Flushing not necessary

I've been doing some research on flushing. It seems to me based on what I have been reading that if you are growing onganically, it is not necessary. There are no chemicals or foul tasting nutrients to get rid of. I think a better stratergy, would be simply to lower the nutes slightly you are using, but not to eliminate them altogether. This will stress your plant less. Of course the addition of molasses will always be welcomed.
Peace

I would say on you're 5-6th week of using organic's stop feeding them that and change it up to molasses.
If you choose the 5th week, feed your plant only water starting the 4th week, add molasses 5th week untill harvest, this will allow the plant to use up the nutrients already in the soil and while you're feeding her molasses she will be soaking up most of the other nutrients in the soil while getting sweeter and sweeter.

Yeah, I don't know dude....I use foxfarm, and at 1st I was planning on stopping 2 weeks prior to harvest, but instead decided n continuing the nutes, just a little less. To this I added the molasses, and the weed tastes great! Even after only hanging for 3 days, we threw a bud into the pipe and it was fine. These were my results anyway.
Peace

TillthedayiDIE420 said:

I would say on you're 5-6th week of using organic's stop feeding them that and change it up to molasses.
If you choose the 5th week, feed your plant only water starting the 4th week, add molasses 5th week untill harvest, this will allow the plant to use up the nutrients already in the soil and while you're feeding her molasses she will be soaking up most of the other nutrients in the soil while getting sweeter and sweeter.

Click to expand...

i am 100% organtic and i flush 1 time a month and 5 gallons for the last watering. it is best to starve your girl for a few weeks ( lower ppm) for the last 8-10 days i have adopted a no nutes standpoint. this is a clear taste prefrence i have had alot of plants harvested after 6 weeks still on full strengh nutes. the plant panics so to speak and will suck the green outta every non essentail leaf. this makes your smoke easier to cure. during the last week your plant will force more resin to the buds to attempt to save them. starving will signal the bud to stop growing and start preserving itself.
by regular flushing you will remove waste salts. this is the plants urine so to speak. with hydro you dont have this with your res tank being changed regulary but in soil these will make your flowers appear ripe to early.

for the one time flush i use ph'ed water till the bottom discharge holes run clean. then i do a heavy feeding the following day 1.33 ( one and one third) times normal ppm.

I normally quit using ferts two weeks before I am going to harvest. I don't believe in what people normally call flushing. Just use plain water. While those massive amounts of water flush the chemicals out the lack of nutrients creates a deficiency, forcing the plant to use up its internal nutrient compounds.

I am incorporating molasses into watering scedule but in 4th week of flower and keep it up right thru the end.

Instead of plain water thru the last two weeks (instead of flushing) it will be the molassess/water combo. Will be interesting to see the results.

videoman40 said:

I've been doing some research on flushing. It seems to me based on what I have been reading that if you are growing onganically, it is not necessary. There are no chemicals or foul tasting nutrients to get rid of. I think a better stratergy, would be simply to lower the nutes slightly you are using, but not to eliminate them altogether. This will stress your plant less. Of course the addition of molasses will always be welcomed.
Peace

Click to expand...

I agree. Makes a change eh

If you're growing organically and using certified organic nutrients there's no need to either stop using your nutrients a couple of weeks before harvest or to flush or simply feed with plain water. Just keep using them right up to harvest time.

The reason people need to stop using chemical or mineral based feritlisers a couple of weeks before harvest is because they're basically chemicals and can impart a strange or odd taste to the weed once it's dried.

I grow organically and use organic nutrients and will continue to use them right up to harvest - one of the benefits of growing organically.

hmm. i need to switch to organic. whats a good organic for soil grows?
other than fox farms. something the local nursery would have. like guano or whatever animal shit lol. id rather ask here than at the nursery.

i use bat guano.

Okay everybody, I went to my grow guru and asked the same question, about skipping the leaching
There appearantly is a difference between leaching & flushing. Also the two terms get mixed up alot. What abudsmoker is referring to is called flushing.

Leaching on the other hand is the practice of stopping yr nutes two weeks prior to harvest.

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 flutuation 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 finishin. 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 have not got it right, and if the leaves are all falling off you have probably gone too long.

In spite of all this, I did use my nutes up til harvest and noticed no adverse effects, who knows what I'll try this time...


Peace

babygro said:

I agree. Makes a change eh

If you're growing organically and using certified organic nutrients there's no need to either stop using your nutrients a couple of weeks before harvest or to flush or simply feed with plain water. Just keep using them right up to harvest time.

The reason people need to stop using chemical or mineral based feritlisers a couple of weeks before harvest is because they're basically chemicals and can impart a strange or odd taste to the weed once it's dried.

I grow organically and use organic nutrients and will continue to use them right up to harvest - one of the benefits of growing organically.

Click to expand...

This is just a question I dont know everything about organics, I'm a hydro grower really, but from my limited experience I know that most organic fertlizer envolves dung of some kind doesn't the idea of flushing the dung out sound like a good idea?

I dont know if its just me.

Here is a direct quote from High Times on an article about organic growing. May issue 2007

"Even organic nutrients need to be leached out nearing harvest time."

Yeah, I hear you dude, one would think they would have more reliable information, don't ya think?

Nongreenthumb, just because when you buy an organic lettuce that any manure dug in to fertilize the ground came from animals fed and grazed on land that was also completely chemically free, however there is about as much need to flush the lettuce as there is in pot.
Peace

I'm not talking about chemicals, im just talking about shit and organic nutrients have got it in spades. So surely you must flush the shit out.

Now you got me confused, as I havent mentioned the use of any chemicals.
I did mention not using them though.
I think we agree to disagree, its all cool.
Peace

i'm not saying that there are chemicals, I'm saying that if you grew lettuce and used shit as fertilizer you would sure want to make sure it was clean of shit before you ate it woudnt you?

ask yourself this...

Are marijuana plants "leached" or "flushed" when grown outside?

i doubt it.. unless they are in pots, otherwise they have access to nutrients.

I never hear anyone saying indoor taste better than outdoor, do you?

russ0r said:

ask yourself this...

Are marijuana plants "leached" or "flushed" when grown outside?

i doubt it.. unless they are in pots, otherwise they have access to nutrients.

I never hear anyone saying indoor taste better than outdoor, do you?

Click to expand...

Isnt that what the rain does in the flowering season

nongreenthumb said:

i'm not saying that there are chemicals, I'm saying that if you grew lettuce and used shit as fertilizer you would sure want to make sure it was clean of shit before you ate it woudnt you?

Click to expand...

Nongreen, I think you're looking at things a little too simplistically.

When you feed plants grown organically with organic nutrients whether it be cow manure, chicken manure or any other organic compound you need to understand the changes that those organic compounds go through in the transformation from their 'solid organic form' to available nutrients ready for uptake by the plants roots. In the soil around the root zone are thousands of micro-organisms, microbes and friendly bacteria generally referred to as the 'micro herd' that actively feed on these 'organic compounds' and turn them into the readily available chelated macro and micro nutrients that the plant uptakes via it's root zone.

It's no different to the way worms create worm humus by feeding on old food scraps and rotting vegetation and produce humus high in Nitrogen content.

Personally, I'd rather smoke something grown naturally and organically than something pumped full of man made minerals and chemicals - but that's a personal choice, as is flushing.

Biobizz grow contains a high percentage of sugar beet by products - not too dissimilar to the highly rated bootstrap molasses that everyone raves about. It contains high percentages of sugar and carbohydrates that helps to make the buds a sweeter smoke - which is why I increase the Biobizz grow towards the end of harvest and decrease bloom - why would I want to flush that out?

Flushing is a subject that attracts much debate - mostly because people don't fully understand the reasons for doing so - and don't fully appreciate that there's no one solution for everyone - because everyones grow is different, some need to flush and others don't.

If you've fed your plant with organic nutrients at a level that replenished spent nutrients at just the right time and gently tapered down your nutrient feeds towards harvest so the plant uptakes and uses all the available nutrients so none are left - why would you need to flush?

If you've fed your plant nutrients at increased levels so the plant cannot use all the available nutrients and so theres residual nutrients left over near harvest than it would be sensible to flush.

As you can see, everyone's feeding is different, everyones assessment of how much nutrients their plant needs is different - hence some need to flush and others don't.

It's in the skill of the grower and not any blanket recommendation of whether to flush or not.

nongreenthumb said:

Isnt that what the rain does in the flowering season

Click to expand...

nope. if rain flushed nutrients out of all the soil in the world... there would'nt be any plants - then we die.


as a matter of fact - in the flowering reason i would think the rain flowing through all that dead foliage on the ground would create some nutrient content. just thinking logically.

with outdoor flowering in the ground there is little toxicity in pots tis will be a issue. there is a buildup of waste organic or chemical.

this as been debated over and over. if you grow in anykinda dirt you need to flush at least once a month.