i was on the mandala site earlier today...and was reading the growfaq....and this is what i came up with....what do you guys think? Can I flush on soil? You should avoid watering more than normal and having a lot of run-off in soil grows. Heavy watering or flushing/rinsing the soil can cause bud mold (run-off also washes out nutrients). Instead, give the plants their daily requirements and water at the start of the light cycle. Even if they let the leaves hang a bit now and then in the final 10+ days it's better than over-watering at this stage. In principle you should never have to flush in soil cultivation. It leads to all sorts of complications like waterlogged soil, nutrient run-off, fungus, etc. If you already know you have made a mistake like over-watering, always wait for plant health to improve before taking steps further with feeding, etc. You can't "cure" anything with feeding unless there is a real nutrient deficiency at hand. You won't get a nutrient deficiency in soil if plants are in quality soil, have an adequate container size, and the pH of your water is OK. If the pH of your water is not within range you need to correct it... feeding would only stress the plants even more because they can't take up the nutrients in a substrate watered with a wrong pH. Flushing your soil prior to harvest does NOT improve aroma and taste of the buds. It DOES increase chances of getting bud mold within 48 hours and can easily lead to other fungal infections which threaten your crop. The smart way to increase aroma is to buy quality soil and mix it with beneficial aroma enhancers such as worm manure and compost. Rinsing substrates should only be applied to hydroponic cultivations. The idea is to water with a very low EC, special ripening products, or only pure water a few days or a week prior to harvest - again, there should be no need to flush large amounts of water through the system. In coco coir this can also lead to a soggy substrate and increase the risk of bud mold.
damn man after reading that makes me think that what happened to my last one..... i flushed it and within a day and a half i saw it start dying... within a week it was dead.
im gonna have to disagree with this statement based on personal experience. bud with fertilizer not flushed out crackle and taste way worse than properly flushed buds.
We are taking what is said out of context here guys/gals. There are 2 very different forms of "flushing". One is to run water 3X the soil amount(i.e.: 1 gl pot, 3 gl water)through the soil. This is often used when soil salinity set in, to prevent nutrient burn from over fertilization, and/or to solve PH issues. The second form of flushing is basically not even flushing. It is just watering your plant with plain water rather than give them nutrients in the last week or so of flowering. I use molasses the last 4 weeks of flowering, and do not even water the last 3-5 days before harvest, so I see no need to flush my soil. As for chemical tastes, "crackling" etc... I would think the drying/curing process would be more responsible for this than the fact you used nutrients in soil up to the point of harvest. I have done it both ways, and honestly, there is no real difference. Also, flooding your soil in the last week or so of flowering does promote risks to molds, pests, and harming your plants root systems.
what i do is i just stop giving my plants fertilizer 2 weeks ahead of time......i use some stuff thats called tivalent in spanish in floration....dont know what it is in english and i also use vermicompost for veg cycle......i give them a big handful and it never burns them and they come out tasting great. i hate using the commercial stuff because theres always that chance to burn.....which ive done.
you need to take into consideration the way mike from mandala feeds his plants. He's a very light/regular feeder and chances are that come harvest time his plants don't need to be flushed.
Snapping and crackling is caused from the drying process. Not ferts. This myth is so dumb. Here's a question for everyone. Whenever a person makes a thread asking how to change the taste of their bud, what does everyone say? That its strain specific. Because it is. It has NOTHING to do with what you feed the plant.
i agree. with good soil, you shouldnt really need to apply nutrients as often as the bottles say. with that said, less nutrients to flush equals less flushing.
damn, never heard that, it makes sense though, ive gotten some bud i knew for sure was flushed, but it still crackled.
I try to avoid flushing. I do what lessismore said when it comes to harvesting. But I will flush plants if the ph is all fucked up.
dude, like seriously, there is no point of flushing at all in the whole life cycle of the plant. The only reason to do it in the first place is if the ph is messed up. I don't flush when harvesting. MJ gets it taste when curing. it crackled because it wasn't CURED properly. lol. and no one wants to eat vegetables that were grown from cow shit right?
If you always go lite on nutes just so that you dont have to flush in the end, hiw do you know your maximizing yield? You could be depriving it it nutes that might have been used for more growth. Id rather feed just below threashold then flush during that last week to ensure max yield. Going light on nutes might keep you from having to flush before the end of harvest though. Its a risky call which can probably become easier to make with experience.
If your growing with synthetic nutrients you have to flush, and commenting on what findme said before, anything grown in cow shit smokes, tastes, and grows better than anything grown in "bud candy" or advanced nutrients or some trash like that.
Yeah im not very impressed with advanced nutrients, real hot. Im using a bunch of AN products with some FFOF soil (bc I had some left over from the last hydro grow), and I had to flush for the 2nd watering session into bloom for my vanilla kush bc i was experiencing some burn. I've learned to start at around 75% recommended dosage on AN products then increase to threshold. I used the botanicare grow/bloom/liquid karma and worked beautifully for my first grow, lots of trichs. Going organic/coco next grow though.
Thanks for the information lessismore; so in the event of nute burn, it really does no good to simply water with nute-free water with the same amount of water you usually use for a feeding; the salts would still be present in the soil/medium, and your problem would persist. Therefor it would be best to flush with 3X the soil amount as you said then next scheduled feeding, apply notes. So in regards to periodic flushing to prevent nute burn from occurring in the first place, Im thinking, and this might be old news, that it might be a good idea to thoroughly flush every 1-2 weeks, but instead of just waiting till the next watering session to feed with nutes, feed immediately after your flush, since you essentially just purified your medium with the flush.
When I think of flushing, something I am a long ways from at this point in my grow, I am thinking of just watering regularly, but using plain water only, not doubling or tripling the amount of water which I can see would create mold and pest issues. I've also added blackstrap molasses recently and plan to use that all through flower, even when I stop feeding nutes.
Nitrogen is the key. if you pump N in the last 2 week the weed will be <span style="background-color:rgb(255,215,153);">scratch</span> . this is why you should wash out the N. The plant use up her own N.