Staggered harvest and flushing

[Ligyron]

My first hydro project (w/single res) has revealed 2 phenos.

One half are budsickles (nice!) but the other side turned out to be a stretchier, taller, more branched type pheno that, considering the way she developed, I'd ideally like to stagger harvest. Remove the top buds first thus -- allowing me to adjust the lighting and develop the lower buds a bit more.

But then what about the flushing routine?

I'm on day 45 of a 58-65 day strain. Do I flush, harvest the top buds and then just let her run on with no nutes to fuel development of the lower buds anymore? Or will she have enough stored so that this isn't an issue? Or do I have to start feeding again.

Anyone with experience or ideas here would be most welcome as this is my first hydro grow.

Happy growing to all!

 

[!!!]

In my experience, flushing, harvesting the top, and then letting the rest of the plant remain under 12/12 did not result in a significant increase in the bottom buds. Buds that don't get light just remain small, and after a specific amount of time in flowering it might be too late to add weight to these buds. But this is just anecdotal experience; It wasn't controlled in any way.

I asked a similar question recently:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=187817

off topic..: Awhile back I read tht flushing stunts trich development. Bud may continue to grow but trichs will not, resulting in less potent weed. The most potent period of an 8 week plant is at 6 weeks, before the flush. Potent in this context means more trichs per bud mass. I flush and I recommend it however.

 

[Ligyron]

Yeah, I fear when a plant is done -- it's probably just done, at least for that particular flower cycle. You might re-veg it sucessfully, but only by removing almost all sex organs and re-setting the whole light and nutrient cycle -- not just by adjusting the light intensity on some lower branches.

These plants are in that sixth week you mention and have really been frosting up. I dis-entangled/spread some buds away from the main stem on the budsickle/baseball bat pheno to what looks like a good result as they were pretty pale underneith -- but then they still have a couple more weeks to go according to breeder's info. I guess it just takes a grow or two to dial in what's optimum for a given strain or clone thereof in one's particular situation.

EC is 2.2 day 45 and I'll probably not add anymore nutes and just start flushing about day 51 and harvest all at once. I might chop the main cola off just one of the the multi-branch pheno's now as an experiment and we'll see what develops with that plant in the remaining few weeks.

So, one top might taste a bit harsh -- I'll kief it or something . . .

Anyway, Thank you for your interest and response.

 

[El Toker]

I'm in the middle of doing this right now. After harvesting all the mature buds last month at 8.5 weeks and leaving nothing but the airbuds.

It's four weeks now and the buds are growing like crazy and look roughly three weeks into flowering in maturity. The trichomes are clear or slightly cloudy, none are amber. It started out as a scrog, but I got rid of the screen once I had a flat(ish) canopy.

It may be strain dependant - female seeds skunk special in this case.

I'm reasonably sure that I'll harvest even more bud this time that I did the first time, in the form of huge chunky colas.

On top of that, lots of tiny air-buds are growing under the canopy so I might even try doing it a third time.