Flush rant

I've never witnessed a tobacco farmer flushing his tobacco fields.

jarvild said:

I've never witnessed a tobacco farmer flushing his tobacco fields.

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I've never heard of anyone growing tobacco with cartoon-labeled bottles either. IMO, if someone salts up their plant with a typical boutique, multi-bottle "lineup", bloom boosters, etc., "flushing" might make sense.

I think a lot of this stuff gets confabulated into a one-size fits all topic.

Someone who feeds organically (living soil) might want benefit from molasses (or any sugar) to promote soil activity to provide more nutrients at the end. Then someone using synthetic nutrients (detrimental to soil health) hears about this, and thinks plants like sugar (and that's sugar sprinkes he sees on the leaves).

Before you know it, everyone's "feeding molasses as a bloom enhancer."

I think stuff starts like that. I think flushing is similar. If someone overfeeds ("force feeds") like many of the boutique, cartoon-labeled "schedules" lead to, flushing might make sense. That shouldn't make the non-flushers feel threatened.

I think its also important to distinguish 3x "flushing" from water-only "cleansing." I think most people who say "flush" are talking about the latter.

bravedave said:

Nice. Lets switch it to an organic vs. argument. Maybe you should quit smoking your roots.

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But they are so tasty...

yes az2000, back in the 70s' we thought we would help the plants by pulling the whole root ball at harvest and wrap towels saturated with sugar water and hang to dry in the dark thinking it would do something to enhance the potency.

I took a pewp and flushed the toilet.

Flushing is not just something someone developed over night. There is science behind it. Although you may know for a fact that many industries dont flush their crops. Not many industries produce a crop that you smoke. Im a firm believer in flushing out excess nutrients from the medium. By this time the buds are already fat and hopefully show a good amber/milky ratio on the trichomes. So your not losing much weight if any, as long as you plan to harvest the correct time in the plants life.

Honestly with the amount of synthetic nutrients being used and at the rate these plants drink them flushing shouldn't have to be a question. If your growing for yourself its strictly your preference on how you grow and consume your product. But if your planning to vend or help other patients out just flush your buds. I cant tell you how many times I've picked up some really good looking stuff and as soon as I smoke it I can tell its not flushed.

GhostBud420 said:

Flushing is not just something someone developed over night. There is science behind it. Although you may know for a fact that many industries dont flush their crops. Not many industries produce a crop that you smoke. Im a firm believer in flushing out excess nutrients from the medium. By this time the buds are already fat and hopefully show a good amber/milky ratio on the trichomes. So your not losing much weight if any, as long as you plan to harvest the correct time in the plants life.

Honestly with the amount of synthetic nutrients being used and at the rate these plants drink them flushing shouldn't have to be a question. If your growing for yourself its strictly your preference on how you grow and consume your product. But if your planning to vend or help other patients out just flush your buds. I cant tell you how many times I've picked up some really good looking stuff and as soon as I smoke it I can tell its not flushed.

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1) You don't smoke your medium, so if that's your logic, then never use nutrients, because your plant has already spent its first few weeks in flower forming buds with the nutrients you gave it. No amount of flushing will change that.

2) you can't tell it's not flushed... you can tell it hasn't been cured properly, that's all.

3) anyone who thinks that they can taste a flush (or lack of) is a massive spaz.

Are you serious?.. Nutrients are being used throughout the plant. The plant pulls water/nutrients from the xylem as well as through osmosis through the roots. Which means that the nutrients that are in the plant/flower are constantly being used and replaced. Your right in the sense that no amount of flushing will remove 100% of the nutrients in the plant and leave you with perfect buds. Your flower would most likely be no good at this point. But like I mentioned in the earlier post.. With the amount of synthetic nutrients we are pumping into these plants I cant imagine anyone not appreciating the fact that the grower of this particular weed in my blunt, flushed it.

Curing and Flushing are two different things. I personally can tell if the weed is flushed just by the way it burns. A flushed plant will burn with white ash and should burn rather evenly. A un-flushed plant will most likely burn with dark colored ash and sometimes unevenly. The point is to get the majority of the nutrients out so the raw experience of the flower can be enjoyed. Whether you want to flush and smoke flower, or not flush and smoke nutes is completely up to you as a grower.

Anything that the plant eats it binds with molecularly and on a cellular level. Our bodies, our kids bodies are bound with plastics, pesticides, heavy metals, nitrites and a whole other host of nasty crap from the shit food we eat. These are actually passed down in our genes from generation to generation. The plant is what you feed it literally. Thinking that you can "water away" what the plant has used to build itself is foolish.

GhostBud420 said:

Are you serious?.. Nutrients are being used throughout the plant. The plant pulls water/nutrients from the xylem as well as through osmosis through the roots. Which means that the nutrients that are in the plant/flower are constantly being used and replaced. Your right in the sense that no amount of flushing will remove 100% of the nutrients in the plant and leave you with perfect buds. Your flower would most likely be no good at this point. But like I mentioned in the earlier post.. With the amount of synthetic nutrients we are pumping into these plants I cant imagine anyone not appreciating the fact that the grower of this particular weed in my blunt, flushed it.

Curing and Flushing are two different things. I personally can tell if the weed is flushed just by the way it burns. A flushed plant will burn with white ash and should burn rather evenly. A un-flushed plant will most likely burn with dark colored ash and sometimes unevenly. The point is to get the majority of the nutrients out so the raw experience of the flower can be enjoyed. Whether you want to flush and smoke flower, or not flush and smoke nutes is completely up to you as a grower.

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I am very serious.
That harsh taste is from an improper cure, nothing to do with flushing.

monkz said:

I am very serious.
That harsh taste is from an improper cure, nothing to do with flushing.

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Im not here to argue what flushing does or doesnt do. I know through my experience what flushing really does to your flowers. If you think cutting the plants down with no flush doesn't effect taste thats perfectly fine. Keep doing what your doing i guess.

Flushing is like god. The believers rely strictly on faith even though there is no real proof, only word of mouth. And the atheists don't believe unless there is concrete evidence that it works.

The lesson here is to put good things into your plants. It's not about flushing. If you think you need to remove the food you give your plants to make it better in any way, you need to rethink feeding altogether. The majority of plant foods sold are petrol based, which in my opinion have no place in any garden.

breakdancer0003 said:

I will reword what i am trying to say then and see if it comes across more clearly

-Pre End of life Flushing actively removes nutrients from the SOIL which in turn passively removes them from the plant itself.

-This is done for a completely different different reason than the standard flushing used to removed salt build up / true excess nutrients.

-The plant can no longer acquire these nutrients since they have been flushed out of the soil

-The plant through hormonal pathways puts complete priority on the buds and begins leeching NPK ect. out of the other plant structures such as leaves ( which is why they yellow )

-There is more then enough reserve of these nutrients inside the body of the plant as a natural defense mechanism to respond to natural low nutrient levels in the soil. So this lack of soil nutrition has already been accounted for and doesn't stress the plant enough to hermy.

-As these reserves are used up you would be surprised to here the levels of those elements are lowered inside of the plant

-Less of these nutrients present when combusting the material for consumption would support the idea presented of a more pleasant smoke (Inhaling higher levels of super heated NPK ect. < Inhaling diminished or lower levels of NPK )

This is the evidence i have come across for the support of flushing, from how i have interpreted the info it seems biologically and rationally sound. You can come to your own conclusions and please if you have more information for me to look at I am more then willing to reevaluate.


Also in response to "other commercial growers" ( non cannabis ) not flushing there products

-it's important to note, none / very few of those products are being consumed through burning / are potentially coming from plants that don't live out a single life cycle like the cannabis plant does

but again if you have more information for me to look at I am more then willing to reevaluate.

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I can actually appreciate the mind set on this induced survival thing, same manipulation principles they use in topping and lst etc (with obviously larger yield result). How much truth is in it? I'd like to see some links for it. But assuming you are correct, the leaves stored energy have enough nutrition to outweigh feeding until the end?. With how popular lst+ lower plant defoliation is I doubt it, for them at least.

Further more I'd imagine you'd need about 2 weeks to get the full potential out of this tactic. Timing that properly around a proactive harvest time would be difficult unless you are very familiar with a single strain.

kiwipaulie said:

No other industry flushes their crops. Why would you do it with weed. Its just retarted unless you have completely cooked your plants with high nute levels



Stop yelling. Turn your caps off

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Actually that's not really true. Probably most hydroponic tomatoes are flushed just before harvest, same with cucumbers, and leafy greens. Does it do anything? Hell if I know lol. The argument that you are taking away vital nutrients is a valid argument but if flushing a week before harvest, IME, most growth re yield has stopped. I am also a hydro grower so soil is a different beast IMO. Also just to note I very rarely flushed my grows and am hard pressed to notice any difference.

If I'm water only, does that mean I flush too much?

Budley Doright said:

I very rarely flushed my grows and am hard pressed to notice any difference.

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If you rarely flush it would be expected not to notice much difference ^^ if one does exist.

Flowki said:

If you rarely flush it would be expected not to notice much difference ^^ if one does exist.

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Well what I should have said was I stopped worrying about it after not noticing a difference lol. It's really hard to actually flush in my system right now due to staggered finish times using same Res .

breakdancer0003 said:

The flush doesn't actively remove nutrients from the plant, it removes them from the soil. the plant then goes into survival mode and prioritizes the buds and starts "removing" or reabsorbing nutrients from the less biologically important structures such as the lower leaves and fan leaves. in a sense it shocks the plant into putting all its extra effort into bud production which is the explanation i go with in terms of why i have seen larger yields when i haved flushed vs not. Along those lines the absorption of nutrients from the plant itself seems to translate for me as a less chemical flavor / less sparks flying off my bud when it light it up.

That being said it seems to be a 50 50 split between growers on if they flush or not. However saying one method is more efficient / better then the other with out hard evidence to back it up is an educated guess at best on both of our ends.

So instead of arguing back and forth I will try to experiment and record my findings in a grow journal. After i get my new moms established i will try a few runs of half flushed and half not to see if i can get at least some anecdotal evidence for either side of the argument.

keep genetics the same ( clones )
keep feed schedule the same ( PPM meter )
keep CO2 levels humidity ect. the same
and attempt to only alter the flush vs no flush and get a few smoke reports from people as well as wet and dry weights

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I have problems with several things you contend.

First off I suggest you research how and why they "cure" fine tobacco for cigars and how it's stored!
Next,,,,Your logic argument for flushing is flawed in several ways.

READ THIS AND LEARN SOME BASICS!
https://www.420magazine.com/forums/how-to-grow-marijuana/71685-critical-look-preharvest-flushing.html

You do have it right that "flushing" removes NOTHING from the plant.
In the DECADES of growing I've done. I find that even the "deprive to used stored" method does almost (you need to learn that many of your nasty tasting nutrients are "immobile") nothing and even reduces yield and quality. In other words your observations of improvement in buds is suspect at best.

You propose a side by side testing.
It can't be done in the way your proposing!
Advertising companies found out (along with food makers) a LONG time ago that you can NOT do side by side testing as the human brain when given the task, WILL find a difference in the 2 (or more) things being tested.....EVEN if they are the SAME THING!
THAT'S the laugh of the Cup testing section of "flush"! Un-"flushed" weeds have won right alongside those that have been and not even the so called "judges" could tell!

You would have to have a friend/patient smoke one one day and later ask what they thought the next.....Include taste....
Then you would have to give them the other days later and repeat the questions another day.
Let me tell you something sonny. I've done this! For flush vs. un-flushed and UVB vs. not.....
The answers for the "flush" was actually less flavorful!......Both were dried and cured at the same time, in the same location and went through the same cure! The dry and cure took 6 weeks to complete. Your sparkle and crackle was not cured properly OR you lied about it!
Eh, UVB exposed beat not and outdoor was right alongside the UVB.

Lastly you say Ed R calls for a "flush"......bzzzt, WRONG! He has not mentioned a flush in years since he left that out of the Oaksterdam U. growing textbook! Open your copy and go to the appendix......look for flush....what did you find?
Now then, as far as Jorge goes.....Well, he has his head up his ass on other things too!

Writing about growing only makes you a WRITER!

breakdancer0003 said:

I will reword what i am trying to say then and see if it comes across more clearly

-Pre End of life Flushing actively removes nutrients from the SOIL which in turn passively removes them from the plant itself.

-This is done for a completely different different reason than the standard flushing used to removed salt build up / true excess nutrients.

-The plant can no longer acquire these nutrients since they have been flushed out of the soil

-The plant through hormonal pathways puts complete priority on the buds and begins leeching NPK ect. out of the other plant structures such as leaves ( which is why they yellow )

-There is more then enough reserve of these nutrients inside the body of the plant as a natural defense mechanism to respond to natural low nutrient levels in the soil. So this lack of soil nutrition has already been accounted for and doesn't stress the plant enough to hermy.

-As these reserves are used up you would be surprised to here the levels of those elements are lowered inside of the plant

-Less of these nutrients present when combusting the material for consumption would support the idea presented of a more pleasant smoke (Inhaling higher levels of super heated NPK ect. < Inhaling diminished or lower levels of NPK )

This is the evidence i have come across for the support of flushing, from how i have interpreted the info it seems biologically and rationally sound. You can come to your own conclusions and please if you have more information for me to look at I am more then willing to reevaluate.


Also in response to "other commercial growers" ( non cannabis ) not flushing there products

-it's important to note, none / very few of those products are being consumed through burning / are potentially coming from plants that don't live out a single life cycle like the cannabis plant does

but again if you have more information for me to look at I am more then willing to reevaluate.

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WRONG, wrong, wrong......Logic argument! Levels of elements are NOT lowered in the plant parts smoked. Your own argument points to that as the plants (as you say) taking it from the other parts of the plant to feed the buds. Now immobile nutrients aside. Are you smoking the parts of the plant that have had the nutrients moved to the buds? If not your argument is moot as your STILL smoking the nutrients the plant moved there to compensate for your dumb logic move!

I think that flushing only leads to a hole in the head of those who defend it so hard!