Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Well I made it the end of this and it has truly shown me that the internet is full of plenty of experienced growers that don't understand what they are doing. This thread is the epitome of the blind leading the blind.

This site is for entertainment only. 50% truth 50% hype.

Seeking truth is a valuable pursuit. More cannabis farmers should seek it out, don't you think?

 

[ShiggityFlip]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Well I made it the end of this and it has truly shown me that the internet is full of plenty of experienced growers that don't understand what they are doing. This thread is the epitome of the blind leading the blind.

This site is for entertainment only. 50% truth 50% hype.

I assure you I know exactly what I am doing. It's real easy for you to come in here and make a blanket statement without any eveidence or examples. I find the kind of post you have just made to be a completely useless one. Welcome to the forums.

 

[jgrow1103]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

For dropping humidity and giving more dark is to make her think she is dying and resin is to catch pollen, by tricking her into death mode she produces much more resin for Mother Nature reasoning of procreating I do it every grow and get some frosty ladies

What % relative humidity?

 

[Jonyoudyer]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

I personally flush the last 2 weeks with treacle water only and defoliate a bit too it makes some bloody sweet tasting buds! Nice and frosty too

Just my 2 cents

What's treacle water?

 

[Agemon]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

What's treacle water?

I think he meant to say testicle water, kinda like a tea bagging of the plants!

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

I think he meant to say testicle water, kinda like a tea bagging of the plants!

hahahaha that's good one.. maybe dunks balls in bucket of water & water in to trick the ladies into thinking there's a guy in the room... something like that??

Actually I run REG seeds all the time and I will put a male plant in the room with ripening Ladies and the perk up and EVERY TIME will throw out a shit ton more pistols. Do that with a watering in of malted barley tea and watch the craziness. It takes about a week for the male to drop his balls so for that 4-5 days the ladies are all swooning for attention.

 

[Simon de Montefort]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Very interesting thread here. In my opinion, we all just have to do our homework. Be exact in the Data we write down here in our Journals. I see so many Journals that are just like: Hey i have 500W of whatever LED with whatever Spectrum, growing in soil using White whidow Auto. I mean, what the Fuck? This is just not useful. The sense of a journal is to write down exactly what we are doing. And if we want to be scientific, this has to be as much data as possible, measured under the same circumstances everytime and measured periodly. If more people do it like this, we all have less to argue about, and more to share with each other, making it more easy to find out whats true or not.

 

[Agemon]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Very interesting thread here. In my opinion, we all just have to do our homework. Be exact in the Data we write down here in our Journals. I see so many Journals that are just like: Hey i have 500W of whatever LED with whatever Spectrum, growing in soil using White whidow Auto. I mean, what the Fuck? This is just not useful. The sense of a journal is to write down exactly what we are doing. And if we want to be scientific, this has to be as much data as possible, measured under the same circumstances everytime and measured periodly. If more people do it like this, we all have less to argue about, and more to share with each other, making it more easy to find out whats true or not.

Yeah but some of us are just growing some pers and having fun. I hear you though, i think many growers evolve to the level you're talking about, but that takes time and the goal of producing high quantity as well as high quality. Gotta crawl before you walk.

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Very interesting thread here. In my opinion, we all just have to do our homework. Be exact in the Data we write down here in our Journals. I see so many Journals that are just like: Hey i have 500W of whatever LED with whatever Spectrum, growing in soil using White whidow Auto. I mean, what the Fuck? This is just not useful. The sense of a journal is to write down exactly what we are doing. And if we want to be scientific, this has to be as much data as possible, measured under the same circumstances everytime and measured periodly. If more people do it like this, we all have less to argue about, and more to share with each other, making it more easy to find out whats true or not.

Confused..... this is not a journal.... so not sure why you're mentioning it.

I think this thread is an argument for flushing which is/has/always will be complete non-sense.

Only reason I'm here is to let folks know this process in not based on any science known to man. If fact quite the opposite. Exception being soil-less medium, I'm not going to argue just point out that is where this paradigm comes from and someone somewhere decided it works for container gardening in soil... and it evolved from there.

 

[Simon de Montefort]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Confused..... this is not a journal.... so not sure why you're mentioning it.

I think this thread is an argument for flushing which is/has/always will be complete non-sense.

Only reason I'm here is to let folks know this process in not based on any science known to man. If fact quite the opposite. Exception being soil-less medium, I'm not going to argue just point out that is where this paradigm comes from and someone somewhere decided it works for container gardening in soil... and it evolved from there.

You´re right, this is not a Journal. The Point is, in all that Journals out here, you often didn´t find enough Information to make them really useful in case of getting data from them that is detailed enough. If their where more detailled Journals, we would be able to make our conclusions just by following them. You would be able to see if flsuhing makes sense or not. If you have to Journals, Booth lets say Blue Dream Auto, booth detailed and everything, one with flush, one with feeding till harvest, just compare them afterwards and see the results. Of course, 2 Journals are not enough to be scientific, but with a growing number of Journals like these, their would be more and more knowledge aviable that is not based on just experience.

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

You´re right, this is not a Journal. The Point is, in all that Journals out here, you often didn´t find enough Information to make them really useful in case of getting data from them that is detailed enough. If their where more detailled Journals, we would be able to make our conclusions just by following them. You would be able to see if flsuhing makes sense or not. If you have to Journals, Booth lets say Blue Dream Auto, booth detailed and everything, one with flush, one with feeding till harvest, just compare them afterwards and see the results. Of course, 2 Journals are not enough to be scientific, but with a growing number of Journals like these, their would be more and more knowledge aviable that is not based on just experience.

No I would not have to draw any conclusions reading journals ... not any scientific conclusions. There's WAY too many variables to draw any conclusions other than "dank nuggets grown here" ....

Flushing soil, your seriously suggesting better journaling would lead to an answer?

Lets throw common sense out the window.

If flushing was a thing, then every time it rains our outdoor soil would have all the nutrients "flushed" away somewhere..... does that happen?

 

[Simon de Montefort]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

No I would not have to draw any conclusions reading journals ... not any scientific conclusions. There's WAY too many variables to draw any conclusions other than "dank nuggets grown here" ....

Flushing soil, your seriously suggesting better journaling would lead to an answer?

Lets throw common sense out the window.

If flushing was a thing, then every time it rains our outdoor soil would have all the nutrients "flushed" away somewhere..... does that happen?

Of course i do. Compare two Journals. Booth flush, one tells you at some Point, that theres a flush. The other one, tells you that there is flush, but also tells you when exactlky the flush starts, run in ppm´s, run-off ppm´s and every Detail, like on every Day before in this Journal. Now imagine you want to learn something. What helps you more?

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Of course i do. Compare two Journals. Booth flush, one tells you at some Point, that theres a flush. The other one, tells you that there is flush, but also tells you when exactlky the flush starts, run in ppm´s, run-off ppm´s and every Detail, like on every Day before in this Journal. Now imagine you want to learn something. What helps you more?

The only scientific data you need to grow plants in soil... and that's any plant, is a soil test done at a scientific laboratory.

Flushing soil; doesn't matter how - when - where - runnoff PPMs (dont even know what that is??) - does nothing (well other than drown the roots). That my friend is science and fact. Don't need to compare journals .....

I flooded my plants roots with water..... OK great, did they die yet? The plants are dying now so I will harvest in 2 weeks.

I'm not sure about drawing any conclusions from that "data" other than if you drown your plants they will die. The reason the plant does not die overnight is a scientific fact in biology/botany called "translocation".

Definition of "translocation" quoted from biologyreference.com :

"Translocation is the movement of materials from leaves to other tissues throughout the plant. Plants produce carbohydrates (sugars) in their leaves by photosynthesis, but nonphotosynthetic parts of the plant also require carbohydrates and other organic and nonorganic materials. For this reason, nutrients are translocated from sources (regions of excess carbohydrates, primarily mature leaves) to sinks (regions where the carbohydrate is needed). Some important sinks are roots, flowers, fruits, stems, and developing leaves. Leaves are particularly interesting in this regard because they are sinks when they are young and become sources later, when they are about half grown."

That is the reason behind "senescence" or yellowing of leaves about half way thru the flowering process in cannabis plants (yellowing completely normal btw).


Best to draw conclusions based on science than from someone's backyard garden.

 

[Simon de Montefort]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

i agree with you. I don´t flush too. What i want to say is, if you can see on the journals that it doenst make sense at all, there will be no need to discuss if it makes any sense at all

 

[jgrow1103]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

The only scientific data you need to grow plants in soil... and that's any plant, is a soil test done at a scientific laboratory.

Flushing soil; doesn't matter how - when - where - runnoff PPMs (dont even know what that is??) - does nothing (well other than drown the roots). That my friend is science and fact. Don't need to compare journals .....

I flooded my plants roots with water..... OK great, did they die yet? The plants are dying now so I will harvest in 2 weeks.

I'm not sure about drawing any conclusions from that "data" other than if you drown your plants they will die. The reason the plant does not die overnight is a scientific fact in biology/botany called "translocation".

Definition of "translocation" quoted from biologyreference.com :

"Translocation is the movement of materials from leaves to other tissues throughout the plant. Plants produce carbohydrates (sugars) in their leaves by photosynthesis, but nonphotosynthetic parts of the plant also require carbohydrates and other organic and nonorganic materials. For this reason, nutrients are translocated from sources (regions of excess carbohydrates, primarily mature leaves) to sinks (regions where the carbohydrate is needed). Some important sinks are roots, flowers, fruits, stems, and developing leaves. Leaves are particularly interesting in this regard because they are sinks when they are young and become sources later, when they are about half grown."

That is the reason behind "senescence" or yellowing of leaves about half way thru the flowering process in cannabis plants (yellowing completely normal btw).


Best to draw conclusions based on science than from someone's backyard garden.

You don't ALWAYS get a yellowing of the leaves .

 

[Grenman420]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Originally Posted by growitsfun:
I have a theory. If the flowers are sinks....wouldnt the flush dilute (the sink water) the nutes already inside of the flowers which would result in smoother smoke and flavor?

I agree 100%, the ions will naturally diffuse across the concentration gradient.

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Originally Posted by growitsfun:
I have a theory. If the flowers are sinks....wouldnt the flush dilute (the sink water) the nutes already inside of the flowers which would result in smoother smoke and flavor?

I agree 100%, the ions will naturally diffuse across the concentration gradient.

Oh..... I never thought about the "concentration gradient" ...... you might be on to sumptin.... on your way to the medicine cabinet.

Research needed....

If that happened in a plant, I believe the plant would just go poof and blow up. In the flushing paradigm, water water water till the roots go poof...which actually might happen.

 

[TheFertilizer]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Oh..... I never thought about the "concentration gradient" ...... you might be on to sumptin.... on your way to the medicine cabinet.

Research needed....

If that happened in a plant, I believe the plant would just go poof and blow up. In the flushing paradigm, water water water till the roots go poof...which actually might happen.

After reading this thread, I pretty much gave up on "flushing", or leeching as I've been trying to get people to refer to it. We're talking about when you dump 3x the volume of the pot you're growing in through the soil in hopes it washes away excess nutrients right?

Okay, so, after I read this thread I decided that there's so much more sense for why this is detrimental to a plant. Pretty much the only instance in which this could be beneficial is in case of a nitrogen overdose; and even then, that's because nitrates are the only thing you're going to wash away. You'll still be killing off your microbial environment.

So for me I started thinking, "Okay, so how do I get rid of the need to wash salts out of my soil every 4 weeks?" and realized I need to use less salty fertilizers, and maybe eventually just start going total living-soil from the start. Anyway, long story short, I found a low-salt organic bottled fertilizer and I'm making the transition over, but to me it just doesn't make sense not to. If you're going to buy soil, don't sit there and kill the soil with salty fertilizers and over-irrigation.

But what I'm still fuzzy on, is should I stop giving them nutrients 2 weeks to harvest to give them that "flush" where they use up all the stored nutrients? I mean, frankly, this doesn't make sense to me just based on the time frame. If I stop giving them nutrients, there's plenty left in the soil to last them for 2 weeks, so I'm not really cutting anything off anyway. Meanwhile, I've always kind of fed pretty close to the cut off date in the past, even using synthetic nutrients, and never noticed a real bad taste--but maybe that's because I use low dose feeds--I hardly ever get above 1000 ppm.

So for my harvest in a couple of weeks I've just decided to keep giving it nutrients as usual. I don't expect it to effect the taste, but still have that urge to start giving it only plain water because of the whole 2 weeks flush tradition.

 

[bobrown14]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

After reading this thread, I pretty much gave up on "flushing", or leeching as I've been trying to get people to refer to it. We're talking about when you dump 3x the volume of the pot you're growing in through the soil in hopes it washes away excess nutrients right?

Okay, so, after I read this thread I decided that there's so much more sense for why this is detrimental to a plant. Pretty much the only instance in which this could be beneficial is in case of a nitrogen overdose; and even then, that's because nitrates are the only thing you're going to wash away. You'll still be killing off your microbial environment.

So for me I started thinking, "Okay, so how do I get rid of the need to wash salts out of my soil every 4 weeks?" and realized I need to use less salty fertilizers, and maybe eventually just start going total living-soil from the start. Anyway, long story short, I found a low-salt organic bottled fertilizer and I'm making the transition over, but to me it just doesn't make sense not to. If you're going to buy soil, don't sit there and kill the soil with salty fertilizers and over-irrigation.

But what I'm still fuzzy on, is should I stop giving them nutrients 2 weeks to harvest to give them that "flush" where they use up all the stored nutrients? I mean, frankly, this doesn't make sense to me just based on the time frame. If I stop giving them nutrients, there's plenty left in the soil to last them for 2 weeks, so I'm not really cutting anything off anyway. Meanwhile, I've always kind of fed pretty close to the cut off date in the past, even using synthetic nutrients, and never noticed a real bad taste--but maybe that's because I use low dose feeds--I hardly ever get above 1000 ppm.

So for my harvest in a couple of weeks I've just decided to keep giving it nutrients as usual. I don't expect it to effect the taste, but still have that urge to start giving it only plain water because of the whole 2 weeks flush tradition.

Well you bring up good points. Yes "flushing" will wash out EXCESS nitrogen and EXCESS salts... not from the plants roots and not from the plant. The plant will ONLY uptake what it needs for growth and that's it. So if you put in extra nitrates, whatever the plant doesn't need and the soil cannot hold on to with CEC (cation exchange capacity), yes that extra will wash out into the water table. The water that you and I need to use for potable water, it goes into the local water shed in the form of nitrates... there's all sorts of reasons why we shouldn't do that but thats another topic.

So we pollute the environment we live in the excess nitrates. That is a fact.
While we are at it, we are also killing off the microbiology in the soil that helps our plants grow.
So we put into the soil, nutrients in a form that can be directly absorbed by the plants roots bypassing the natural organic way plants uptake nutrients.

This is where the taste comes in (or lack of taste). Plants that grow with man made soluble nitrates that feed the plant and skip the natural cycle do not taste as good as plants that are grown organically. It will be the same with cannabis.

To experience what I'm talking about, go to your local food store and buy organically grown fruits or veggies; buy one of each, organic and one that is grown conventionally (with man made nitrates ect.). Eat them side by side... guarantee you can taste, smell and feel the difference with organically grown tasting much better.

Ok now lets go back to the plants that are grown with chemicals. Since we skipped past the natural cycle of soil microbes breaking down the nutrients for the plant in the symbiotic relationship the plants have with soil microbes guess what else happens. The plants immune system is not as strong as it should be and now enter pests and disease. Now we need special chemicals to fight off pests and disease. Ok so now we need to spray plants with pesticides etc with compounds that were never tested to be smoked by humans.

Getting back to the "flushing" ... the only accomplishment we achieve by this process is washing out excess nitrates that cannot be adsorbed by the soil or absorbed by the plants roots. No effect on plant other than probable damage to the root system.

So why waste the water.. it would be far better to use less fertilizer so there's no excess build up and water the last 3 weeks of growth.

I have a question. What do you folks do with soil after harvest that you grow in and use fertilizers on??

 

[TheFertilizer]

re: Flushing & Leaching & Final Bud Swell

Well you bring up good points. Yes "flushing" will wash out EXCESS nitrogen and EXCESS salts... not from the plants roots and not from the plant. The plant will ONLY uptake what it needs for growth and that's it. So if you put in extra nitrates, whatever the plant doesn't need and the soil cannot hold on to with CEC (cation exchange capacity), yes that extra will wash out into the water table. The water that you and I need to use for potable water, it goes into the local water shed in the form of nitrates... there's all sorts of reasons why we shouldn't do that but thats another topic.

So we pollute the environment we live in the excess nitrates. That is a fact.
While we are at it, we are also killing off the microbiology in the soil that helps our plants grow.
So we put into the soil, nutrients in a form that can be directly absorbed by the plants roots bypassing the natural organic way plants uptake nutrients.

This is where the taste comes in (or lack of taste). Plants that grow with man made soluble nitrates that feed the plant and skip the natural cycle do not taste as good as plants that are grown organically. It will be the same with cannabis.

To experience what I'm talking about, go to your local food store and buy organically grown fruits or veggies; buy one of each, organic and one that is grown conventionally (with man made nitrates ect.). Eat them side by side... guarantee you can taste, smell and feel the difference with organically grown tasting much better.

Ok now lets go back to the plants that are grown with chemicals. Since we skipped past the natural cycle of soil microbes breaking down the nutrients for the plant in the symbiotic relationship the plants have with soil microbes guess what else happens. The plants immune system is not as strong as it should be and now enter pests and disease. Now we need special chemicals to fight off pests and disease. Ok so now we need to spray plants with pesticides etc with compounds that were never tested to be smoked by humans.

Getting back to the "flushing" ... the only accomplishment we achieve by this process is washing out excess nitrates that cannot be adsorbed by the soil or absorbed by the plants roots. No effect on plant other than probable damage to the root system.

So why waste the water.. it would be far better to use less fertilizer so there's no excess build up and water the last 3 weeks of growth.

I have a question. What do you folks do with soil after harvest that you grow in and use fertilizers on??

That's what I tried, but what I found is that with some super salty synthetic nutrients, the salts build up so quickly even when using low dosages that it seems almost like a requirement to flush them out. I think that's part of the problem with the way people follow hydroponic growing techniques in soil that barely only make sense for soil-less.

But I also found the idea of amending my own natural soil and letting it cook up and all that to be less than accessible, and less "cheap" than what a lot of people espousing that method would have led me to believe... At least when it comes to upfront investment. It ain't exactly cheap sourcing ingredients from here, there, and often times paying exorbitant shipping costs, then finding a large container to mix in, the time to let a good mix decompose, etc. and so on. I feel like there's good reason people want to stick with bottled nutrients. That's why I've been trying to at least meet somewhere in the middle and use EarthJuice's liquid lineup. I'm not patting myself on the back for any ecological friendliness achieved ( if there's any at all ) through that choice, but as a selfish gardener I think it makes sense for my own well-being... I'm not fooled into believing they're completely organic, but they're pretty far from synthetic.

As for the soil, I tried reusing mine a lot, but on about the 3rd recycle I had a lot of major problems with a crop. I'm not sure if there may have been some kind of pathogen introduced, or maybe just the soil went bad from all the copious amounts of flushing in my futile pursuit to get the saltiness of my old nutrients out. So eventually it ended up in a trash bag in the dumpster.