Flush and starve plants during flowering??

Guest 248960 · Feb 28, 2012

I was watching this grow video from greenhouse seeds about the super lemon haze, http://www.growhd.tv/video/Super-Lemon-Haze-Grow-video-2011/943334263be1b04d6b149f911b1afa78.

They say that you should flush multiple times during flowering and starve the plants to dry out the roots.

Anyone tried those tricks?

El Toker · Feb 29, 2012

Only dried plants out by accident, it damages the plants. As for flushing multiple times, I can't think of a good reason for starving the plants of nutrients when it's supposed to be synthesising THC. It sounds like GHS give advice that's nearly as good as their seeds.

MPL · Mar 4, 2012

This is not correct.

El Toker said:
Only dried plants out by accident, it damages the plants. As for flushing multiple times, I can't think of a good reason for starving the plants of nutrients when it's supposed to be synthesising THC. It sounds like GHS give advice that's nearly as good as their seeds.

Occassionally bring plants to the point they're just beginning to wilt can be beneficial, especially during veg. The plant adaps to the dryer environment and works harder to push out roots.

Regarding flushing: if your plants aren't yellow, gold, red, etc. at harvest time you did not allow your plants to mature and die properly. The plant should look like any other annual in the fall with beautiful colors, especially golds and browns. The last two or three weeks of the plants life usually don't require any feeding if nutrients were provided properly from the start. In the last few weeks the plant should be cannabalizing it's own leaves to provide the energy and nutrients for bud development.

If you're harvesting and your fan leaves look healthy your product will probably not taste or smoke as well as it could have. AAA quality bud looks like absolute shit on harvest day to the eye that doesn't know what to look for.

bigAl25 · Mar 4, 2012

Great advice MPL. Peace and respect

Homebrewer · Mar 4, 2012

hamann4242 said:
I was watching this grow video from greenhouse seeds about the super lemon haze, http://www.growhd.tv/video/Super-Lemon-Haze-Grow-video-2011/943334263be1b04d6b149f911b1afa78.

They say that you should flush multiple times during flowering and starve the plants to dry out the roots.

Anyone tried those tricks?

Personally, the GHS guys are the last people I'd take growing tips from. In regards to 'flushing' multiple times during the flowering peroid, I think 'leaching' is probably a better term. Canna growers chronically overfeed their plants so leaching your medium with plain water a few times during your grow helps to remove salt buildup and maintains a healthy medium for the roots. I tend to feed, feed, water which address the potential issue of salt buildup. Chronically overfeeding plants is probably where the pre-harvest practice of 'flushing' came from in the first place. Don't overfeed and you don't need to flush.

if your plants aren't yellow, gold, red, etc. at harvest time you did not allow your plants to mature and die properly. The plant should look like any other annual in the fall with beautiful colors, especially golds and browns.

Perennials change colors in the fall because of certain triggers that tell them winter is coming (ie, light cycles, cooler temperatures, less rain, etc.). Cannabis is an annual meaning it completes it's life cycle in one season. It does not need to 'cannibalize itself' or prepare for winter like perennials do because annuals usually die near or during the winter months. Starving your plants (aka, flushing) to induce a deficient look is not the same thing that happens in nature.

MPL · Mar 4, 2012

I may have had my biology wrong but I get better results when mine change colors like that.

Is this atypical then?

Homebrewer said:
Personally, the GHS guys are the last people I'd take growing tips from. In regards to 'flushing' multiple times during the flowering peroid, I think 'leaching' is probably a better term. Canna growers chronically overfeed their plants so leaching your medium with plain water a few times during your grow helps to remove salt buildup and maintains a healthy medium for the roots. I tend to feed, feed, water which address the potential issue of salt buildup. Chronically overfeeding plants is probably where the pre-harvest practice of 'flushing' came from in the first place. Don't overfeed and you don't need to flush.

Perennials change colors in the fall because of certain triggers that tell them winter is coming (ie, light cycles, cooler temperatures, less rain, etc.). Cannabis is an annual meaning it completes it's life cycle in one season. It does not need to 'cannibalize itself' or prepare for winter like perennials do because annuals usually die near or during the winter months. Starving your plants (aka, flushing) to induce a deficient look is not the same thing that happens in nature.

El Toker · Mar 5, 2012

MPL said:
This is not correct.

Regarding flushing: if your plants aren't yellow, gold, red, etc. at harvest time you did not allow your plants to mature and die properly. The plant should........

When I started growing, my plants were looking a little sad at harvest time. Now that I know what I'm doing, the leaves stay green and healthy right up to the chop.

The only people who have tried my bud have been toking for between 20 and 30 years, they rate it very highly. I'm not going to comment on taste because that's purely subjective. Suffice to say that I would never inhale a lung full of smoke just for the taste of it.

mg75 · Mar 5, 2012

we feed less and never flush with plain water. we always have carbs in the mix... not my idea, but my partner swears by it and the product speaks for itself. he refuses to just use water at the end. the plant is way behind dying off when we harvest and is still using nutrients... just less. your roots can tell you a lot about where your plant are.
on the other hand, the argument that naturally outdoor growing cannabis feeds its whole lifetime is somewhat non-relevant as we mostly grow indoors in artificial environments. i think that manipulating the food, feeding intervals, temps, LST, light cycles, etc grows a much different plant and is hard to compare with its outdoor/natural counterpart. most seasoned smokers/growers can tell the difference between outdoor/green house/indoor buds before even smoking it... so there is a difference!

too many variables are involved and can be controlled in an indoor grow... some feed until the end, some flush for 30+ days, and some just use plain water in an organic soil mix. most growers that use bottles rarely go by the feed schedule recommended by the nutrient company. unless you learn under a master gardener and apply his/her method to a T, you have to just try for yourself. that takes patience, diligence, and many years of growing.

abellguy · Mar 5, 2012

hamann4242 said:
I was watching this grow video from greenhouse seeds about the super lemon haze, http://www.growhd.tv/video/Super-Lemon-Haze-Grow-video-2011/943334263be1b04d6b149f911b1afa78.

They say that you should flush multiple times during flowering and starve the plants to dry out the roots.

Anyone tried those tricks?

I have tried the technique before and now incorporate it into my normal water schedule more on a continual basis as apposed to just 3 or 4 times throughout the flower period.

When I first tried it I was running in grodan cubes on top of slabs 5 plants per slab. On the 17, 27, 42 day I did a flush with 1.1 or so EC base and sugars to reduce the EC and stabilize the PH usually to about 1.15-1.20 EC, then let them dry out for about 2 or three days where normally they were being watered twice a day. The results were good, but because the plants were joined by the slab it caused some to dry more than others which I wasn't very happy with.

I have since switched to 2 gal pots and grodan growcubes and basically the way it works for me is that each light period I will water about 1 hour after the lights come one and again about one hour before the lights go off. I find that each watering the plants are what I would call drying out more than normal hydro growing, most people might add one and maybe even two more watering in there because when I do water an individual plant will take 11 full seconds of feed from a hose and 600gph pump before any will drain from the bottom. That is on both feeds and I am seeing stellar results with this method I have kinda worked into.

GHS are growing much bigger plants in way bigger pots so they can probably make it the few days without watering, my plants on the other hand in the 2 gals would never make it that long with no water so you do have to adjust to the specific media you are using.

I also agree that if your plants are finishing green in color you have not grown them for all you can get from them. It should be an autumn finish as I like to say, the leaves should be a changing color if not before but definitely during the final flush. Hope this helps :rasta:

MPL · Mar 5, 2012

That's what I go by.

abellguy said:
I also agree that if your plants are finishing green in color you have not grown them for all you can get from them. It should be an autumn finish as I like to say, the leaves should be a changing color if not before but definitely during the final flush. Hope this helps

Homebrewer · Mar 5, 2012

MPL said:
I may have had my biology wrong but I get better results when mine change colors like that.

Is this atypical then?

By all means, do what works best for you. In my almost 11 years in this hobby, I've found that the highest quality smoke comes from the healthiest plants. If harvesting deficient plants is supposed to yield the best results then everyone's first year of growing should have yielded us the best cannabis in the world. That's not how it works though. The key to this whole thing is learning how to read our plants and feeding accordingly.

The picture below is of a plant at harvest day (day 62). It was fed at or just below 1.0 EC at the peak of flowering in an Ebb-n-flow system. No offense but I laughed a little when a previous poster said they flushed several times with the same feeding levels that I consider more than adequate for healthy growth. I don't even want to know what the EC was when the plants weren't being flushed.

A crop of the previous picture:

MPL · Mar 5, 2012

Beautiful buds Homebrewer. The only color difference I see in my own plants vs yours on harvest is that the few fan leaves that haven't naturally fallen off (and they start falling long before I flush) are mostly golden. You have a lot more leaves in general than I do on harvest day.

I usually run an EC from 1.0-1.4 and have found it to be plenty strong enough. Increasing it to 2.0 has never given me any beneficial results, regardless of the nutrients being used.

Experienced smokers have mistaken my hydro bud for organic indoor. I like to credit that taste, smell etc. to the flush, but it could be anything really.

You know, I'll bet this will vary quite a bit from strain to strain.

Homebrewer · Mar 5, 2012

MPL said:
Beautiful buds Homebrewer. The only color difference I see in my own plants vs yours on harvest is that the few fan leaves that haven't naturally fallen off (and they start falling long before I flush) are mostly golden. You have a lot more leaves in general than I do on harvest day.

If I were in your position and I was losing any fan leaves at all, I would question if what I'm doing or what I'm feeding is really what the plant needs. After all, our leaves drive production. If I want productive plants, my single most important job is to keep those leaves intact and healthy.

MPL · Mar 5, 2012

So you mean to say none of your leaves ever yellow? That's odd because I've never had a grown where my fan leaves didn't yellow and fall off naturally. This usually occurs about 3 or 4 weeks into flowering. This applies across every strain I have tried and every technique, from organic soil to hydro.

I find it quite odd that you don't see your leaves yellow and fall off, regardless of how you grow. Even if I were to keep feeding until I chop, at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the large fan leaves would yellow and fall off by harvest day.

In fact I find what you're saying so unusual (in my experience) that if my plants didn't start yellowing I would question whether they were anywhere near ripe and ready.

Lately I've been routinely pulling way over a pound per light of AAA so not too worried about the yellowing on my part.

Homebrewer said:
If I were in your position and I was losing any fan leaves at all, I would question if what I'm doing or what I'm feeding is really what the plant needs. After all, our leaves drive production. If I want productive plants, my single most important job is to keep those leaves intact and healthy.

Homebrewer · Mar 5, 2012

MPL said:
So you mean to say none of your leaves ever yellow? That's odd because I've never had a grown where my fan leaves didn't yellow and fall off naturally. This usually occurs about 3 or 4 weeks into flowering. This applies across every strain I have tried and every technique, from organic soil to hydro.

I find it quite odd that you don't see your leaves yellow and fall off, regardless of how you grow. Even if I were to keep feeding until I chop, at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the large fan leaves would yellow and fall off by harvest day.

In fact I find what you're saying so unusual (in my experience) that if my plants didn't start yellowing I would question whether they were anywhere near ripe and ready.

Lately I've been routinely pulling way over a pound per light of AAA so not too worried about the yellowing on my part.

Please forgive my ghetto setup but it works as well as any other at a higher cost. The plants below are less than a week from harvest and the only leaves that were lost were those not getting direct light (ie, lower fan leaves shaded by larger more productive fan leaves above). The yield from this was something like 598 grams from a 600 HPS.

If my leaves started to yellow, I'd add more nitrogen into their mix. When flowering time hits, I don't reach for my glossy-labeled 'budblaster XL' or whatever the kids are buying these days, I reach for a formula that supports healthy leaves and drives flower production. It's a balance and if your leaves are yellowing and dropping early, you haven't found that balance yet. Not knowing anything about your food or setup, try mixing in some grow formula during your bloom cycle to support those leaves.

jahrastafareye · Mar 5, 2012

perhaps different strains require different "flushes". some like food till the end , and some are better off starving for a few days/weeks. just a guess

MPL · Mar 5, 2012

Not ghetto at all my friend. You're growing some fine looking marijuana and your yields are obviously excellent. That's all that matters.

It's funny you suggest adding N. I'm actually working on reducing the amount of N earlier in my nutrient mix, in order to actively promote the yellowing and dying of my fan leaves. Nitrogen seems to be especially guilty of leading to bud that tastes like a chemical factory. I've tried keeping plants greener to the end and I just end up with lower grade bud.

I suppose we have two different approaches. I actively seek to have most of my fan leaves yellowed and/or dead by harvest day, which is quite opposite of what you do.

I'm not critical of your style, as your results and yield speak for themselves, but I feel like I've tried that tact and it didn't prove as productive as what I'm currently doing.

Again, beautiful plants comrade!

Homebrewer said:
Please forgive my ghetto setup but it works as well as any other at a higher cost. The plants below are less than a week from harvest and the only leaves that were lost were those not getting direct light (ie, lower fan leaves shaded by larger more productive fan leaves above). The yield from this was something like 598 grams from a 600 HPS.

If my leaves started to yellow, I'd add more nitrogen into their mix. When flowering time hits, I don't reach for my glossy-labeled 'budblaster XL' or whatever the kids are buying these days, I reach for a formula that supports healthy leaves and drives flower production. It's a balance and if your leaves are yellowing and dropping early, you haven't found that balance yet. Not knowing anything about your food or setup, try mixing in some grow formula during your bloom cycle to support those leaves.

[URL=http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1800/4891c.jpg]View Image[/URL]

MPL · Mar 5, 2012

Hey Homebrew, quick question, what color is the ash left behind after you burn some of your bud?

Hammerhead · Mar 5, 2012

I would agree the plants need to be all yellow before harvest. I have never got gold/yellow/red buds from it though. The plant will yellow and the leaves might turn color but the buds will remain green. If we had to wait for the whole plant to brown out it would take 4m of flowering any strain min.

Homebrewer · Mar 5, 2012

MPL said:
Hey Homebrew, quick question, what color is the ash left behind after you burn some of your bud?

I couldn't tell ya, I'll take two hits and pack a fresh bowl. Life is too short to not smoke greens.

Interesting thread on that subject btw:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=229630

Mad Librettist probably had the best post with this link here: http://www.cuban-cigars-store.com/ash.html

Flush and starve plants during flowering??

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