Growing wives tales and bad information.

Well I've been growing since before the Internet and I've been on forums since the beginning. During this time I've heard alot totally ridiculous advise and simply bad information. I thought i would start a thread listing crazy things you've heard so feel free to add to it.

First, IMO starving your plant at the end of flowering to rid it of nitrogen is a load of crap. Starve it for smoother smoke and to decrease leaves. Ridiculous. I've done it both ways and when I don't starve a plant it always produces more. Plants do need nitrogen in all phases of growth. I've never tasted any difference in a plant that was "starved" and a plant that was not. Smoked the same either way. When i give a plant a balanced meal through it's entire life it is always, not sometimes, but always a better producer than plants that are mistreated, err I mean starved.

Please add your favorite wives tales and bad information so some beginners can avoid bad advice.

now thats is interesting to read, as with me being a newb, everywhere you read is saying to starve/flush for the last week ot two, if the two are the same.

In the wild, I dont think that all weed gets 2 weeks of terrential rains to "flush" out the nutes so if your matching the natural world, why would you even consider flushing?

However

with chemical nutes and hydro (soiless) systems you flush the last two weeks to make the plant use the stockpile of nutirents that it has stored in the fan leaves etc.

its a way to balance overfeeding the plants for the first 3/4s of its flowering life

I dont fully understand why, in nature that plant starts to use up the nutrient stores in its leaves at the end of flowering and why when the plant is in an artificial setting it continues to uptake nutrients until the end of flowering

There was a post about too many people haveing dark jaded color leaves at harvest

Perhaps temps, angle of light, lack of diminishing light regiment and other factors play a role in the plant feeding off its own leaves vs uptaking fomr the soil around it

I definately flush my plants, because it makes a big difference in how smooth the smoke is. If I sont flush the smoke hurts my lungs, if I flush and let the plant loose some of the "green luster" it smokes so much better. assume it is all cured in an identical manner because it is

Thanks for the responses. I was talking more about how people cut out most nitrogen during flower to the point leaves start to yellow. I have found if you keep plants on a maintence level of nitrogen during flower they always yield better. We're not talking yielding an ounce more but more like grams more. hey every little bit helps.
You have brought up a good point about flushing. Do we flush our vegetable plants before we pick them? I ran the same clone for a year in my cabinet. For two grows i flushed half the clones and the other half i didn't flush. Every time side by side smoking tests all samples smoked the exact same way . Same taste, same smoothness with unflushed and flushed. To prevent my biased opinion i even gave the same samples to 2 friends without them knowing and their opinion was the same. There was no difference between the samples. I don't know where the "we MUST flush our plants" came from but to me it's bad information. Do tobacco farmers flush their plants before harvest? Do any edible crop farmers flush their plants before harvest? Hell no. Why should we? I urge any naysayers to do a simple experiment like i did.

I am also in doubt about "flushing" soil based plants. - When I say flush I mean not feeding for the last 2 weeks of flowering. I am not refering to the act of flushing the salts out of the medium.

I think there are many methods developed by growers that are more based on superstition then science.

Here is a post I made some time ago regarding this, no one ever chimed in to confirm this is the case, but it was based on "plants"

"Plants capture energy from sunlight by means of photosynthesys. Using the green pigment in their leaves they make sugar. They store the sugar primarily as starch. Storage in the form of fat / oil is common too, especially in seeds."

Since when a plant is starved the main fan leaves are really the majority of what is withering and yellowing does that not mean that technically the bud sites and all its supporting leave structures could be increasing their level of starches and glucose when you starve your plant at the end? The opposite result of what you think you are accomplishing?

If a leave is green it still contains Chlorophyll, which means it still is capable of using the water it is fead and the CO2 in the air to create glucose.

If you starve your plant and all of the supporting leaves (fan leaves) all wither, won't the supporting smaller bud site leaves produce more localized starches vs continuing to feed your plant?

If it is the chorophyll itself that the "flushers" are trying to get rid of, then technically would you not need to flush till practically all the bud sites looked terrible?

Here is one item I found on plants in general when it comes to nutrient shortage.

"It has long been known that deficiencies of essential macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium) result in an accumulation of carbohydrates in leaves and roots, and modify the shoot-to-root biomass ratio."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...f759c7751a5218c

So basically when you starve your plant, all your budsites are going build up with more glucose (and the root system) Is that not technically what is happening based on the science of this?

One cannibis curing FAQ I found states:

---
Also as these metabolic process take place, the plant needs energy which leads it to consume the sugars, starches, nitrates, and minerals. Many of these compounds are metabolized and released as water and carbon dioxide, therefore removing what is essentially inert material from the pot increasing the concentration of cannabinoids therefore making it more potent.

Much of these positive metabolic processes can be most effectively begun with thourough flushing and stripping of the plant before harvest. This will help reduce the amount of time necessary for a good cure.
---

It has already been determined that when a plant has its nutrients cut off it will actually increase its concentration of sugars in the leaves, so it looks like from what I am reading that is incorrect result from "flushing"

Flushed cannabis should techincally take longer to cure properly based on what "general plant" data I can find.

Personally, I don't "flush" or starve my plants in flowering at the end. I do lower the level of nutrients they receive, because their water intake slows and I do believe too much could stress them, but I don't cut their food supply off. I just don't see how that could help anything, other then maybe introducing color changes if that is what you are looking for in your plant.

There are a few reasons you might want to flush.... not starve a plant.
When using a soil less mix and manufactured nutes, salts build up over time and need to be flushed out. A soil less or Soil container will not flush out 100% anyway.
DWC, Aero, and Coco of course can be flushed 100%.

Even with a DWC you want a few PPM in the rez, just so the plant wont stress out going from 1500 PPM to 0 PPM.

Outdoors in the ground the plant uses all kinds of hormones changes due to light, temp and age. Indoors many of those factors are controlled and contorted indoors. So many of the signals the plant gets are not sent the plant can keep living along time past it's prime. That's how we can keep them in Vegg for nearly ever.

Sin

well...when i don't flush my plants and pack a bowl the buds don't burn as nice and leave a dark black ash that doesn't taste nearly as good as when i flush my plants....with a proper flushed plant the ash burns bright white.

and...i've never noticed a yield difference from the plants i nuted right up to harvest and to the plants i gave just straight water the last couple weeks.

i only grow organic soil so obviously there is still nutes in my mix right up to harvest....other styles might be different.

yo sin...hit me up

O.k chiefsmokigbud back to the topic..were'nt you after the tale's like pull your plant's and boil the root's before hanging to increase resin to the top's....lol

yeah all tales actually. Including birth control pills to increase females LOL. Time2unite i'm, not sure how you cure or grow for that matter but i've never had non flushed plants leave black ash. Who knows.

72 hours darkness to increase resin....
white ash means your plant was flushed...
hang plants upside down so thc flows to the buds...

I have more that aren't coming to mind right now.

Flushing is essential to get a good smoking herb, and to get rid of that harsh taste. I have not flushed before and the herb is more harsh to smoke period.

I use Chemical nutrients in a soil grow, and its important to just use water the last 2 weeks, how on earth could you think this is a myth.


And you think all of the growing companies that produce flowering cycle nutrients for all kinds of plants are all just making this up? There is a reason you use less nitrogen in flower. I agree you should use some nitrogen until the end of flower, but you need to use less in flower or you will have a build up that is unhealthy.

"spray your plants with sugar water while they are hanging so they will taste sweet"

This came from a guy who grew 1 plant during college in the 80's and he ended up smoking the "sweet leaves" of a male plant

heres one...

pull the fan leaves off of all your plants to expose the buds.


PLANTS NEED THOSE LEAVES! if they didnt, they wouldnt be there.

i have a friend who used to grow, and he is insistent that the plant will produce more.

BULLSH*T!!!!!

Yeah that is funny that you need to expose the buds to more light.....so cut the fan leaves LOL

Chiefsmokingbud said:

Yeah that is funny that you need to expose the buds to more light.....so cut the fan leaves LOL

Click to expand...

That one actually works. Just cut SOME of the fan leaves that are blocking the lower canopy.
Got me an extra 1/2 pound in a 4x4 area.
Ed Rosenthal got me to do that...

dongle69 said:

That one actually works. Just cut SOME of the fan leaves that are blocking the lower canopy.
Got me an extra 1/2 pound in a 4x4 area.
Ed Rosenthal got me to do that...

Click to expand...

indeed it does, my yeild would be fucking pitiful if i didnt remove fan leaves blocking budsites.
buds actually contain leaves and the more light a bud recieves the bigger it will grow. hence why you end up with tiny shit ones at the bottom of your plants, because they recieved little light...

So it would seem a lot of myths have basis in actual good ideas, just typically taken out of perspective.


Ok I have a partial myth. A plant will always double or triple in height via stretch when switches to flower mode. I have proven on multiple grows that the stretch can be as small as 10-20% when you grow a tall plant. So my theory, that some will refuse to believe, is that Longer veg = Shorter % stretch. For instance, I recently grew to 4ft in veg, and it is now 1 week away from harvest and is right around 5ft. Yes there could be other factors, but whenever I have a longer veg time the stretch % seems to shrink.

about the stupidest one I can remember is to drive a nail through the the base of the stem to make it produce more resin, dahh ya think it will work vern?

Microwido said:

So it would seem a lot of myths have basis in actual good ideas, just typically taken out of perspective.


Ok I have a partial myth. A plant will always double or triple in height via stretch when switches to flower mode. I have proven on multiple grows that the stretch can be as small as 10-20% when you grow a tall plant. So my theory, that some will refuse to believe, is that Longer veg = Shorter % stretch. For instance, I recently grew to 4ft in veg, and it is now 1 week away from harvest and is right around 5ft. Yes there could be other factors, but whenever I have a longer veg time the stretch % seems to shrink.

Click to expand...

tbh, i wouldnt say they are based on good ideas, i would say they are based on what some drunk stoned idiot comes up with when hes hammered.

well there are many things that can affect how much it stretches. seed plants stretch ALOT. clones stretch about 1/2 as much as the seed plants. and if you grow it big, then its done quite alot of stretching already, so wont do as much, but it will still do it.
so the question for you is.. are you using clones ??

how about this one....
Seeds with stripes are female..rofl