When should I start flushing my plants?

 

 
 
well...you can start by reading the stickies...the info is in the stickies

 

when do you plan on harvesting? What strain
?

 

Once you see some amber trichs (although some strains will never go amber), almost all orange hairs that have receeded back into the bud, and swollen calyxs. When you see that count out 10-14 days and for those last 2 weeks only plain water. That's about as simple as I can make it.

Ps there are lots of pics in the harvesting and processing section of buds close to harvest.

 

Usually I wait until I think the bud looks finished, then I flush them and wait another week, then harvest.

 

Flushing depends on what method of gardening you're using. First, your plants look nowhere near ready to flush if you were going to anyways. I think Xandurs answer was very good - you need to wait until your flowers are just about done before you think about doing this.

If you are using bottled hydroponic nutrients then you would want to flush to remove any leftover chemical fertilizers from the medium. If you are growing in soil and using no bottled nutrients, or using an organic nutrient; let's say Fox Farms organic then you do not need to flush. Like I said, it all depends on your method of growing. I grow in organic soil with only dry fertilizers added - so I don't need to flush. The fella that uses hydro nutes would maybe want to.

Wait until you think your plants are 99% mature before you do this.

You also cannot count days according to the seed breeders recommendation. That never works. I can just about guarantee that if you were to chop your plants at day 54 of turning your lights back to 12/12 that the flowers would not be fully mature. You need to watch your plants and let them tell you when they are mature.

 

I usually keep feeding regularly (which is always less than half recomended concentration anyways) until the first hairs orange or when i feel im 3 weeks or so from a good harvest date.  I then water once with just r/o enough to check and correct soil ph for the last time, and when ive got it right i finish with a little microbe inoculation.  Then you can just read her.  Ending the feeding this far out sans flushing will not slow your growth much and will allow it to break down and use most of the remaining salts.  every time she calls for water from this point out you should water with r/o only and keep her on the dry side.  this way you can wait until you are a week from harvest to give it a good final flush (usually 1.5 - 2x the container volume).  Careful though because if you flush a little late, often times the plant will sort of stall out on its water intake in the final ripening phase, and it is at least as important to harvest a plant when it and the soil are dry as it is to do a flush to begin with.  This is because a lot of water with a small concentration of dissolved chemicals will contain a similar total amount of solute as a small amount of water with a high concentration.  Sometimes ill have plants that want to take 2+ weeks to drink a couple gallons of water in the ripening phase, so try to be on the early side to be safe.  if it then dries out before it's fully ripe, you can always kick the can along by adding a days worth of r/o at a time until you are satisfied... this would mean that you could have held off on the flush a couple days for a higher maximum yeild of course, but thats not really going to matter much and unless you know your pheno well, its better to err this way and worry about losing a gram than to end up needing to chop a plant fully water logged because it goes all amber and stops drinking.  The chemical nutes you want out of the buds exist in nearly the same concentration in the water in the plant as in the water in the soil, so letting it dry drains it from the plant as much as it can handle, then flushing its soil replaces its water source and allows it to take up cleaner water, but it needs to purge that flush out again to really release all it has in it.  once you chop you trap whatever salts were in the water in the plant material and as it dries the concentration will rise as the water is driven off and the chemicals are not.  follow that?
 
In short, i find its best to switch to water only earlier than most ppl suggest, and to try to time your final flush perfectly erring on the early side such that it will be fully dry and begging for water on the day it should be chopped.  This is of course all a game of reaction and feeling that you will master with repetition, but it is the main goal of the thing.
 
In your case, id plan on giving it one (maybe 2, depending on how long it takes her to dry after watering) more feeding, then coast to the finish.

 

Enough said with that first 9 words. 4.5 weeks......
 
I wouldn't start flushing for at least 3 more weeks. I didn't flush my last plant until 8 weeks in. You're pistils are ALL still white and the buds are growing. Let her grow and mature.

 

Here is how I always budded and it worked great.
 
First week is transition
 
Second week is introduction into blooming recipes (smaller doses)
 
Third week you should start having buds forming, kick up your nutes to full dosage.
 
Fourth week your buds should begin to form some crystals, and they should be getting bigger.
 
5th week is boring...keep feeding
 
sixth week we always switched to ripen, and started hitting our plants with our ripening powder while changing doses a little bit.
 
7th week is last week of ripen and we kicked up our dosage of the ripening powder
 
At end of week 7 we flushed our plants using FloraKleen or other type of flushing agent, and ran the first 10 gallons with the flushing mix and then 5 more gallons regular water and made sure the run off read towards 0 on the PPM meter. Technically you can stop when your PPM meter wont go down anymore but I always did 15 gallons. We then made sure to let our pots dry out and gave them only water.
 
Week 8 (and 9 if needed) straight water after your flush. I let the plants flush until the leaves all turned yellow so I knew they were at the end of their cycle and empty of minerals, which the flushing helps to do. I let them take as long as possible, but I always made sure I ripened my plants for two weeks. The feeding schedule I went off of called for 1 week but I always went two. Also try to let your pots dry out a little bit before you cut em down...don't want to do it right after you watered or some shit. Some people mess with putting them in dark for a little bit, and I did it for one crop but didn't really notice a difference.

 

nice postings, What is ripening powder? what brand is good? never used it.

 

 
"What is ripening powder"?
 
Oh, just some more Stoner Science. Ya know, kinda like a "flushing agent"... lol
 
Its another way for the fertilizer companies to take your money - nothing more.
 
j

 

Hey thanks, Jerry san,
That is exactly what I was thinking.  I use bio bloom w bio bud from ...I forget .something something organics. seems to work real well. The only thing I added this time was the floriliscious (sp.) pineapple sugar stuff. I hope that makes a big difference, but I don't know yet. It could be just a waste of money like you said.  I definitely have not got the kind of smell Im wanting yet but every round of experience helps. patience and practice.  I had this old 1000w hps I was using that I got used w the light and I njever changed the bulb until this time and it seems to be making a huge difference w  the hortilux (spendy) lol. I suspect the bulb was my main problem. I lacked density and smell.
peace and thanks for all the insights everyone has. cool ass website!