How Long Do You Flush Before Harvest?

[t33to]

I'm on my first grow and am not sure of the flowering time, I have diff strains, and some are not what I was told they were, what is a good indication of when to start flushing, or when to stop the nutes?

My advice is for you to go buy a 30x microscope (don't buy a 60x! it's impossible to hold the damn things steady) so you can inspect the trichome colors of your flowers. If they are clear you still got a while, maybe as much as 3 weeks. Once they start to go cloudy that's when you know you are close and my understanding is once they go 33% amber in color the plant is pretty close to ending it's "optimal" growth period.

For most of the strains I've had experience with by the time they are about 66% cloudy and 33% clear there is about 10-15 days till they are 33% amber. So when I see that 66% cloudy that's when I begin to feed just straight PH'd water.

hope that helps.

 

[jjh1957]

My advice is for you to go buy a 30x microscope (don't buy a 60x! it's impossible to hold the damn things steady) so you can inspect the trichome colors of your flowers. If they are clear you still got a while, maybe as much as 3 weeks. Once they start to go cloudy that's when you know you are close and my understanding is once they go 33% amber in color the plant is pretty close to ending it's "optimal" growth period.

For most of the strains I've had experience with by the time they are about 66% cloudy and 33% clear there is about 10-15 days till they are 33% amber. So when I see that 66% cloudy that's when I begin to feed just straight PH'd water.

hope that helps.

That gives me a good starting point, I just started week six of flowering. Time to start checking them closely. Thanks!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

How often do you flush your vegetable garden before harvest?

When was the last time you smoked one of your organic cucumbers?

Stay on topic, thanks.

 

[spunion]

I try to flush every 2-3 weeks to prevent too much salt build up, pretty much as advised with the fox farm feeding schedule. If the soil never gets bad you should only need to flush once or twice if you are putting enough water through the soil.

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

Re: How Long Do You Flush Before Harvest?

I flush 3 times a day once when I wake up at noon and around six. Idk I think its like 2.5 gallons but sometimes I flush twice.

 

[geeker]

I flush 3 times a day once when I wake up at noon and around six. Idk I think its like 2.5 gallons but sometimes I flush twice.

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

Re: How Long Do You Flush Before Harvest?

Wow I am high as fuck and reread that and laughed and realized I was high as fuck when I posted that and I had a rickyism there ...whoa!

 

[growsjoe1]

hard mode rules...lol

 

[señorsloth]

For most of the strains I've had experience with by the time they are about 66% cloudy and 33% clear there is about 10-15 days till they are 33% amber. So when I see that 66% cloudy that's when I begin to feed just straight PH'd water.

wow wish i could say that was true for me, i don't harvest based on trich color but i do like to use it as an indicator as to where they are. with my strains (chem ibl,og kush s1) they get super super frosty around 6-7 weeks in, and everything looks pretty much cloudy for close to another month...even the hairs all turn orange and calyxes start to swell by week 8 on my og kush and one pheno of chemdog, still no hint of amber...this is only my second run with these strains but first run i didn't see any amber at all till week 11 and should have been ripe around 12-13 weeks...

i have been increasingly aware that harvesting times very quite a bit, even the same plant can vary quite a bit, run for run, if you change the way that you grow them, soil/hydro, defoliating, extensive lst or lolypopping, a fresh revegg, wether the plant is healthy or nutrient deficient, and a lot of other things can effect the exact harvest date, so it's not enough to know the exact date that it was ready on a previous run, unless you can say with honesty that this run was exactly the same as the previous in every way.

also i read somebody on the previous page mention that it's fine if your plants are still green, and that you shouldn't wait for the color to leave before harvesting, because apparently they believe the window of ripeness is very short. my answer to that would be then you obviously didn't flush long enough...the flush time is basically dependent on how much nutrients are in your soil, if you pump them so full of bud candys that it takes a month+ to flush then that's what you do, it's not bad for the plant unless it flushes in a week, all it's leaves fall off, and it still has like a month to go, if it stays green during flushing then you just had a lot of unused nutrients in the soil and by picking it when it was green still you basically didn't flush at all. i don't believe people need to be that worried about the ripeness window as they are, they act like it comes down to mere hours or days...when it fact it's quite long, for me anyways the space between just beginning to be amber to 50-60 percent amber is about 2-3 weeks, it's my opinion that a majority of growers could benefit by letting them go another week or two, as SOOOO many people pick early, and never even know what a truly ripe bud looks like... check out this link, it is VERY good and should help a little.
http://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/210501-zeuss-take-harvesting.html

as for the flush, i ALWAYS flush at least 3 plain water feedings before harvest, so thats about 3 weeks for me. my clue is that i already know about what to expect ripeness wise by the look of the buds, the plumpness, amount of pistols withered, smell, and trichome color, but that's only helpful after you have grown a certain plant a time or two... what i do on the first run is look around, find harvest pics of other people, note what day they picked on, how well they grew it, how long they flushed it, and if the buds look like they are ripe to you, and then use that as an indicator...if the majority of people say a strain takes 77 days and it's your first time growing it from seed, well you can usually assume it will take at least that long, if not a little longer for your first try to ripen. plan accordingly and start flushing week 8-9 depending on how much you fertilize your soil.

 

[Finepointcanon]

I use organic bottled nutes, (GH Biothrive) and I feed only molasses for a week, then just water for the last 2.5 or so weeks.

 

[growinthehills]

yah I just give em plain water ph'ed to 6.0. I don't pour excess water through em like some people

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Irregardless of trichs and timing, if they're starting to foxtail then it's time to stop adding nutes and start flushing.

 

[Hoover_lungz]

Irregardless of trichs and timing, if they're starting to foxtail then it's time to stop adding nutes and start flushing.

Not all strains foxtail lol

 

[dank.frank]

Flushed???

Flushed???

Fully amended organic soil, water only during cycle.

I simply STOP watering for 4-5 days before chop...

Dry roots can't feed, forces plant to use reserves. Easy.

What does white ash mean, again?

dank.Frank

 

[Hydro-Soil]

That's all well and good Frank... but you have to remind the kiddies that your amended soil is well balanced and not over amended.

It can be the finest peruvian flake bat guano on earth... if you put too much in your soil and I can taste it at harvest then it's a contaminant.

I've tasted "earth" in white ash before too.... I'm suuuuper sensitive. Looks really tasty though! Keep up the good work.

Stay Safe!

 

[whatsupdoc]

Frank - EXACTLY. K+. I'm looking for that 'white ash'.

 

[nickman]

This last round i was using GH's Flora Nova through out the veggn period and started with their Flora Nova Bloom but then decided to switch to Roots Organics during week 2 of 12/12...
I guess because of the switch of nute brainds all my leaves started to turn yellow very earlly this round...
Its day 52 of 12/12 now and ive been flushing by only giving them plain water the last 2 weeks...

My ? is did i even really need to flush them because all the leaves were all ready turning yellow on their own with nutes being givin to them...
By the time it was week 7 of 12/12 mostly 75% of all the leaves had turned yellow like they do during the flush...

Will this have any adverse effects on the taste of the smoke ???

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Leaves can turn yellow because the plant has reached the end of its lifespan, is turning senescent, and chlorophyll is degrading. Or leaves could yellow because the plant is starved of nutrients, and is pulling materials from chlorophyll for use in the final swelling of the flowers.

 

[bho_expertz]

i water the last three to two weeks only with fulvic acid, humic acid and enzimes. but i never give more water then what they need because RH.

 

[starwatcher]

I just use plain water the last 2 weeks prior to harvest.

It really brings out the taste. Fertilizer right up to harvest makes it taste harsh, metalic and makes the bud crackle/sizzle when flame hits it (not the resin...)leaving a nasty black ash.