still not sure: FLUSHIN QUESTION

[rowlman]

ok. I'm growing in a resirculating hydro set-up. The pump is on 15 min. 6x a day. and I follow the FoxFarm nutes chart, but it doesn't say anything about the final flush.How soon can I start flushing b4 harvest, and whats the best way to do this when I have a variety of strains that are finishing a few weeks apart. Someone said to just cut back to 10% nutes and not to use straight water.This is my first REAL hydro-grow so any advise would be great. thanks

 

[whiteflour]

Flushing is meant to replace salt-saturated water with clean water. Any water left in the stem that has salts will leave that residue behind after you dry. So, the proper way to flush would be to replace your reservoir with plain water the last 24-48hours. You really should clean your reservoir out as well but could also use a leaching solution like Clearex.

 

[rowlman]

thanks. sounds good. 48 hours water isn't long enough to hurt my plants that still need 2 wks, I can just go back nutes after I harvest the 1st ones. thats what I wanted to here. see ya thanx

 

[madness]

thanks. sounds good. 48 hours water isn't long enough to hurt my plants that still need 2 wks, I can just go back nutes after I harvest the 1st ones. thats what I wanted to here. see ya thanx

I have to disagree with rowlman. If you are in your last two before harvest, you should be using just PH adjusted plain water. Removing nutes from your res obligates the plants to use up stored nutes in the plant itself. It takes the plant about two week to use all stored nutes. 24-48 hours will do nothing. Less nutes in plant equals less harsh smoke and more pure bud sweetness. Hope this helps.

 

[rowlman]

I was just repeating what he said. What I did wrong was started 4 different strains at the same time ( newbie, and 1st hydro grow), now I have a few to harvest in about 7-10 days and then the rest need at least 2 weeks after that. I wanted to start flushing now, but I didn't know how this will effect the plants that still need almost 3 wks. Someone said that if I started the flush now I would be depriving those later finishers of vital nutes. So I am still confused as you can see. next time around I grow only 2 strains at a time with room to move things around when it gets close to harvest, but for now I got things jammed together and don't wanna make a big mistake this late in the game. thanks for the info. happy smok'n

 

[rowlman]

when I say "newbie" I ment new at hydro , I have grown in dirt b4 , but moving things around was alittle easier when I had individual buckets instead of 1 hydro tray. I just wasn't think'n ahead. I will start flushing everything now if it won't hurt the ones that still need 3 weeks...thats where I'm stuck! Bad idea to plant so many different at the same time huh? thanks for the info...see ya

 

[madness]

I was just repeating what he said. What I did wrong was started 4 different strains at the same time ( newbie, and 1st hydro grow), now I have a few to harvest in about 7-10 days and then the rest need at least 2 weeks after that. I wanted to start flushing now, but I didn't know how this will effect the plants that still need almost 3 wks. Someone said that if I started the flush now I would be depriving those later finishers of vital nutes. So I am still confused as you can see. next time around I grow only 2 strains at a time with room to move things around when it gets close to harvest, but for now I got things jammed together and don't wanna make a big mistake this late in the game. thanks for the info. happy smok'n

I'm sorry, I meant that I disagree with whiteflower, not you. My bad. As far as your quote: "Someone said that if I started the flush now I would be depriving those later finishers of vital nutes"; your plants have all the nutes stored within them, that's why they are green and healthy (I haven't seen pics, I'm assuming they are healthy). Depriving them from nute uptake by just supplying water, again, will force them to eat the stored nutes within the fan leaves first, then the smaller bud leaves next in order to feed the flower which is the bud; so the reality is that your bud is still eating and growing. And finally, you are not harming the plant in any way, you are just allowing it to detox or denute so you can just savor the taste of your buds and not the fertilizers you feed them.

 

[whiteflour]

I was just repeating what he said. What I did wrong was started 4 different strains at the same time ( newbie, and 1st hydro grow), now I have a few to harvest in about 7-10 days and then the rest need at least 2 weeks after that. I wanted to start flushing now, but I didn't know how this will effect the plants that still need almost 3 wks. Someone said that if I started the flush now I would be depriving those later finishers of vital nutes. So I am still confused as you can see. next time around I grow only 2 strains at a time with room to move things around when it gets close to harvest, but for now I got things jammed together and don't wanna make a big mistake this late in the game. thanks for the info. happy smok'n

What I would do is get yourself a few buckets or a rubbermaid and build simple aero or dwc setup running plain water where you could move harvestable plants for flush.

 

[whiteflour]

I'm sorry, I meant that I disagree with whiteflower, not you. My bad. As far as your quote: "Someone said that if I started the flush now I would be depriving those later finishers of vital nutes"; your plants have all the nutes stored within them, that's why they are green and healthy (I haven't seen pics, I'm assuming they are healthy). Depriving them from nute uptake by just supplying water, again, will force them to eat the stored nutes within the fan leaves first, then the smaller bud leaves next in order to feed the flower which is the bud; so the reality is that your bud is still eating and growing. And finally, you are not harming the plant in any way, you are just allowing it to detox or denute so you can just savor the taste of your buds and not the fertilizers you feed them.

It doesn't take two weeks to use up the nutes in a plant. A few hours in most cases is enough, 24-48hrs is being sure. If the plants done it doesn't need nutes, and if it's not done you should be putting it to them. Anybody that thinks you should be cutting back the last two weeks, the most two important weeks of all, isn't thinking about this logically.

 

[homebrewer]

Plain water does not leach salts. A mild nute solution leaches more salts than plain water.

 

[whiteflour]

Salts can't be leached from a plant, they can only be metabolized, used up, or dilluted. Leaching is to combine with salts in the tank so and render them unabsorbable.

Simply speaking if a flush really took two weeks Clearex, a flushing solution, would market their product for two weeks. There is no economic benefit for them to be conservative about 12 days of usage. If you really believe what you're thinking fine, if you want to grow the best plants possible you'll rethink your logic, to something more in the botanical realm.

 

[homebrewer]

Salts can't be leached from a plant, they can only be metabolized, used up, or dilluted. Leaching is to combine with salts in the tank so and render them unabsorbable.

Salts can be physically leached from a plant; the roots that is. Running clearex for 2 hours, then a res change for a 48 hour 'final soution' which may include some organics and a sweetener, depending on personal preference.

 

[madness]

Salts can't be leached from a plant, they can only be metabolized, used up, or dilluted. Leaching is to combine with salts in the tank so and render them unabsorbable.

Simply speaking if a flush really took two weeks Clearex, a flushing solution, would market their product for two weeks. There is no economic benefit for them to be conservative about 12 days of usage. If you really believe what you're thinking fine, if you want to grow the best plants possible you'll rethink your logic, to something more in the botanical realm.

When I speak of a 2 week flush, it's without the use of Clearex or any other product. Just a clean water flush. The less chemicals I feel (and of course that's just my opinion) is a more natural way of doing it. Whatever technique one decides to adopt, the end result that we are searching for is to flush as much nutes out before harvest.

 

[rowlman]

thanks for the info, I do have DWC set-up , I was thinking if I HAD to move them then I could use that for flushing. But then its hard to get light to them,( hydro set-up useing light) but I think I got the Idea now, thanks again everyone happy grow'in