Should I flush?

[Shootzz]

*sigh*
I know this probably isn't the first time someone asks this but damn I just cant get my head around it. So this is my autoflower (auto blue diesel) and it's reaching the end of flower. I want to flush a week before harvest but I cant tell when she's ready for it. I know I have to look at the trichomes but it's confusing me. In my opinion the trichomes look milky/clear so I'm thinking flushing is the right call. But when I look at the bud form it looks like she's not ready at all. There is some bud on her but the calyxes are not swolen enough it looks like, wich is why I'm struggling to make a decision.

Here are photos of the trichomes on the bud:

I hope the quality is good enough.

Here are the buds as a whole:

I just need some second opinions because I'm not sure. Appreciate it

 

[013]

Yes the same question was just asked a couple of spots above yours. Bottom line flushing is good to remove built up salts from grow media - but flushing does not improve taste or remove nutes from plant bio-mass. InTheShed - No Flush Club < check out that link.

You still want to make harvest decisions based on trich colors. Common advice is wait until you think she’s ready and give her another week or two. However the trich pic you posted is fuzzy. It looks like you are both cloudy & amber. Can you drop a better pic?

 

[Elvin]

If you are in soil, it is pointless to do so.
Just how does one flush all nutrients out of soil?
I'm in the no-flush club like the Shed so anything I say needs to have that taken into consideration.
But as above, it does not improve the taste so why bother?

 

[013]

What’s up Mr Elvin?

Agreed you can’t flush soil effectively, how do you flush 500 acres of corn or cannabis? Not possible.

 

[Elvin]

Given I have 3 feet of water in my well, there has been no flushing of any fields around here.
You are obviously correct, just how does someone flush a field of cannabis?

 

[Shootzz]

Thanks for the replies, I have never heard of the no flush club haha. But if true then I guess i shouldn't be flushing. It's just that everywhere you look for information, they always advise flushing the plant. Like, they always mention it and also for soil or coco etc. It's common believe that it will affect the taste if not flushed right? (I see they mention it in the thread you linked.) I'm going to look more into this no flushing theory because then I could keep feeding my plant.(?) Also, are all of the pictures fuzzy? I think I posted three trichome photos and it's hard to take them in good quality but if necessary I try to take some more. Thanks again

 

[013]

Ah no worries man. Yes it’s all over the web, I think it’s more of a hydro thing that pushed it to the forefront and yes supposedly for improving taste. I’ve always said folks grow in bat guano for 3 months and expect a little water works to erase what the plant absorbed over 90 days of growth - silly idea. No just the trich pics were fuzzy to me. I used to be able to read the serial number on an ants backside from 20 paces but no longer. Sure, hope it works out good for you!

 

[013]

Elvin - My multiquote is hosed up. Oh shit 3 feet is sucking mud! Sorry to hear about that man. Is it a wide bored well or deep bored? May be wrong terminology on my part there.

Reason I ask is about 10 years ago we hit a dry spell couple summers in a row. Then I noticed the deep bore well drilling rigs all up and down the community. It seems all the old wide bored wells (think it’s 32 inch diameter) dried up as the community requirements tapped out the water tables. In the end dozens of family’s had to go with the 8 inch wide deep bored wells. Hope that’s not the case for you.

I think the wide bored wells were either hand dug or bored with a rig but only went down 40 to 60 feet, these wells were in soil but not down to bedrock. The new wells that replaced them were like 60 feet of dirt then sleeved changed drill bits then drill thru rock another hundred or two hundred foot deeper to hit water and allow for reservoir capacity.

I know mine was like 90 foot of dirt & the rest thru granite & we hit 60 gpm down at 400 foot deep.

 

[013]

Hey Shootz, there is no flush club 1 and no flush club 2 on InTheShed’s signature line. Might save some digging and pretty thorough explanations on both.

 

[Shootzz]

Thanks 013 . And for the photos, I can't get closer with my camera it's the best I can do. Here is another fuzzy one, maybe this one is better but I doubt it.

 

[Elvin]

Elvin - My multiquote is hosed up. Oh shit 3 feet is sucking mud! Sorry to hear about that man. Is it a wide bored well or deep bored? May be wrong terminology on my part there.

Reason I ask is about 10 years ago we hit a dry spell couple summers in a row. Then I noticed the deep bore well drilling rigs all up and down the community. It seems all the old wide bored wells (think it’s 32 inch diameter) dried up as the community requirements tapped out the water tables. In the end dozens of family’s had to go with the 8 inch wide deep bored wells. Hope that’s not the case for you.

I think the wide bored wells were either hand dug or bored with a rig but only went down 40 to 60 feet, these wells were in soil but not down to bedrock. The new wells that replaced them were like 60 feet of dirt then sleeved changed drill bits then drill thru rock another hundred or two hundred foot deeper to hit water and allow for reservoir capacity.

I know mine was like 90 foot of dirt & the rest thru granite & we hit 60 gpm down at 400 foot deep.

3 ft is where the foot valve is above the bottom and the water is 3 more feet to the bottom. You just wait for a few hours and the foot valve goes below the water level and you can get more water.
It's a 4 ft diameter brick-lined well so I'm looking around 300 gallons before the mud.
I'm waiting on a toilet repair kit to stop around a 1-quart hourly flow there and my tub faucet does a gallon every couple of hours in its drip (into a 5-gallon bucket now) so right there will make a difference. That drip is great in the winter to prevent freezing but in a drought it sucks.
1 week until a good rain so I going to break out the old tightie whities to have clean underwear until then

 

[013]

Better than last but still but fuzzy, I’m kinda stoned too but heh! I think I see plenty of cloudy and amber too. Definitely in the harvest window. I know the high brix growers often reported they never reached amber trichs no matter how many weeks they ran. I’ve heard some Auto growers say similar stuff. Her pistils are both whiteish and orange but typically they will stop producing new white pistils, the existing ones will change colors to all orange or brown or pink depending on strain genetics and the pistils will shrink up.

 

[013]

Our old farm in mountains was rigged with a 1 inch pipe straight fed from a spring that had a well tile placed around it. We had continuous water running thru the kitchen sink year round for the same “no freeze” situation. It was crazy - the old timers that put it in had spring water running uphill about 8 feet in elevation without a pump. Who said water doesn’t go up hill?

Yes fixing those small continuous drips will go a long ways. Hope it rains monsoon style out there and that you’ve got more than 1 pair of tighty whiteys.

 

[Elvin]

I know the high brix growers often reported they never reached amber trichs no matter how many weeks they ran.

That is interesting and nice to know others have that issue. I don't do the high-brix but between Kelp4Less's line, Chitosan Oligosaccharide (Bud Factor X's "secret ingredient"), and Triacontanol (Humboldt County's Snow Storm's "secret ingredient" the likely culprit given it is used to increase trichomes; hence "snowstorm";-) I too do not see much amber.
Buying the ingredients is so much cheaper than having someone dissolve a little in some water then ship that heavy water to you, that I know I use more than those two companies recommend; I still do the same for pennies instead of dollars even though I waste a lot.

 

[Elvin]

Our old farm in mountains was rigged with a 1 inch pipe straight fed from a spring that had a well tile placed around it. We had continuous water running thru the kitchen sink year round for the same “no freeze” situation. It was crazy - the old timers that put it in had spring water running uphill about 8 feet in elevation without a pump. Who said water doesn’t go up hill?

Yes fixing those small continuous drips will go a long ways. Hope it rains monsoon style out there and that you’ve got more than 1 pair of tighty whiteys.

Around here evidently, you can drill deep enough and start pulling natural gas off the water.
My little unincorporated Iowa town had a natural gas operation until the blizzards of 1906 took out the wells.

 

[013]

A lot of people are nearing high brix without even knowing it and without refracting leaf sugars they will never know. Yes that water and the diesel fuel to ship it don’t come cheap.

 

[013]

Wow natural gas in the water - that would not inspire confidence.

 

[Elvin]

Wow natural gas in the water - that would not inspire confidence.

I just went without power from that storm from Monday to Thursday.
You can buy dual fuel 6500-watt generators for under $600.
That is way more than I use even with air conditioning so free natural gas is not only free heat but free electricity as well.
Not something I'd try to do but it would be great to have the "problem".
There is an obscure website that has a thread about gas in well water. Someone brought up that he lived in a part of Illinois that everyone used to have free heat from their water wells.
Evidently you make something similar to how those biodigesters (makes methane out of hog crap) compress the methane prior to the generators.
If I drill a well it won't need to go more than 60 feet so I doubt it would be gassy at that level.
Besides this is not the first time I've dealt with a low well. Soon it will be harvest time and the farmers will be bitching about wet fields.
I used to work for a seed corn producer and every year they would "go" until the cob pickers would need to be dragged out by a four-wheel-drive tractor then they would just go until they buried them again. They would pick in the rain if the corn was ready to be dried and did it every year like that including last year.
It will be very unusual if they aren't bitching and crying about the harvest and the rain in a little over a month.

 

[Stunned]

I say flush it!
Starve it, and give it the shock it needs to finish off fast

 

[013]

Yes, shit I just heard about the storm on the news tonight. There are really cool ways to go off grid and beat the system if you aren’t afraid of getting dirty and us country folks seem to love the dirt, I know I do. Well shit I hope you can get by with the drought conditions until serious rainfall makes up the ground water difference. Yeah, like I mentioned here they dried up the bulk of the ground water wells and had to go deep, but I guesss some of these issues run in decades long cycles but with population increases this may be the new normal.

I live pretty close to what would be deemed as unacceptable to most folks but I’m happy as a clam because I know how to get by on very little. It’s nice to have creature comforts but I can make it easily with the minimum. I’ve been working on prepping and want to be well stocked in case of emergency or tough times.

I hope you get it worked out to you satisfaction!