Flushing before harvest is Bro Science!

bamboofarmer said:

You trim the leaves b4 they droop. As i said; Let them get almost dry, then trim, then continue allowing soil to dry, then chop and hang. (and, actually i forgot to add that after trimming all the leaves, you water one more time. (a flush, of sorts)
So, it's: Almost dry, defoliate, water, total dry, plus one week, chop, hang.

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I understood what you meant, you're trimming the leaves prior to harvest, due to my canopy size I prefer to pluck the leaves while I hang the branches and pull down the plants. It makes sense that the plants would consume less water too once those fans are removed and most plants I've grown slow their drinking to an extreme once they're ripe so they typically don't need as much water at the end anyhow. Your method would make carrying my 20 gallon pots upstairs a lot easier.

calvin.m16 said:

I understood what you meant, you're trimming the leaves prior to harvest, due to my canopy size I prefer to pluck the leaves while I hang the branches and pull down the plants. It makes sense that the plants would consume less water too once those fans are removed and most plants I've grown slow their drinking to an extreme once they're ripe so they typically don't need as much water at the end anyhow. Your method would make carrying my 20 gallon pots upstairs a lot easier.

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My main reason for proposing this method is actually to facilitate the drying of the buds. The soil and roots are a great moisture sink. (I am also completely making this up as i go, and these are just the musings of my mind.)

bamboofarmer said:

My main reason for proposing this method is actually to facilitate the drying of the buds. The soil and roots are a great moisture sink. (I am also completely making this up as i go, and these are just the musings of my mind.)

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If in hydro just drain the water out for a couple weeks before harvest.

It's too late for me, save yourself!!

Seriously another flushing thread.

I'm an old school grower. I never heard of flushing until I got on cannabis forums.
And they were talking about it on forums 20 years ago!! Sheesh!! Nobody is going to change their stance on this.

Fuck, when I first joined cannabis forums people thought you were stupid if you didn't flush.
I used to lie and say I flushed just to avoid all this back and forth shit.


So no I don't flush. I've smoked my own cannabis for 35 years or so and have no problems with it!
Who knows what I was smoking in the '60's and '70's before I started growing, but I bet it wasn't as clean as my own sweet sweet bud!

Flork said:

Fuck, when I first joined cannabis forums people thought you were stupid if you didn't flush.
I used to lie and say I flushed just to avoid all this back and forth shit.

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My mantra: Brown, flush it down. Yellow, let it mellow.

Back when I joined this forum in '08 and used to visit others more often flushing was very popular online.

Flushing meant running at least 3x the volume of your pot worth of water through the medium. Over the years of fighting and people realizing that "flushing" didn't do what people said. The definition began to change. I watched this happen over the coarse of at least 10 years.

Now people are pushing this water only the last 1-2 weeks and calling it "flushing". In many systems using water only the last 2 weeks will work just fine, but its been proven the only BENEFIT is saved nutrients and mixing time.

Thats the end of it really, there is no other debate or discussion. If you want to feed water only the last few weeks to save time and money go for it. If you want to feed nutrients till the end go for it. If your bud is dank and smokes great for you then isn't that the most important.

The main reason these threads turn into fights isn't that anyone cares what the other person does to their plants. Its because many of the experienced growers that understand the science get tired of the false information about removing nutrients and white ash and everything else being spread around. People continuing to spread broscience around doesn't help the community.

And by the rule of the older the wiser, one '08 Thundercat to rule em all.

but the test did show there was a 50% reduced nutrients in plants

amneziaHaze said:

but the test did show there was a 50% reduced nutrients in plants

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No my dude, the graphics tell that there is no significant difference in nutritional content between the different flushing trials.

edit: the only significant difference is the amount of zinc and iron the 14 and 7 flushing plants had, which Rurumo speculates is because of the absence of feed.

amneziaHaze said:

but the test did show there was a 50% reduced nutrients in plants

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Wut

test says that not flushed has 200% iron phosfor natrum.... and after flush its at 90%

Thundercat said:

Back when I joined this forum in '08 and used to visit others more often flushing was very popular online.

Flushing meant running at least 3x the volume of your pot worth of water through the medium. Over the years of fighting and people realizing that "flushing" didn't do what people said. The definition began to change. I watched this happen over the coarse of at least 10 years.

Now people are pushing this water only the last 1-2 weeks and calling it "flushing". In many systems using water only the last 2 weeks will work just fine, but its been proven the only BENEFIT is saved nutrients and mixing time.

Thats the end of it really, there is no other debate or discussion. If you want to feed water only the last few weeks to save time and money go for it. If you want to feed nutrients till the end go for it. If your bud is dank and smokes great for you then isn't that the most important.

The main reason these threads turn into fights isn't that anyone cares what the other person does to their plants. Its because many of the experienced growers that understand the science get tired of the false information about removing nutrients and white ash and everything else being spread around. People continuing to spread broscience around doesn't help the community.

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I think the modern definition of flushing is just giving plants plain water for a week before harvest, not 10 times the pots volume just until normal runoff. That is my idea of it, I don't believe flushing all this water through is going to be worth the time or do anything useful to the plant. I haven't been growing for long so I can appreciate how that definition has changed over the decades.

I never believed feeding plain water would remove or leach anything out that is already in the plant personally.

I try to assume when people say flush that they mean just give plain water the last week before harvest. I've personally learned with the tools I have my rootzone is 1.6-1.8 EC in 10 gallon pots even after giving plain RO for the last week before chop. I usually initiate a "flush" once the trichomes have started to milk and the buds look ready. I'll be chopping the plants down in 5-7 days and throwing the root balls in holes on my property. lol they don't need to be heavily fertile.

If someone said to flush 5 times the containers size of water like say 5 gallon pot flush 25 gallons through it of water then I would also want to bonk them on the head and call them a big dum dum. I guess that might be why some users get so offended when people recommend a "flush" the last week.

Lots of misinformation just like organic growers recommending top dressing plants with non chelated fertilizers 2 weeks into bloom. That shit isn't going to break down to be plant available until the plants being chopped down lol. Lots of bro science and bro information out there always will be. I suppose most good growers will see that flushing plain water to an extreme or in small pots is detrimental and hopefully quit doing it, if not let their quality suck at least we won't be smoking it.

It's like how some people still recommend people "sweat it out" when in reality the only thing processing toxins out of our bodies are our liver and kidneys.. lol Whole other topic but similar uneducated concept.

well in hydro you flush with water soo no 5 times volume and you start flushing day 0.
do what you think is best if inhaling more iron and NPK and what ever else is in the flower is good do it. if you are selling dont do it you can sell more.

amneziaHaze said:

well in hydro you flush with water soo no 5 times volume and you start flushing day 0.
do what you think is best if inhaling more iron and NPK and what ever else is in the flower is good do it. if you are selling dont do it you can sell more.

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You seem to think you can remove nutrients from the flower. You can't.

amneziaHaze said:

well in hydro you flush with water soo no 5 times volume and you start flushing day 0.
do what you think is best if inhaling more iron and NPK and what ever else is in the flower is good do it. if you are selling dont do it you can sell more.

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Flushing will not remove nutrients that are already in the plant. It only will flush/wash nutrients out of the roots.

Bugbee says no real foundation in science for flushing.

well you are not "removing them" plant eats them and doesnt bring in new because there is only water down there.fuck it i am not gonna flush anymore

I didn't read this whole thread, because im lazy.. but flushing is for toilets. If you knew you were gonna die in 2 weeks, would you quit eating? I think not. ... but im just a dumb redneck.

I’ve never done a final flush, fucked up on hydro feed a couple times and had to correct by emptying the buckets and swapping to straight water for a day or so. Always burned clean and tasted good.