Flushing/Leaching

So I was wondering if when you flush your plants, do you use pure water or do you still use a diluted amount of your base fertilizer?

Also when you flush, how long is it for? Just a few feedings, all day, or multiple days? Thanks.

Oh and how often do you do it? If I'm not mistaken it's once before flowering and then again before harvesting?

Depends on what your doing I guess. I did/do 3/1 flush one time. with clean water. Wouldn't be a flush if you added nutes. I started nutes a little weaker then what had been use before the flush then back to full nutes fast Maybe two feedings. I stopped doing the harvest flush. I just back way off the nutes the last week or so. Anyway that's what I do.

What do you mean by 3/1 flush?

If you have a gallon of soil use 3 gallons of water. You also don't want to add water to fast. you want it all wet to drain nute build up. Or another way to say it 3 gal of water for every 1 gal of soil. 5 gal pot 15 gal water and so on.

Oooooh but I'm doing hydro that's why I posted this in the hydro forum lol. Ebb and flow. What about for that?

sorry whole different thing. I could tell you but would only be half truth. lol need to look at topic before opening mouth.

Aww ok thanks anyway lol

flush for about a week before harvest. Many will argue with flushing but, do a side by side comparison with flushed bud and flushed. The flushed bud does leave a black ash when the flushed bud leaves a white ash a little fyi

So plain water for a week before harvest? What about right before flowering?

I don't do any flushing before switching to flower. Haven't in years.

I understand flushing in soil. Don't get it in hydro. doesn't changing the water do about the same thing? It's all fresh and clean.

stumps said:

I understand flushing in soil. Don't get it in hydro. doesn't changing the water do about the same thing? It's all fresh and clean.

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No cause when you change the water you put in nutes and stuff. Flushing you just do plain water no nutes.

stumps said:

I understand flushing in soil. Don't get it in hydro. doesn't changing the water do about the same thing? It's all fresh and clean.

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I don't understand flushing in soil makes no sense. Why would you flush something that's suppose to be organic??
In hydro your leeching out the dissolved salts in the plant it self. I have read a lot of controversial information towards topic tho. So for me its simply decided by the ash test

suTraGrow said:

I don't understand flushing in soil makes no sense. Why would you flush something that's suppose to be organic??
In hydro your leeching out the dissolved salts in the plant it self. I have read a lot of controversial information towards topic tho. So for me its simply decided by the ash test

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It's cause soil growers use nutes in their water too.

That's pretty much it in soil, flushing the salts away. But I thought it was salts built up in the soil. That's what had me wondering. I wouldn't think it wouldn't be a problem in hydro if you kept everything in range.

stumps said:

That's pretty much it in soil, flushing the salts away. But I thought it was salts built up in the soil. That's what had me wondering. I wouldn't think it wouldn't be a problem in hydro if you kept everything in range.

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The salts do build up in the soil, but they also build up on the roots and really in the whole plant itself. If it just stopped at the roots it wouldn't affect the buds. So it would seem like flushing in soil is more important since you have the buildups in the plant and in the soil. But then if you consider that hydro uses more nutes and waters multiple times a day compared to once every few days, I think it balances out and is equally important to flush in both soil and hydro.

you can flush for a week or so before harvest. just use plain water.

You can also flush if you went overboard on nutes and got some burn. again, plain water. and just water until you see a bit of recovery.

I've harvested and cut half and week 11, and half at week 12 (1 week of flushing w/ water) and to be honest the 11 week w/ no flushing smells better. You don't need to flush if you run a reasonable EC. (I run 1.1-1.4)

From what I have gathered and seen, it works kinda like this...

You are flushing the built up salts in the plant tissue, mainly nitrogen and potassium. You are also breaking down salt build up in the medium when flushing. The water you flush with is lower in ppm than the fluid in the plant, and the process of osmosis will actually draw some of the salts out, hence why your flush solution ppm will rise after a day of flushing.

The rest that is left in the tissue will be used by the plant until more nutrients are added.

Some flush with 1/4 strength solution which will still draw out from the plant.

Some people use clearex, florakleen, and other flushing solutions.

Some argue that no flushing is needed and that it is a marketing ploy to sell flush additives.

I have tried several ways in the past and found that unflushed material had less floral essence, and taste, and in some cases would not stay lit as good (ofcourse this could have been cure problems)

the only time u need to flush is about every 2 weeks if you do flood and drain when you clean out your res just put plain water in there and run the pump for a little while and keep doing this till your media is all flushed then dump the water and add fresh nutes. flushing a plant stresses it very badly it needs to be fertilized right after it is flushed to help prevent this shock. plus the flushing before harvest is a myth

I have never done pure flushing in soil, what I tried to do was do 2-3 feedings and 1 pure water, during the last 2 weeks of flowering I would begin to lower my nute level, my last would be just water.

In Flood & Drain my plants spend the last 2-3 days before harvest in just ph'd water.