Hello, I am on my first hydro grow (ebb and flow) and I want opinions on flushing the ladies. I believe it is best to flush the plants, replacing nute solution with ph adjusted H2O or a very diluted nute solution, then remove all water for a day or so, then introduce the new nute solution. I believe this removes the built up nutes from veg, drying them so they are able to absorb more of the new solution, and introduce a different solution that focuses on flowering. Does anyone else do anything similar? Any thoughts?
I don't ever let my plants dry out. Although, I'm running a vertical RDWC. What I usually do about every 2 weeks is switch my reservoir with a fresh one of RO water. The extra 'salts' will be dissolved into the fresh RO water. After that, I refill once more with RO water. My system is... a bit different, but yours would probably yield similar results. After the first flush of RO water, the EC is about a .5-.7 just from picking up the old salts. From there, I replace with the last batch of RO that I put my nutrients in. It doesn't hurt to run RO water for a week or so either if you're having lockout problems.
...I've tried many flushing methods...I've tried throwing money at it for years...all I do now is clean my res, refill with fresh ro h2o then flood my tables for 1 hour. I then keep this res for one full week, till harvest. I've found that this method provides the same taste/quility as all the other methods, the trick is to never over do it in the 1st place with hydro, IMO....however, also accept that hydro will not taste as good as organics....hydro can taste good don't get me wrong, but organic will always taste better....just as all the veggies in my garden