC levels let me know.

I have some articles i can quote with page numbers mag titles etc.

I feel like a research whore lol


J

 

[riddleme]

Thank you J
that is the kind of discussion/debate that makes a thread good, sharing ideas research and experiences is how we improve our crops

 

[jondamon]

Thank you J
that is the kind of discussion/debate that makes a thread good, sharing ideas research and experiences is how we improve our crops

I always try to share my experiences but sometimes i get confused on things which i have read and not had the chance to try. which is why i am trying the EC back off strategy this time rather than flushing if i get probs.

thanks for pointing this thread out to me i didnt realise there was something like this before i started my flushing thoughts thread.

J

 

[Favre2Harvin]

First of all I just want to say that you guys give great information, great thread and an awesome read, I had to read a few posts over and over to fully understand it but words from the wise. Thanks guys

 

[Favre2Harvin]

I think it all comes down to patience. Anybody that has picked buds early or smoked without cure knows the vast difference time, more than anything, can bring. People started hearing that chlorophyll makes the weed taste like hay, confused that with harsh (from chems), and got the grand idea to flush for two weeks instead of two waterings. Sounds great in paper, but then again if you're going to deprive the plant of its food and make it eat itself, why not just get it over with and harvest early?

I just finished my first harvest ever and my buds after 5 days of drying smell like what you described, hay. what would be the next step? can I put them into a jar this early? thanks for any input

Ok I admit that my question was a loaded one, designed to get folks to think and discuss/debate

I actually expected more haters on this one

It is not uncommon for it to rain in nature prior to harvest time so a flush of your medium is not wrong, it only takes 1 to 3 hours for water to reach the top of the plant during normal transporation so one extended flush prior to harvest is enough to cleanse the plants system

but here is the rub that most don't take the time to understand it is not the nutes or the chemicals that make the smoke harsh it is the sugars that the plant produces (burn some sugar and see what happens) when we "properly" dry and cure the fermentation process converts these sugars to alcohol and gives us the taste we are looking for. Most growers do not take the time to understand this process and therefore are unaware that N is required for the plant to perform this process.

I'm not saying that an MJ grower needs to know what ATP's, AGE's or NAD's are but they should at least take the time to know what the plant is doing when it dies and how this affects our smoke as this makes for a better end product

Riddleme, your words are of great help. but when you say only one extended flush prior to harvest what do you mean by "extended"

 

[riddleme]

by extended I mean to actually do the 3 times water thing ie; if in 1 gallon pot use 3 gallons of water

while it is true I flush every time I water it is usually just up to double so as example in a 1 gallon pot I would use 1 and 1/2 to 2 gallons to simply water

 

[Murfy]

this will be more than it seems-

my pots are 8 gallon, even a 2x thats 16 gallons x 8 pots, wow, so i did 3 gallons per pot for starters, this morning, and my girls look great actually!

i am going to install a through fitting in the floor, that can drain to waste, so it will be like a table only the floor

getting some foliage pro today, and am going to sprinkle some lime on the top of the soil, which will require a ph meter, going to buy strips, and hopefully i can just remain consistent

 

[Bulldog73]

Whiteflour nailed it. The salts are flushed, not the green. The yellowing is just a good indicator that you flushed well. Some plants may not yellow, that is not the point of flushing. Nutes are not GREEN!

Actually the yellowing of leaves during flowering has nothing to do with flushing. When you are in flowering mode, the plant will send all production through it hormones (auxins) to the buds for the most part. The yellow is because all the Nitrogen is being directed AWAY from vegative growth and instead it is going towards bud production and resin...

As to the discussion of flushing, there is tons of science behind it.. I am not going to post links or site sources but a real good one to start with is Ed Rosenthal's newest book.. Unless you like crackly bad tasting weed, I would suggest you flush but to each their own.. take a strain like Blueberry.... Run it side by side and flush with one and don't with the other.. Dry for a week and let cure in a jar for 3-4 weeks. The aroma and flavor will be so drastically different that even a first time smoker would notice... I have actually done this with Blueberry a few years ago to see if I could notice a difference and I did. Since then I have always flushed and everything I have read since then (including Oaksterdam University - which I am/was a part of) Advises flushing. Not a teacher or anything but I did do the 13 week full semester which included about 13 hours of lab time dealing specifically with nothing but growing weed up to and including harvest, dry and cure... I don't think I learned to much new there but it was nice to have your knowledge base assesed and confirmed..

 

[EmeraldCraic]

your very welcome, glad my ranblings helped you

Maybe you shoulda called yourself RambleOn ...

Good read, thanks Riddle

Em

 

[bigv1976]

One of your finest threads Riddle!! Excellent reading man, Thanks!

 

[Lil Czr]

In my years of experience, and I'm nipping the heels of Riddle there.

Flushing to remove nutes/improve flavor is one of the biggest growing myths that I have encountered.

It's on par with the "boil the roots to improve potency" bit.

If you are a soil/outdoor grower, it's just about impossible to flush all the nutrients out of soil.

Soil is continually breaking down into simpler forms useable to plants, so you would only be wasting your time.

But I'm only speaking from experience.

 

[ElectricPineapple]

well i do see the truth in flushing out the excess salts in the soil, but as to pertain flushing for two weeks, is unnecessary. which i also think atrributes some to the yellowing of fan leaves.

 

[jondamon]

I would just like to add some more experience here.

I had up'd all my plants to an EC level of 1.8 during veg and one in perticular began to show signs of burning. So i then dropped them all back to an EC level of 1.5 intially and continued to drop this a further .1 down to 1.4. With the plant that had burned rather than just giving it approx 1/2 gallon of feed like the other plants had to get my desired 20% runoff, i gave it 4.5 gallons with the EC at 1.4. This has now stopped all burning and new growth is coming out fine.

So my plan of not flushing using Plain Ph'd water is well under way.

I will stress though that i will be flushing once with a flush additive and once without an additive prior to harvest. This will be done over the course of around 8 days. I WILL NOT BE FLUSHING FOR 2 WEEKS.


Thought you guys might like this addition to the Thread.


Here is my grow

https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/325988-4-plants-seed-experiment.html

Check it out.

J

 

[Nitegazer]

Great read Riddle et. al. It is a pleasant experience to read a thread without all the vitriol and ego. We are all pursuing the same goal, after all.

Riddle: I think that your consistantly professional attitude sets the tone for your threads--- perhaps thats why you didn't get the haters you expected.

The only thing I would like to add is that I don't smoke-- I vape. I still spend some effort on curing, but find that it has much less impact on flavor than if I burn the weed up. I also just flush heavily on the last watering.

I would love more input on threads like these from folks who vape to learn the optimal harvesting and curing approach...

 

[jondamon]

Hey All

I just thought i would post a pic of my plant that experienced the burning from the EC1.8 to show you what backing off the EC gradually has done.

With this plant i experienced serious nute burn over a couple of days and had to back off the EC stength gradually. Lowering with each watering to drop the osmotic pressure in the root zone down gradually without flushing vast amounts of plain ph'd water through it.

I did however use around 1 and a half times the volume of my pot to water this plant while it was experiencing difficulties.

I have included a before picture of the plant with the burning and 2 after pics.

The time between these sets of pics were around 2weeks.
It does take some time to lower the EC so you have to be prepared to wait but i think by doing this also helps to stop any difficiencies from happening as the EC was only lowered by around 0.4 before i made my way back up to full strength at 1.5.


Hope this has helped to get people to understand that there is no need to flush with vast amounts of plain ph'd water to correct your problems.


J

 

[Rocky Mountain High]

ok read up on the other, and it's VERY interesting

drown your plants instead of cuttin em, i knew an old hippie who would boil the root balls of his harvested plants, and swore by it, does that tie in to this somehow?

This sparked something I remember from awhile back that I wrote. Wanted to see what you guys thought of it.

Hey guys, while looking ahead in my current reading endeavor, Marijuana Botany An Advanced Study: The Propagation and Breeding of Distinctive Cannabis by Robert Connell Clarke I came across this and wanted to get your opinions.

"It was once thought by cultivators that boiling the roots would force resins to the floral clusters. In actuality, there are very few resins within the vascular system of the plant and most of the resins have been secreted in the heads of glandular trichromes. Once resins are secreted they are no longer water-soluble and are not part of the vascular system. As a result, neither boiling nor any other process will move resins and cannabinoids around the plant.

However, boiling the roots does lengthen the drying time of the whole plant. Boiling the roots shocks the stomata of the leaves and forces them to close immediately; less water vapor is allowed to escape and the floral clusters dry more slowly. If the leaves are left intact when drying, the water evaporates through the leaves instead of through the flowers."

Now it would seem to me that the cultivators in the first paragraph believed that resins moved to the floral clusters, for a reason. Was this an advanced, albeit unbeknown st, to them drying system? Did this possibly enhance or preserve the THC better making them think they were getting more resin to the buds?

I know we are talking about slow how about slower and not through the flowers?

 

[riddleme]

This sparked something I remember from awhile back that I wrote. Wanted to see what you guys thought of it.

Hey guys, while looking ahead in my current reading endeavor, Marijuana Botany An Advanced Study: The Propagation and Breeding of Distinctive Cannabis by Robert Connell Clarke I came across this and wanted to get your opinions.

"It was once thought by cultivators that boiling the roots would force resins to the floral clusters. In actuality, there are very few resins within the vascular system of the plant and most of the resins have been secreted in the heads of glandular trichromes. Once resins are secreted they are no longer water-soluble and are not part of the vascular system. As a result, neither boiling nor any other process will move resins and cannabinoids around the plant.

However, boiling the roots does lengthen the drying time of the whole plant. Boiling the roots shocks the stomata of the leaves and forces them to close immediately; less water vapor is allowed to escape and the floral clusters dry more slowly. If the leaves are left intact when drying, the water evaporates through the leaves instead of through the flowers."

Now it would seem to me that the cultivators in the first paragraph believed that resins moved to the floral clusters, for a reason. Was this an advanced, albeit unbeknown st, to them drying system? Did this possibly enhance or preserve the THC better making them think they were getting more resin to the buds?

I know we are talking about slow how about slower and not through the flowers?

I have that book and consider it one of the good books out there, and I agree that leaving the leaves on is important, seems to me this is just one more reason that is true

nice post and nice way to think outside the box, we need more growers that take these nuggets of info to the next level

 

[dudeoflife]

Hey Riddle-

Nice thread here. Many interesting points to consider for both sides!

Now my two cents:

I'm a proponent for flushing, but not for the reasons/ myths that surround feeding your plants nothing but h20 your last weeks. I've gone down both roads- flushing, feeding til the end- and I haven't really ever noticed a difference in the quality of the end product, yield, etc. Not that I lack attention to detail...

If the plant is super healthy to begin with , it'll take a while to show any adverse signs of being fed nothing but h20.

No difference. So I save me nutes. I "flush" to save money!

 

[Magnificient]

I think that in my time here at RIU I have actually asked 3 questions (I could be wrong) but I think I have a question that could spark some good discussion, allow me to preface it a bit,,,,,,,,,,,

Some of you know that I'm in my 50's so been around awhile, I have noticed in my everyday life that common sense seems to be disappearing from our culture, though I am not sure why. I have learned to happily live my life based on common sense, logic and deductive reasoning. I make choices after doing research (and I do deep research, actually trying to prove myself, idea or belief wrong)

I was reading a thread earlier and this question popped into my head, it was a question that I could not answer, but common sense tells me that it does not make any sense what so ever and all of my research tells me that it is nonsense?

So let me ask and lets get the debate going cause I actually am very curious,,,,,,

It is a very common/popular belief/practice to stop feeding nutes and flush only during the last 2 weeks before harvest, this is based on the notion that we are removing nutes from the plant to improve taste and reduce harshness. The result of this practice is that the plant starts pulling stored nutes from the leaves and the leaves start yellowing.

But we don't smoke the leaves, we smoke the buds and the buds don't yellow they stay healthy alive and green till the end because the plant is pulling the nutes from the leaves, So how does this popular practice remove nutes from the buds that we smoke???

Can anyone please explain how this works???

I'm in my fifties too and I never could make sense of flushing the last two weeks...maybe it's an age thing??? I'm not flushing mine until it makes sense to do so. There's a lot of practices going on that make no sense...somebody tried them, they seemed to work and caught on. Trimming lower leaves, stopping nitrogen during flowering, 24 hours of light during veg...none of these make sense to me, so I don't do any of them. What we need is for somebody with the resources to do a side-by-side where all things are equal except that one group gets flushed and the other does not. This would at least tell us if flushing is beneficial, though I suspect that it is not.

I'm on a break right now. I'll read the whole post when I get off work. Thanks for bringing this up we both might learn something.