How do you like your indoor plants to finish for the best yield & smoking quality?

[Classy@Home]

I just don't believe this occurs in a living soil but I do agree with applying only water up to harvest unless you see reason not to.

Very true - normally outdoor soil is a living thing, chock full o' life forms, nutes, minerals, etc. It's depleted in fall after growth, and renews itself with the decaying matter winter and spring.

Indoor - it is what you make it. I grow hydro, so nutes minerals etc are subject to me - but indoor soil can be tended to much like any other medium, and limits placed on what goes in (and out).

Flushing steady w/ plain aqua will still heavily deplete any remaining food for plant, forcing it to make use of its stored energy(s).

 

[redneck shogun]

Flushing steady w/ plain aqua will still heavily deplete any remaining food for plant, forcing it to make use of its stored energy(s).

How is plain water depleting a soil of food for a plant? I'm not trying to antagonize you I really am interested in your actual reasoning for this.

 

[legalizeDK]

I prefer ugly, cause the smoke is smoother. but i sometimes wonder if by letting them turn ugly (less nutes) that they wont reach full potential

 

[sso]

dunno about that.

harvested my girls extra late this time around, even the small leaves were dead, falling off or purple, red or yellow (no green at all)

basically it was just buds with some dying leaves.

but the buds? sticky sugary glittering mess and decidedly yummy to look at

 

[Bullfrog44]

How is plain water depleting a soil of food for a plant? I'm not trying to antagonize you I really am interested in your actual reasoning for this.

By watering your plants with just water, it flushes out any remaining nutrients in the soil. Of coarse this wont happen with fresh soil with fresh amendments. Classy is talking about at the end of your grow, water with nothing but water for several weeks, which will flush out any remaining salts and/or nutes.

 

[VerdantGreen]

By watering your plants with just water, it flushes out any remaining nutrients in the soil. Of coarse this wont happen with fresh soil with fresh amendments. Classy is talking about at the end of your grow, water with nothing but water for several weeks, which will flush out any remaining salts and/or nutes.

that doesnt work in organics though because the vast majority of the nutrients are chelated or in solid state or microbe cycle and cant be 'flushed' out by leaching.
you have to be very careful how you use the 'f' word in organic forums
most organic soils are fertile in themselves and only have water added for the majority of the grow - but true enough the best thing you can do to keep nutrition to a minimum towards the end of the grow is add water and not feed them any extra
- although i would be interested if MM and some of the microbe experts thought that adding molasses would help the microbes use up any remaining ferts in the soil and make them available to plants prior to a week or two of just water at the end?

the way i seem to grow in 3-4 gallon pots is this - my soil is a 'just add water' soil, but i imagine there comes a point where flowering is in full flow, say weeks 4-6, where the volume of soil, roots and nutrients cant quite keep up with the plant's demands and so slight yellowing occurs - so i do feed extra to my 'just add water' soil in mid flower. (NB i drive my plants pretty hard- yielding 2-3.5oz from each 3-4 gallon pot, 4 under a 250hps).
i wonder if this slight yellowing in mid flower 'flips a switch' as it were so the plant has started drawing from its stored food in the leaves and then makes it fade out a lot more easily later in flower?
another point to note - if you pollinate a bud or two to make seeds, this seems to help the process of senescence on the whole plant.

VG

 

[rrog]

I have a 7 gallon pail finishing up a 10 week SSH. I'm not running out of juice since this is a scrog. I've been adding ice to the top of the soil at night to cool the roots. This is supposed to trigger the consumption of chlorophyll and bring out pigments the plant may be hiding.

I have only found anecdotal testimony and no side by side grow data, but this was a harmless enough task so I said what the heck. I've iced for two nights, with a total of 6 planned. Also I'm trying the last three days in darkness.

I expect the results will be ugly girls.

 

[VerdantGreen]

it'll be interesting to see how that comes out rrog. was it highonmt that recommended it? he seems to know what he's doing.

has anyone ever tried ringbarking? i wonder of that of partial ringbarking might be worth a try if you are wanting your plants uglier at the end and cant make your soil weaker on the long term?

 

[rrog]

Never heard of ringbarking.

It was Highonmt who encouraged me to try this, yes. I had read of others doing this also, and I had this one plant so what the heck.

The leaves were starting to yellow on their own. I thought this was a natural end of life change, not necessarily a reflection of diminished nutrients in the soil. I had imagined in the wild the large volume of soil would not be depleted, yet I would have expected the leaves to yellow anyway.

I'm just doing the ice / dark treatment to see what happens

 

[VerdantGreen]

hey rrog ringbarking is removing a section of bark/cambium/xylem around the stem to cut/reduce the flow of sap/nutrients up the stem.

the yellowing at the end of flowering IS caused by natural senscence as well as lack of nutes - but as proposed in this thread, indoor plants can lack the natural environmental triggers to senescence and im pretty convinced that letting the nutes/ferts run short at the end of flowering will help indoor plants to yellow, especially in smaller pots.

VG

 

[rrog]

Interesting. The technique outlined by Highonmt might be the ticket. I'm just doing the ice treatment. I can't cool my room to the 40s at night for two weeks. I might set up an exhausted AC if the ice treatment impresses me.

I can say that this AM, after night #2 of 6 with ice, the little grow room was significantly more aromatic. Hadn't expected that. Leaves are also notably yellowing.

 

[pinecone]

I harvested this SSH plant today after 13 weeks of flowering. The plant got no "nutes" they entire grow. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Pine

 

[rrog]

Damn fine looking. lots of bud there. Smoke should be awesome. I'm cutting my SSH this wednesday. 11 weeks.

 

[mad librettist]

People who grow cobra lillies usually have to cool the roots so that crowd might have some good info

 

[Microbeman]

By watering your plants with just water, it flushes out any remaining nutrients in the soil. Of coarse this wont happen with fresh soil with fresh amendments. Classy is talking about at the end of your grow, water with nothing but water for several weeks, which will flush out any remaining salts and/or nutes.

As I said, I just don't believe this occurs if you have a living soil. What are you flushing out? Bacteria, protozoa/cysts, fungal hyphae, nematodes, compost??

BTW, the only influence on my outdoor beds was the clover, there was no more organic matter on the outdoor beds than indoors.

I used to believe the flushing out nutrient thing and practiced it. I stopped and saw no difference. It is different if using ionic form nutrients.

VG; hmmm...that molasses question again. I'm not sure without trials; same with citric acid perchance.

 

[rrog]

...did someone use the M word?

 

[growingcrazy]

My soil bed doesn't even have a drain in it. So the only way for any nutrients to leave my bed is through the buds. I still get the natural yellowing on most (70%) of my runs.

 

[habeeb]

well look into plant nutrient mobility.. maybe I can post up some info later... to long right now


I just start tapering off 2 weeks till. I just slowly knock down feeding for the first week, then the second week they start using reserves.. I figure, why feed them when they would feed themselves, I'm not wasting nutes, when I chop the leaves.


some say it stresses them. some say it turns them to overdrive.. who knows.

 

[DARC MIND]

living soil & water

living soil & water

give em time & theyll amaze you

 

[rrog]

Thanks. Now I have drool on my keyboard.