I'm using super soil n 200gal smart pots outdoors. I only feed with molasses at each watering. I'm in the last few weeks of flower n trying to figure out my next move. Flushing isn't really possibly that effective due to the fact that soil is like 75% nutrient. I'm thinking if nothing else, an excess of water will severely dilute nutrient uptake providing a semi flush. Another option I've come to is just to not water, drying out roots to the point they cannot uptake any nutrients, but this would possibly decrease final yield n trichome production as it could stall or cease any further growth. The final option is the "bubble" / "emergency" / "smokestack" flush which, at this point, seems like my best option. If doing this method, the downside would be that I don't have swimming pools to completely uproot the ladies and finish in so I would use many buckets, chopping each branch, slowing down the vascular movement more than leaving roots intact. Alot of growers using super soils don't bother with a flush n I'm sure the end product is good, but I'm seeking the highest connoisseur quality medication possible. Especially after investing thousands on this soiless medium. It's really important to me that the plant use most if not all of the stored sugars, starches, and nutes stored within. What's your input on this quandary?
You do not need to either flush an organic soil, which you've been essentially doing anyhow by watering with with only clear water and molasses anyhow, nor would I advise letting the roots dry out. Just keep everything moist like you have been. In an organic soil your plants take what they need from the soil as they need it. Flushing will only turn your 200 gallons of soil to a heavy wet mess and allowing roots to dry will only make your leaves droop and overall make the plants u healthy. J
"Especially after investing thousands on this soiless medium." Wait - I thought you said you were growing in soil? I'm curious - "thousands"? How many 200 gallon pots are we talking here? Are you talking the usual Sphagnum Peat, Compost, aeration and soil amendments?
Sorry your right, by definition super soil is soil. good catch. Only 4 pots. Almost $3k spent on soil n pots alone. Its very nutrient rich and biologically diverse compared to Subcools recipe. About 1 part base to 3 parts ammendments. Base: Sunshine Mix #4 Lucky Dog K-9 Kube Perlite Ancient Forest Worm Castings Alfalfa Meal Blood Meal Bone Meal Crab Meal Feather Meal Fish Bone Meal Kelp Meal Mexican Bat Guano Indonesian Bat Guano Seabird Guano Cow Manure Chicken Manure Goat Manure Rabbit Manure Sheep Manure Mushroom Compost Crushed Oyster Shell Ground Oyster Shell Azomite Brown Rice Neem Cake Oat Meal Diatomaceous Earth Green Sand Gypsum Lime Blackstrap Molasses Xtreme Gardening Mykos (Veg transplant) Xtreme Gardening Mykos WP (Veg) Xtreme Gardening Azos (Veg) Organic Wet Betty (Veg foliar) Penetrator (Veg foliar) Liquid Light (Veg foliar)
Well damn. i was hoping thered be more experienced input on this. Im definitely going to flush in one way or another. Iknow many organic growers dont believe in final flushing because they dont understand the difference in a normal flush n a final flush. Normal flushing rids the medium of nutrients. This is useful for expelling salts from the medium. Also useful for depleting excess nutrients causing toxicity. Final flush works by forcing the plant to uptake n use remaining nutrients, sugars, starches, etc in the roots and leaves. While a normal flush in soil and soiless mediums will result in the latter, true living organics doesnt allow for an excess of water to rid nutrients from the soil. The nutrients are broken down slowly by microorganisms into bioavailable elements that the plants can then use. These elements along with the plants byproducts (sugars, starches) are what need to be flushed from within the plant. It's not "chemicals" that you are trying to get rid of. These contaminants are the same whether growing organically or using synthetics. So, hopefully now someone can give some intellectual input here.
i wouldnt quite call 'do nothing' amazing advice. no offense jerry. if you read my posts then youd see that doesnt at all accomplish what im asking. im very sensitive to these remaining leftovers in the plant n its very important to clean them out or my crop becomes useless to me.
i have just never seen someone put 8 different manures into a soil recipe. perhaps you would have better luck asking The Rev?
i did that for the micro diversity. also the manures are from animals on my property. Each have a different diet thus incorporating different key elements. Each digestive system provides different enzymes that break down their food at different levels. No manure is exactly the same. id love to here from rev n others thatre really deep into the science behind organics. ive pretty much come to the answer on my own already. just wanted some help thinkng outside the box on this. i spend hours everyday on this n other cannabis forums n have done so for many years. So im looking for info that has yet to be discussed since ive probably seen it already if it has. thanks again all.
in an organic garden it's impossible to leach nutrients from the soil because the nutrients ARE the soil - and especially in your case where there is, like stated above "everything but the kitchen sink" is in your mix. So that only leaves you attempting to use up any available nutrition left in the plant itself. I'm quite curious as to how you plan on performing this (and no offense intended) miraculous feat without perhaps ripping each plant up by the roots and suspending the roots in clear water. I'm really not sure where the notion came about that flushing any organic plant of nutrients came about. IMO it's pretty silly to worry about. $750 worth of soil in each pot? I will say that this was entirely and completely unnecessary to spend that kind of money on your soil. I hope that over time you come to realize this and save yourself some time sourcing all of those items and instead come to rely on some really good compost and just a few items to do the work for you. Overloading your soil with nutrients is quite unnecessary and I guess I can see why you'd want to try and flush them away - although at this point I believe it's a pretty fruitless venture. Flushing came about and started back when hydroponic gardening came around - back in the 80's; simply to remove fertilizer salts from the inert growing mediums. How on earth this was passed on to soil gardening I'll never understand. In the meantime - good luck with your harvest! J
"id love to here from rev n others thatre really deep into the science behind organics." We simply MUST be thinking of different people... Are you referring to the claim to fame was (ahem) his gimmick of "Spiking and Layering" soil amendments into each individual pot? Layering and spiking... LOL
One other thing - have you thought about using your pots of soil again next year? If I were you I'd just cover the top of your pots with a good compost; nice and deep and then mulch the heck out of them - covering everything with a good 4" to 6" or even more of whatever you've got lying around - straw, leaves, whatever. By next spring your pots will be ready to plant into again. No $3,000.00 spent on soil. J
Im not trying to leach nutrients from the soil as ive already stated. There are many accounts on here n elsewhere about the impurities in the smoke in organics. i myself have encountered this in about 80% of the organic meds ive gotten from hundreds of dispensaries. in some cases its very evident by the crackle when burned. in most others, its in the flavor. ive only met one other person with a sensitive pallet like my own that can distinguish these flavors. the unfortunate part is that when these impurities are present, i become violently ill, with migraines, vomiting, n internal pain. so while it may not be necessary for you to completely wash your plants of these, its imperative i do. its not just for small bump in smoothness n flavor like with most others. As of right now, ill be experimenting with different bubble flush techniques. hopefully ill receive more input on non traditional methods and theories that i can try though. new breakthroughs are discovered all the time especially since legalization took place. im sure you can agree that growing is a whole different beast than it was 20 years ago. its even changed significantly over the last 5 years. i wasnt at all speaking of his 'claim to fame' as you put it. i have run into his advice countless times though n welcome any input from anybody. whats funny about layering n spiking? i dont layer myself but i do spike with incredible results. one of my current plants was broken by an animal about two weeks before flowering was to begin, leaving about one foot of plant remaining. i created a recovery spike 8in in diameter with about a 3ft depth ranging from top to bottom of the pot. during the next 3 weeks it grew an additional 7ft in height n in width. it by far surpassed the other plants though it did stall flowering slightly. im absolutely using them for many years to come. Thats why i invested so much into them. next season i will only need to ammend the quick degrading nutes. i wont need to reapply anything used for trace minerals. ill have my soil tested to see what's been depleted but as of right now i believe ill only need new manures, mykos, azos, n my tea components which should only cost me $500 or so in total unless i decide to increase plant count or pot size. im very high in the rockies. theres no leaves or vegetation to compost so that element will be sourced. My soil was still very hot when i planted this year after 2-3 months of curing/composting due to snow until june, so ill be ammending earlier next year in the greenhouse to try to improve on that. $3k is nothing for the yields and extreme quality im getting. i pay that for a pound of cannabis cup bud n this quality is right on par with a much higher payload. plus cost per unit decreases dramatically with each passing grow. im not in this to make money so skimping to bring down cost is pointless. this is my medicine n its gonna be some of the best in the world. So thank you jerry for the input. i really appreciate you taking time to help me n everyone else here.
The idea of cultivating plants in a biologically diverse, humus rich soil is a very, very old idea with some new information available due to advances in science. I suggest you do some reading before throwing away money on gimmicks or unnecessary additions to your soil. You could accomplish the same or better results using less inputs. (read - spend less money) This site is one of the greatest troves of information relating to gardening via living soil. I highly advise looking through this site and spending time going through some of the threads here, namely this one here. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1299862... And this one is pretty decent once you know what to look for. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1168520...
This is why I hate posting to this site. Theres alot of good info throughout but for some reason organic growers here seem to think their cheapass skimping methods are the best. They simply arent. I have read every post on this site throughout the last decade so dont post useless links. my product speaks for itself n i can guarantee its better than 98% of others. This thread is not about the soil n ammendments i add. There is a reason each n every item was added. im sorry that youre too closed minded to see that. ive grown several times using simplistic methods. i experiment every single grow to find what works best. started with compost n manures. its gradually expanded to the recipe im using this season n the results are astronomically better. if you dont wanna spend money to grow superior bud, thats ur choice. stop posting ur irrelevant ignorance on my thread.
1. GiMiK is just trying to help. He is an extremely knowledgable gardener that helps many. 2. You don't need to spend what you spent, or anything even vaguely close to what you spent to grow top shelf cannabis - or vegetables. Or flowers, or herbs. Under the right conditions and with a little bit of labor you don't need to spend anything at all for that matter. With no disrespect intended - whatsoever, $3,000.00 is just insane to grow a handful of plants. Again, that's just my opinion. You've gotta lighten up. This is a public forum man. Back and forth discussion is how we all learn to better ourselves. Peace and good luck - seriously. I'm really curious as to what method you choose to flush your plants and even more see if you think that it does anything at all. I can see where it might taste funky with the sheer amount of soil amendments you've got in there. With 1 part base to 3 parts amendments you're growing in almost pure soil amendments. I'd have to think that this would definitely affect taste and burn in a negative way. J
he wasnt trying to help. if he was, he wouldve given a response that was relevant to the issue. i really dont think hes knowledgable in the least. when i ask a question here, its because it hasnt been discussed yet here or on any other forum. dont let my post count deceive you, ive gone by many names over the years n have always been very active in the community. i just dont have the time to help others this season. its been said many times that i dont need to spend what i do on the soil. of course i dont have to. ichose to and the results so far are amazing. so much better than if i hadnt. i havent even harvested this crop yet n its already better than anything i judged at this past cannibis cup. the quality from this carefully created soil has produced what may be the best bud in the world. this is why a proper flush is so important aside from my personal issues. i may enter it in the next cup. if i get that perfect cure ill win without doubt. so yea its not insane to spend money on quality. its only 3 grand. my projected med cost will be 20% of what i normally pay. hows that an issue? isure i paid 3k up front for my meds, but i get them. 80% cheaper than normal n the quality will be unparallel. i too am curious to taste the final product. i will try as many flushing techniques as i can come up with to ensure the quality remains. thanks agan jerry. ill keep updated for sure even tho it doesnt look like im going to get any help w flushing
You already got all the help you need from a very knowledgeable grower. Its your right to choose to ignore it. You've already decided to flush so there's no need to ask for opinions. Flush away.