Greenmopho
Member
This is a 3-week slow flush that I use on my DWC buckets to make my plants finish real tasty and put your organic buds to shame! I am using General Hydroponics Flora 3-part and some additives, some from the GH line, and some from other places. The timing on this is important. Some of the organic heads will call this cheating, but hey, it works and creates a superior product. Some people believe in pushing their plants to the edge, and run full strength nutes right up until they flush with clearex or something. NOT GOOD. I think too many people smoke bowls or bongs now a days and forget what a good clean burning joint is supposed to burn like!!! I'm a joint smoker, this is why I developed this!
You will need:
Molasses
Hygrozyme
Aquashield (or FloraShield)
FloraBlend (or other Compost Teas)
Subculture-M and Subculture-B (or an equivalent source of microbial)
Floralicious Plus
General Hydroponics Flora 3-part
A recirculating DWC system
An extra 5 gal bucket with closed lid, air stone, and air pump
The basic rules:
Use filtered water
Keep water temps below 72 deg
No light exposure to nutrient solution
ALWAYS use Aquashield (or FloraShield), from veg to harvest. You can use it during flush.
Completely drain and flush your system after every week or step outlined below. Don't leave any residual salts floating around in there.
Maintain pH as usual
A healthy system should slowly drift towards neutral (pH 7.0) over a week’s period of time or so and only require pH down, not up.
3rd week before harvest:
Bubble a 5 gal bucket full of water with 2 tsp of molasses (per 40 gallons), a splash of hygrozyme, florablend, aquashield, and just a pinch of both GH subcultures. Let that bubble for 24-48 hours with a lid on it.
Bring the salts in your res to around 600 ppms with just the 3 part, eliminate KoolBloom or any excess P or K. Add the bubbled molasses solution, and full doses of Aquashield, Hygrozyme, FloraBlend, Floralicious and the subcultures. This should raise your ppms to about 800-850. By the end of the week, your nutes will be almost back at 1000 ppm, due to the plants dumping N and other excess nutes back into the water.
So for this week you are adding:
GH FloraMicro 5mL/gal
GH FloraGrow 2.5mL/gal
GH FloraBloom 7.5mL/gal
(adjust the above as per your schedule, i.e. Rez Recipe, 9mL of bloom, or Lucas 8mL micro and 16mL bloom)
Hygrozyme 10mL/gal
Aquashield 15mL/gal
FloraBlend 10mL/gal
Subculture B, whatever it says in the directions
Molasses 5-10mL/20 gal (bubbled at least 24 hours according to above)
Floralicious Plus 15mL/20 gal
2nd week before harvest:
Repeat the molasses bubbling, but skip the salts all together. Your ppms should be in the 250-350 range, and at the end of that week you will be around 400-500 ppms from flushing.
So for this week you are adding:
Hygrozyme 10mL/gal
Aquashield 15mL/gal
FloraBlend 10mL/gal
Subculture M & B, whatever it says in the directions
Molasses 5mL/20 gal (bubbled at least 24 hours according to above)
Floralicious Plus 7.5mL/20 gal
Last week before harvest:
Only use Aquashield and Hygrozyme, and then flush again 3-4 days before harvest with just clean pH'd water.
So for the last week you are adding:
Hygrozyme 8mL/gal
Aquashield 10mL/gal
and then flush after 3-4 days, and finish the last 3-4 days with clean filtered and pH'd water.
I also like to drain the system and let the plants use up the last of the water for a minimum of 4 hours before I chop 'em. My lights run at night, and I harvest right as the lights come on, so the morning of harverst, I go in and drain the system dry, and just let the plants sit in there, with the lights off.
Notice I'm not using any glucose product like FloraKleen or Clearex to flush. This hastens flush and doesn't do the best job, the idea is a nice slow gentle flush, with plenty of organics for the plant to ripen its flavor in. This will give you yield, potency, and vigor of hydro, but still maintain excellent flavor comparable to some of the finest soil grown organics!
I know, seems like a lot of work, but you will have excellent clean burning and flushed buds without clogging up your system too much. This has worked for me, and upon vending my stuff around town, I get asked questions like: "Wow, smells good, what kind of soil did you grow in?" or "This is organic, right?"...they are usually pretty surprised when I tell em its DWC grown with GH 3-part, hehehe!
I also refuse to use FloraNectar or Sweet or any other "bottled flavor". Why do I want my Mexican sativa to taste like Berries or Pineapples? And if you read the ingredients, it’s mostly Molasses, Cane Sugar Juice, "Natural Flavoring Agents" and some B-vitamins, at $30 a quart. No thanks! I want to make the natural flavor of the strain shine! You don't need all that other crap, just molasses, but the molasses has to be broken down, you can't just pour it in your res.
I just let loose my secret....
I swear by Aquashield and Hygrozyme. Hygrozyme will dissolve all the dead plant/root matter, nothing living in it, just enzymes that will help all your beneficials thrive. It breaks down the dead rotting organic compounds swimming around into carbohydrates that your plant can use. You can find quiet a few threads on here about Hygrozyme contributing to flavor when used during flush. Aquashield is "Poultry Litter Compost", or Chicken Shit as I like to call it. An excellent source of live Bacillus Subtilis, which attacks root rot and many other microbes that will call your res home. GH makes a competing product (for more money) called FloraShield, if you feel more comfortable sticking with them, go for it, but I have no experience with it. All I know is Aquashield has gotten me out of some tight jams and its good stuff for a fair price. Another good one that my buddy uses is Botaniguard, but I can't find it anywhere. Supposed to be a blend of various beneficial fungi.
In the GH line, I use the FloraBlend, which is an Organic Compost Tea, doesn't seem to clog up my DWC much either. Go easy on this stuff, since it will "stain" your roots brown. Makes your roots light brown, almost looks like root rot, but you can pull at the roots and see that they are strong. Then I use Floralicous Plus, which is also an Organic supplement, very concentrated, adds a nice boost of N, Cal, and Mg, so you don't have to use Cal Mag or some shit like that! Then there is the Subcultures. GH makes Subculture-M, which is Mycorrhizal Fungi, kind of expensive and you need a lot of it. I don't usually recommend using it in bloom, except for this flush. I usually use it when I transplant clones, but it will help protect you roots. I leaves a weird milky black & white snot on your roots the first 24-48 hours and then dissipates. This however does tend to clog up my DWC a bit, which is why I don't recommend it in bloom unless you are recovering from some serious shit! It does seem to most add the “soil flavor”, the earthy undertones that soil grown weed gets. And finally, I use the Subculture-B which just contains many different Bacillus cultures, including Bacillus Subtilis. I still add Aquashield even though it seems redundant because since it is in liquid form, I find it to be a lot more active and ALIVE than the GH Subculture-B, which comes as a powder and takes a few days in your res to really get active.
I obviously don't recommend using any of the above (except Hygrozyme) in combination with SM-90, H2O2, or Physan 20, since these products will kill all the beneficials you are trying to supplement with the afore mentioned products. I've NEVER had to use Physan 20 on my plants. It was recommended to me to combat root rot, so I got my grow store to order me a bottle, and when I read the label on the side, it scared the shit out of me, and I didn't want to kill my plants or myself with it. I only use it between crops to clean my lines, since it won't degrade rubber like bleach does. It says right on it, NOT FOR USE IN GREENHOUSES CONTAINING FOOD CROPS!!!! I'm pretty experienced when it comes to combating root rot, so if you are having serious issues, PM me, and I can give you some tips, just don't use physan, especially in bloom!
I'm sure you could imitate some of this with other nutrient lines that have similar products. The idea is to understand what the products you are using contain, what they do, and how and when to use them. Don't just read the labels and follow nute schedules blindly, do some reading up on the science of it and experiment with your plants! You can try this with Lucas or Rezdog's Recipe. I am actually going to implement some of Rez's schedule, adhere it to my slow flush and come up with a full 9 week schedule, stay tuned for that, still working on it!
Of course, DWC is the second most finicky method of hydro (aero being the 1st) when using any type of organics. You always need to be aware of the condition of your water and how your roots are responding. During the last 2 weeks, a little root rot don't bother me, but if you use any/all of these products during the entire bloom cycle, you need to watch your roots carefully and make sure the molasses is not feeding the wrong set of bacteria and fungus! During bloom, if problems persist, H2O2 is your friend. You can double the recommended dose, and use it every day, and your plants will be fine. But it is a fine balance in DWC. If you go too organic, to use such terms, your water will gunk up and become thick, where it cannot readily dissolve oxygen as easy. The trick is to find ways to boost those beneficials without promoting gunk up. Some still say its impossible...I tend to leave most of these products out of most of my bloom cycle, the first 2-3 weeks only bloom on GH 3-part, no additives at all!
BTW (WARNING): The General Organics line is NOT for DWC!!!
Also, on LONG flowering sativas, 80 days+, I would extend each week of flush to at least a full 10 day period, totally to a 30 day flush or so. The more sativa the plant is, the bigger the root system it will have, the more complex flavor it will have, the more nutrients it will store during growth, the more it will need to flush! This 3 week flush worked great on some 60-day strains, but you may want to adjust the periods based on how long your strains' flower time is.
As with anything, take this with a grain of salt, different methods for different people. But maybe you can incorporate 1 or 2 things into your nute schedule. Read your plants, see if they like it, experiment...don't just read the label!!!
You will need:
Molasses
Hygrozyme
Aquashield (or FloraShield)
FloraBlend (or other Compost Teas)
Subculture-M and Subculture-B (or an equivalent source of microbial)
Floralicious Plus
General Hydroponics Flora 3-part
A recirculating DWC system
An extra 5 gal bucket with closed lid, air stone, and air pump
The basic rules:
Use filtered water
Keep water temps below 72 deg
No light exposure to nutrient solution
ALWAYS use Aquashield (or FloraShield), from veg to harvest. You can use it during flush.
Completely drain and flush your system after every week or step outlined below. Don't leave any residual salts floating around in there.
Maintain pH as usual
A healthy system should slowly drift towards neutral (pH 7.0) over a week’s period of time or so and only require pH down, not up.
3rd week before harvest:
Bubble a 5 gal bucket full of water with 2 tsp of molasses (per 40 gallons), a splash of hygrozyme, florablend, aquashield, and just a pinch of both GH subcultures. Let that bubble for 24-48 hours with a lid on it.
Bring the salts in your res to around 600 ppms with just the 3 part, eliminate KoolBloom or any excess P or K. Add the bubbled molasses solution, and full doses of Aquashield, Hygrozyme, FloraBlend, Floralicious and the subcultures. This should raise your ppms to about 800-850. By the end of the week, your nutes will be almost back at 1000 ppm, due to the plants dumping N and other excess nutes back into the water.
So for this week you are adding:
GH FloraMicro 5mL/gal
GH FloraGrow 2.5mL/gal
GH FloraBloom 7.5mL/gal
(adjust the above as per your schedule, i.e. Rez Recipe, 9mL of bloom, or Lucas 8mL micro and 16mL bloom)
Hygrozyme 10mL/gal
Aquashield 15mL/gal
FloraBlend 10mL/gal
Subculture B, whatever it says in the directions
Molasses 5-10mL/20 gal (bubbled at least 24 hours according to above)
Floralicious Plus 15mL/20 gal
2nd week before harvest:
Repeat the molasses bubbling, but skip the salts all together. Your ppms should be in the 250-350 range, and at the end of that week you will be around 400-500 ppms from flushing.
So for this week you are adding:
Hygrozyme 10mL/gal
Aquashield 15mL/gal
FloraBlend 10mL/gal
Subculture M & B, whatever it says in the directions
Molasses 5mL/20 gal (bubbled at least 24 hours according to above)
Floralicious Plus 7.5mL/20 gal
Last week before harvest:
Only use Aquashield and Hygrozyme, and then flush again 3-4 days before harvest with just clean pH'd water.
So for the last week you are adding:
Hygrozyme 8mL/gal
Aquashield 10mL/gal
and then flush after 3-4 days, and finish the last 3-4 days with clean filtered and pH'd water.
I also like to drain the system and let the plants use up the last of the water for a minimum of 4 hours before I chop 'em. My lights run at night, and I harvest right as the lights come on, so the morning of harverst, I go in and drain the system dry, and just let the plants sit in there, with the lights off.
Notice I'm not using any glucose product like FloraKleen or Clearex to flush. This hastens flush and doesn't do the best job, the idea is a nice slow gentle flush, with plenty of organics for the plant to ripen its flavor in. This will give you yield, potency, and vigor of hydro, but still maintain excellent flavor comparable to some of the finest soil grown organics!
I know, seems like a lot of work, but you will have excellent clean burning and flushed buds without clogging up your system too much. This has worked for me, and upon vending my stuff around town, I get asked questions like: "Wow, smells good, what kind of soil did you grow in?" or "This is organic, right?"...they are usually pretty surprised when I tell em its DWC grown with GH 3-part, hehehe!
I also refuse to use FloraNectar or Sweet or any other "bottled flavor". Why do I want my Mexican sativa to taste like Berries or Pineapples? And if you read the ingredients, it’s mostly Molasses, Cane Sugar Juice, "Natural Flavoring Agents" and some B-vitamins, at $30 a quart. No thanks! I want to make the natural flavor of the strain shine! You don't need all that other crap, just molasses, but the molasses has to be broken down, you can't just pour it in your res.
I just let loose my secret....
I swear by Aquashield and Hygrozyme. Hygrozyme will dissolve all the dead plant/root matter, nothing living in it, just enzymes that will help all your beneficials thrive. It breaks down the dead rotting organic compounds swimming around into carbohydrates that your plant can use. You can find quiet a few threads on here about Hygrozyme contributing to flavor when used during flush. Aquashield is "Poultry Litter Compost", or Chicken Shit as I like to call it. An excellent source of live Bacillus Subtilis, which attacks root rot and many other microbes that will call your res home. GH makes a competing product (for more money) called FloraShield, if you feel more comfortable sticking with them, go for it, but I have no experience with it. All I know is Aquashield has gotten me out of some tight jams and its good stuff for a fair price. Another good one that my buddy uses is Botaniguard, but I can't find it anywhere. Supposed to be a blend of various beneficial fungi.
In the GH line, I use the FloraBlend, which is an Organic Compost Tea, doesn't seem to clog up my DWC much either. Go easy on this stuff, since it will "stain" your roots brown. Makes your roots light brown, almost looks like root rot, but you can pull at the roots and see that they are strong. Then I use Floralicous Plus, which is also an Organic supplement, very concentrated, adds a nice boost of N, Cal, and Mg, so you don't have to use Cal Mag or some shit like that! Then there is the Subcultures. GH makes Subculture-M, which is Mycorrhizal Fungi, kind of expensive and you need a lot of it. I don't usually recommend using it in bloom, except for this flush. I usually use it when I transplant clones, but it will help protect you roots. I leaves a weird milky black & white snot on your roots the first 24-48 hours and then dissipates. This however does tend to clog up my DWC a bit, which is why I don't recommend it in bloom unless you are recovering from some serious shit! It does seem to most add the “soil flavor”, the earthy undertones that soil grown weed gets. And finally, I use the Subculture-B which just contains many different Bacillus cultures, including Bacillus Subtilis. I still add Aquashield even though it seems redundant because since it is in liquid form, I find it to be a lot more active and ALIVE than the GH Subculture-B, which comes as a powder and takes a few days in your res to really get active.
I obviously don't recommend using any of the above (except Hygrozyme) in combination with SM-90, H2O2, or Physan 20, since these products will kill all the beneficials you are trying to supplement with the afore mentioned products. I've NEVER had to use Physan 20 on my plants. It was recommended to me to combat root rot, so I got my grow store to order me a bottle, and when I read the label on the side, it scared the shit out of me, and I didn't want to kill my plants or myself with it. I only use it between crops to clean my lines, since it won't degrade rubber like bleach does. It says right on it, NOT FOR USE IN GREENHOUSES CONTAINING FOOD CROPS!!!! I'm pretty experienced when it comes to combating root rot, so if you are having serious issues, PM me, and I can give you some tips, just don't use physan, especially in bloom!
I'm sure you could imitate some of this with other nutrient lines that have similar products. The idea is to understand what the products you are using contain, what they do, and how and when to use them. Don't just read the labels and follow nute schedules blindly, do some reading up on the science of it and experiment with your plants! You can try this with Lucas or Rezdog's Recipe. I am actually going to implement some of Rez's schedule, adhere it to my slow flush and come up with a full 9 week schedule, stay tuned for that, still working on it!
Of course, DWC is the second most finicky method of hydro (aero being the 1st) when using any type of organics. You always need to be aware of the condition of your water and how your roots are responding. During the last 2 weeks, a little root rot don't bother me, but if you use any/all of these products during the entire bloom cycle, you need to watch your roots carefully and make sure the molasses is not feeding the wrong set of bacteria and fungus! During bloom, if problems persist, H2O2 is your friend. You can double the recommended dose, and use it every day, and your plants will be fine. But it is a fine balance in DWC. If you go too organic, to use such terms, your water will gunk up and become thick, where it cannot readily dissolve oxygen as easy. The trick is to find ways to boost those beneficials without promoting gunk up. Some still say its impossible...I tend to leave most of these products out of most of my bloom cycle, the first 2-3 weeks only bloom on GH 3-part, no additives at all!
BTW (WARNING): The General Organics line is NOT for DWC!!!
Also, on LONG flowering sativas, 80 days+, I would extend each week of flush to at least a full 10 day period, totally to a 30 day flush or so. The more sativa the plant is, the bigger the root system it will have, the more complex flavor it will have, the more nutrients it will store during growth, the more it will need to flush! This 3 week flush worked great on some 60-day strains, but you may want to adjust the periods based on how long your strains' flower time is.
As with anything, take this with a grain of salt, different methods for different people. But maybe you can incorporate 1 or 2 things into your nute schedule. Read your plants, see if they like it, experiment...don't just read the label!!!
