Flushing? How Long/methods In Compost

[Guest scarfaceshady]

so many differences of opinion on this as ive been looking up a lot on flushing today and some even say if your using chemical nutes its pointless anyway it hardly does anything

so what are your opinions

peace

scarface

[adddw]

I use chem and start to flush at 10-14 days before harvest wioth regualr waterings when dry....

[Arnold Layne]

Organics here, so no flushing either needed or attempted. And I get no throat burn, just sweet smooth-smoking buds.

[Muppet]

Organics here, so no flushing either needed or attempted. And I get no throat burn, just sweet smooth-smoking buds.

Same as Arnie, 'cept that i give 'em water only for their last watering, more due to me bein' tight with nutes than any intention to flush.

[Guest scarfaceshady]

I use chem and start to flush at 10-14 days before harvest wioth regualr waterings when dry....

i heard something about if you do that it stops the chemicals from becoming 'spent' or something il have another look for the thread i saw it in mate

[Guest scarfaceshady]

Organics here, so no flushing either needed or attempted. And I get no throat burn, just sweet smooth-smoking buds.

Same as Arnie, 'cept that i give 'em water only for their last watering, more due to me bein' tight with nutes than any intention to flush.

cheers lads i dont suppose either of you know if theres any truth in this 'spent' chemicals thing i spoke of

thanks

scarface

[compostverte]

It sounds like bollocks to me as plants mostly only take up what they need via the roots so far as I know. All I've ever gleaned from personal research is the desire to get rid of chlorophyl hence my technique of being a bit stingy with my (professional grade) chemicals so the plants are a bit hungry at the end.

On the rare occaisions I've persuaded street weed smokers to puff on my pure spliffs, I have been complimented on the quality.

With cannabis, as with tomatoes, I've generally held the view that organic flavour etc is mostly about making the plants work a bit for their food.

As to miracle grow being particularly poor, like I say I tried it one year and can't say I noticed any difference.

[Guest scarfaceshady]

thanks compostverte

[Guest Tutu]

It sounds like bollocks to me as plants mostly only take up what they need via the roots so far as I know. All I've ever gleaned from personal research is the desire to get rid of chlorophyl hence my technique of being a bit stingy with my (professional grade) chemicals so the plants are a bit hungry at the end.

On the rare occaisions I've persuaded street weed smokers to puff on my pure spliffs, I have been complimented on the quality.

With cannabis, as with tomatoes, I've generally held the view that organic flavour etc is mostly about making the plants work a bit for their food.

As to miracle grow being particularly poor, like I say I tried it one year and can't say I noticed any difference.

Hey don't fancy coming down my street do you, I'm at least 12 weeks away from having something smokeable and I haven't had a smoke for over a month because of grit.

I use biobizz with standard MPC and have learnt through personal preference that cutting out nutes around 7-10 days before harvest produces a more pleasant smoke. The nicest smoke I had last year was a friend who grew with no nutes at all just straight in a 30 ltr pot. Plant didn't yield that great, leaves showed N deficiency in the last 3 weeks but the smoke beat anything I smoked in the Grey area (My fave coffeeshop) last year. I'm buying into less is more. was thinking of flowering in oversized pots with little or no nutes this time, not too bothered about yields more bothered about the smoke.

[Bish]

Ot explains

[Guest scarfaceshady]

cheers bish thats sort of what im after but it dosent say anything really about non hydro or non organic from what i can see you just cant get the chemicals out of the plant im a little confused now tbh

scarface

[oldtimer1]

This is a big question scarfaceshady, you asked me to comment and for accurate/correct information on chemical growing, its not really my interest, I can’t answer it fully, it would take a book!

A small stab, it has to be a story of how we got to where we are today from the early days of cannabis cultivation to understand some of the myths and practises today.

Plants fed up to the day they are cut, may have a large excess of unmetabolised nutrients in them, it depends on how they are fed, its very very easy to over feed with pure chemical salt fertilisers but was very hard to do so with organic fertilisers.

Also its easy to feed out of balance main element fertilisers with chemical salt fertilisers. Most organic fertilisers are well balanced not causing a buildup or excess of any one element way above all others. The thing you really do not want an excess of is phosphorus!

In the early days of cannabis growing indoors it was found that with a very high phosphorus level large colas were produced, the problem was phosphorus excess made the bud hard to burn, gave a metallic taste, it is also very carcinogenic.

It was found that even if no feed was given, just water for a couple of weeks before harvest was due, the bud burnt better but still had the metallic twang. This was called flushing, I say called, its not quite true, starving is nearer to the truth, you need all the elements for a plant to metabolise properly, the early pioneers like Nesta started using a mix of citric/ascorbic acid and molasses, calling it a flushing solution, named nesta juice. This in fact was a weak organic based feed that is high in potassium, the mix gave enough n and k so the plant did not starve and strip mobile elements and helped to metabolise a lot of the excess residual phosphorus. This gave much better burning and sweeter tasting bud. As residual potassium in dried bud also aids burning, much in the same way as the added potassium nitrate aids the burning of tobacco in tailor made ciggies.

Thing is plain water flushing was found to reduce yield by quite a %, things like nesta juice made the yield better. Remember the grow and bloom formulations were and still are about getting high yield, today we don’t still have the 40% P and single figure n and k figures, think about this and the likely P levels when you add in the phosphoric acid used as ph down, today fertilisers are still mostly designed for maximum yield for commercial purposes ie force feeding and getting as much back as you can, its a compromise.

So to deal with max yield a new trick was made up to try and cover the phosphorus problem, pk13:14 was introduced, this helps burn buds containing a phosphorus excess more efficiently. While it masks the problem and acridity, the smoke is even more carcinogenic.

The old organic fertilisers such as BioBizz grow and bloom do not make any excesses when used the old way, ie feeding what the plant can use naturally at all stages of development, re:- raising levels when flowering is full on then reducing at the end of flowering so you just meet the plants needs, its all pretty much natural even though supplying a pot restricted root mass, no force feeding. But even BioBizz have started to sell out to the yield merchants now, while the grow and bloom will not cause a big excess of any one element because of the balance of the fertilisers no matter how they are used, the introduction of cation exchange products used as BioBizz suggest can make huge excesses of nutrients in the plant tissue making it necessary to stop feeding and just use water at the end of flowering. These products go against natural plant growth when used the way they suggest, ie making organic fertilisers act like chemical salt fertilisers, I've smoked some bud grown like this, it was appalling, as bad as over fertilised europonic hydro bud.

[Guest scarfaceshady]

many many thanks ot1 thats much more what i was after

so would you suggest or advise on maybe looking into a flushing solution of sorts? any perticular in mind?

ive got a bottle of ata organics flavour kicking about which maybe i could use for the final week would that work maybe?as it sounds a little like nesta solution obviously not the same but a similar principle

thanks again mate

scarface

Edited January 19, 2007 by scarfaceshady

[hairy face]

But even BioBizz have started to sell out to the yield merchants now, while the grow and bloom will not cause a big excess of any one element because of the balance of the fertilisers no matter how they are used, the introduction of cation exchange products used as BioBizz suggest can make huge excesses of nutrients in the plant tissue making it necessary to stop feeding and just use water at the end of flowering. These products go against natural plant growth when used the way they suggest, ie making organic fertilisers act like chemical salt fertilisers, I've smoked some bud grown like this, it was appalling, as bad as over fertilised europonic hydro bud.

That's disappointing as I've been using BioBizz Grow and Bloom for the last couple of years. What would you recommend instead? Does the above also apply to fish-mix (which I use for feeding mothers)?

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Thanks ot1 that's awesome.