Flushing or stripping fan leaves

At the risk of sounding like a noob, I have a few questons

With soil(outdoors in the backyard in the dirt), is there any sense in thinking about flushing? Ice water flush? anything at all, or just forget about it.

Also could stripping all the fan leaves during the last 2 weeks act as a flush in some sense? I always figured the reason that the bottom leaves turn yellow first is that the plant is pulling nitrogen from those old leaves to reuse up top. Does stripping those leaves prevent those nutrients from getting moved around and thus act as a sort of flush?

I guess my line of thinking is if curing is intended to allow chlorophyll to break down, the starving the plant of nitrogen in the last weeks is getting a head start on curing.

People like to debate this, both defoliation and flushing.

I think the roots will stretch farther than you can flush when growing outdoors, and flushing only clears the grow medium. You are just starving the plant of things it needs to plump and produce resins with in its final stage. If you plant is breaking down its own leaves because of starving, then it has nutrients free floating in it, either way, from what it took from these leaves.

I keep the plants pretty cleaned up and only have around the top 20% of fan leaves to draw water up the stem and take some damage if needed. I pull them off in the last week to let the buds finish up.

OK sounds good. Yea I want to leave them on for now to soak up the sun. I think I will strip a lot of them out near the end.
I likely won't bother with flushing as I can't see it doing anything in soil other than maybe drown the plant for a few hours.

Its always good to get opinions from multiple sources. I am experienced with indoor growing, so an outdoor grower will have a wealth more of information they can share. Just don't take too many leaves off at any one time, completely stripping it in one shot could stun it.

I defoliate the fuck out of my outdoor plants 3 days before I pull them. Let's the buds get air dry from the wind and sun better and saves my ass on trimming. By then you sure won't shock your plant since they are being pulled soon. Hasn't affected my grows at all. I'm sure some Scientist Grower will comment "Don't do that because it will halt the process of THCA to THC and the breakdown of blah blah" Yes I know but they always end up great and I get to make hash and edibles too

Flushing does absolutely nothing to change how the plant finishes. Its been proven in studies.
If u strip all the fan leaves then the plant doesnt have those leaves to take energy from in the last two wks.

Look up the study by the university of guelph

The good old Ice water challenge, I mean flush. Icy water will just shock the fuck out of them and possibly turn some leave purple, I see no purpose for it.

RandolphLundgren said:

I defoliate the fuck out of my outdoor plants 3 days before I pull them. Let's the buds get air dry from the wind and sun better and saves my ass on trimming. By then you sure won't shock your plant since they are being pulled soon. Hasn't affected my grows at all. I'm sure some Scientist Grower will comment "Don't do that because it will halt the process of THCA to THC and the breakdown of blah blah" Yes I know but they always end up great and I get to make hash and edibles too

Click to expand...

I do the same thing in their last week... probably impatience... lol. It increases airflow around the buds and makes the final trim easier. I'm harvesting my outdoor tomorrow morning (MAYBE Sunday morning) and the only fan leaves she has are on the lower parts of the plant... mostly under the buds.

I never flush... some do. I feel that a good dry and cure will take care of the aroma, flavor and smoothness and don't want to rob nutes from my plants when they need it.