Ice Water Flush & Darkness Before Harvest

[CA215]

Goodmorning 420 community,

Getting ready for the big cut and have been doing research on a few topics.. Did a quick skim of the FAQ and couldn't come up with anything, Note I have not tried any of these techniques, this thread will be for advice & experiences. Final flushes using ice/cold water to produce more beastly trich build up, to help mature remaining clear trich, and possibly a change in color in your flowers. And a period of darkness (I've read anywhere from 24 hours to 36 hours) before harvesting to stress your girl out into making her think she needs to preserve her buds, in which nutrients get removed from fan leaves and sucked back up into your buds.

Been through countless forums and open sites with people explaining their experiences with these methods..

I've concluded with the information I've read Im going to use the median of everyones information.

I will be experimenting first with 3 final flushes, first with molasses and water (regular temp), and the last two will be ice water. I will be watering consecutively each day in the morning when I wake, about 2 gallons each flush. First flush with water/molasses I will keep her in the tent for the first day, and with the ice water flushes she will be getting 48 hours darkness before chop to view the change in trich build up. Going to take scope shots before and after, same nug! Will be performing this within the next 1 - 2 weeks!

Input welcome and appreciated!!!

Thanks,

CA

 

[OG1969]

Really looking forward to what the results are , I can see where the cooler water temp my help trick the plant into thinking winter is coming lets build some resin. And the dark period does work went 48 hours last harves and it was a night and day difference when I went into the tent. Will be watching this one you may be onto something there CA, Peace OG.

 

[CA215]

Thanks for the response OG, Wanted to also write out i'm not giving it frigid waters just cold water they've never had before, my water is always room temp (70-75) so thinking with a few ice cubes I could get the water to about 60ish. Rascal OG has started flush this morning, 2 gallons w/ 5ml molasses/gal cleaning up the tent, letting her pot drip out in the tub, then ill get some micros up for comparison

 

[OG1969]

I think you are still on the right path a little cooler temp during flower will change the color not sure if just water will do that but it could who knows you may have just come accross something for an inside summer tent grow. I like the molasses mixed in will try that as well myself the organic soil I am using and the little beasties may love it and in return give a little move love to the plant. LOok foward to the macros,OG

 

[CA215]

Tent hovers at 70-71 at night. Little to much smoke in the morning and I don't add everything into my first post.... I plan on setting the plants by the screen and leaving the door half way open at night. The nights for the entire week are 52-54, sounds like a good colder temp. I have tied off the branch and nug I will be watching, one of the leader top nugs, going to try to get the closest scope shot below... we will see how that goes LOL. I chose the nug that seemed to be medium size to try to stay along a "median" throughout this small experiment. Would also like to note, there are about 20-25% amber already throughout other nugs and this one looked nice and milky/clear, figured it would be the right one to use to actually seem amber form! Rascal OG an hour or so after flush #1.

 

[AudioBassiks]

going to stick around to watch this

 

[KarlJay]

Looking forward to seeing the results!

I wonder if dropping the temps in the grow room and maybe shorter lights on would help as well.

Something like cutting the temps by 5 deg and 1/2 hour shorter lights on cycle.

 

[TanR]

Subbed

 

[AudioBassiks]

i would assume what ever you do too make the plant think its going to dye soon its going to do everything it can to try to live on next spring, so the days get way shorter and the weather colder, so i am sure both would work.. when i went from 12/12 to 11/13 i noteice they where more cyrstly if this is due to the light being shorter or the bug getting older idk but 11 hours cost less

 

[CA215]

i would assume what ever you do too make the plant think its going to dye soon its going to do everything it can to try to live on next spring, so the days get way shorter and the weather colder, so i am sure both would work.. when i went from 12/12 to 11/13 i noteice they where more cyrstly if this is due to the light being shorter or the bug getting older idk but 11 hours cost less

I had wanted to do the one hour shift also to save some money on lights.. im only paying around $75/month for everything to be running so it wasn't that bad, I really didn't want to some how mess up my time schedule so I let it be. Don't want to fix something that is already working properly, ya kno? Hey Audio from your point of view did you notice a difference in density at all?

Thanks for tuning in everyone!

 

[AudioBassiks]

yes look at the journal,, but again not sure if its the feed getting older or what, bout the last 20 days seen huge growth ,,, to much of a renots to remeber everything ,, i wanna say i did the switch with a 24hour of darkness l and when i went too flower,,, another great thing about may switch,, light run at night huge price diff,, 7,694 per kwh to 1.254per kwh and when the meter guy reads the meter it ant spinging off the dial

 

[CA215]

Yikes.. I might have to do that next grow.. I barely sleep anyways so tending to them would be quite easy. That's a whole lot of extra cash for growing equipment and beans Last 2 weeks are awesome.. My buds are already noticeably getting chunky everyday, new pistils and trichs everywhere Heres a little crappy cropped picture of the experiment nug.

 

[JB42]

Hi CA215,

Good experiment man, I've always been interested to know if the dark cycle at the end actually works, I'l be watching this one....

 

[AudioBassiks]

i read somewhere or someone told me of a diffrent light sseq like 36 hour dark 24 lighht 12 dark 20 light i forget it may be in my leronal

 

[AudioBassiks]

ill tell you the suck part is i try to sleep at night bed bout 1 am wake around 6 check on the plants then bac too sleep... for a few more hours then the lights or off on the flower side and i cant look at them all day ,, and i want too soo bad,, before the other night i had my office set up in there work from the home.. we make decals and shit,, but it suced cuz i had to work at night i moved all that stuff out and now grow is the only thing in that room .. it worked out as well due there is nw no reason to go into that room (cable guys and stufflike that..) now i am all set after this harvest too mae the closet bigger going to go to a 4x5x7 foot room and ill have 2 shit sorry i rambled

 

[CA215]

Stick around and give her a check. I wish I could edit my first post when I start threads like this(EDIT: Atleast I got the top of Page 2! Sweeeeeeet..) So I changed my mind. Nothing to drastic at all. I went with another 2 gal phd water flush, 5ml molasses per gal.

So we went with 2 consecutive flushes with molasses, tomorrow morning will be the first of two cold water flushes, clean pH'd water.
What will be 4/25, the day of second cold water flush, I will be removing rascal from the tent to start her 48 hours darkness in my closet. I have a mini AC unit I will set up to keep it very cool, if it doesn't get cold enough I will set her by the back door and leave it open throughout the night, wake up early before sun comes out and put her in the cool dark closet. Rascal is still pushing out major growth, contradicing myself thinking I started this a little too early, don't know how that's possible with all the amber already showing!

Side note. I smoked a bud I clipped off rascal before the flush, been drying for the past 3 days. Ripped her in the bong, and my oh my, the smell of the bud is what you taste.. Can't wait to cure this shit to optimum potential

 

[CA215]

4/24/13 - First cold water flush was given to Rascal OG this morning, 2 gallons pH'd water 6 ice cubes tomorrow morning she will get a slightly colder & larger flush to finish her watering off, i'm thinking 4 gallons just to make sure she isn't keeping ahold of shit I don't want sucked back up into her system I will let her run herself dry for the following couple days under the 600W then relinquish her to the closet, 36 - 48 hours night life. Below I have some scopes of the experiment nug... You don't understand how hard I tried to get the exact micro on the first page, 15 to 20 minutes later I gave up and took a good handful! Enjoy.

 

[KarlJay]

So you're looking at harvesting that in a few days?

I'm not seeing any amber trichs and your talking about harvesting in a few days.

It's hard to tell, but basically it looks like your mostly coudy w/ still some clear. Am I wrong?

I don't count the ones that are out of focus, because they might look amberish and not be truly amber.

Do you think you're just a few days out?

Also, as a reference, maybe a non-closeup shot of the plant would be nice.

I talked with a few locals today about this test project, they agree this should have results. In fact, he suggest that my room temp (81) was too high and if I was about 5 deg down it would help the plant more.

He also suggested that I'm VERY close to getting the amber trichs.

I bought some molasses and I'll be using that today, and I've been cutting the lights by about 15 min, I'll cut it to 11.5 hours on soon.

 

[CA215]

Im only noticing the amber trichs on the outer tips on each nug, can only wonder why. Maybe they are the older part of the nug, they are closest to the light, the tips start producing amber before the rest. Im not really too sure to say the least. I was basing my "%" off of what I saw on those tips. The buds are definitely still growing, there are these nice fat clusters of 5-10 white/yellow pistils that pop up throughout the buds, ready to pick whenever and i'm kinda running this as a experimental thing. I smoked a little nug already and got me a nice clean high but nothing too prolonged, very short. I still have, 1-2 weeks for harvesting, maybe even 3. If she doesn't look well off in 3-5 days i'll flush once again with cold water and proceed with the experiment. I will wait to see atleast 5% amber on the buds themselves, even if the tips im seeing them on mainly right now are full amber I will wait. I try to stay away from couch lock buds, so for my tent harvest im shooting for in my mind 25% night time bud and 75% day time bud, and the rascal being a hybrid already it is hard to gauge it. I personally would just rather have more milky lets see..... pictures, think I uploaded some today,

 

[KarlJay]

So I guess this test is over now because of the hermie? That really sucks, looked like a good test.