Flushing to prevent nutrient lockout

curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
DoubleX5150 said:
Hey all quick question

I've seen people casually mentioned flushing with neutral pH water before switching to flowering. In my previous grows I think I suffered from nutrient lockout during the flowering periods because I always gave my plants nutrients, never gave it any normal water. On my current grow I've been consistently increasing the nutrient dosage throughout my plants life, ppm is over 1100 after I mix all my nutrients now.
But I'm about to switch to 12/12 in a few days and I'm wondering how much water I should flush each plant with? I don't want to over-do it and stress the plants with overwatering.
I'm growing in 5 gallon buckets with plenty of drainage holes. Medium is a soil/perlite/peat moss blend but it retains a lot of water. I feed each plant 1 gallon of water currently, would 2 gallons of plain neutral water be enough to flush each of the plants? Or should I just do one gallon for each plant? I read someone say to properly flush a plant you should feed it twice the amount of your growing medium... So in my case that would be 10 gallons. I feel like that would really stress the plants. Any ideas?
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For future reference you flush hydro but you don't flush soil based mixes. In soil flushing releases more nutrients. In soilless style hydro flushing removes salt build up.

If you are in a hydro medium you flush with a low PPM solution, pH doesn't matter you simply don't want a large osmotic gradient. As you stated you are in a soil based medium with aerators, don't flush.
 
MichiganMedGrower

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
Kushash said:
Welcome Back!

Can you expand on the situation when your runoff was lower than the input.
I have never experience it testing my runoff in soil.
Was the soil fresh or in use for a while?
What where the ppms going in and coming out?
Is it something new to you or has this happened often?

I'm curious because I use runoff as a tool to monitor build up in my soil that has been re amended for several years.
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Thanks whats up man?

Well i use pure blend pro now so the readings are low. And i feed quite low so i am saying like .8ec in and get like .6 back. Then .5. ....

I try to always feed the minumim i can.

And it has always happened in soil like ocean forest. Not so much pro mix hp.
 
MichiganMedGrower

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
myke said:
ya thats odd that run off is lower.
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I used to think so to but only start feeding when the potting soil has depleted mostly of nutrients and start very low and taper up to each plants comfortable peak level and then taper right back down. So the output runoff is never mich higher than the input value.

With a salt based nute the ec was more like 1.2 or 1.4 max and when i see too much more come out a few times i know i am overfeeding.
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
MichiganMedGrower said:
Thanks whats up man?

Well i use pure blend pro now so the readings are low. And i feed quite low so i am saying like .8ec in and get like .6 back. Then .5. ....

I try to always feed the minumim i can.

And it has always happened in soil like ocean forest. Not so much pro mix hp.
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Hey MMG how have you been? Wonderful to see you about. I agree, with cannabis, less is more.
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
MichiganMedGrower said:
Well hello there C2G. Lovely to see you.

I actually got a 2 month ban for bad language this time. I didnt use any bad language is always the puzzling part.

I think 2 phrases fit here and in life. Less is more and timing is everything.

I need to work on both of those. Lol

:-)
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LOL you forgot, "Life ain't fair." I'm sorry that happened, sigh.

Yeah you're in the advanced class, I'm behind you in the rudimentary, "Keep your fucking canopy even!" class :P
 
Kushash

Kushash

Well-Known Member
MichiganMedGrower said:
Thanks whats up man?

Well i use pure blend pro now so the readings are low. And i feed quite low so i am saying like .8ec in and get like .6 back. Then .5. ....

I try to always feed the minumim i can.

And it has always happened in soil like ocean forest. Not so much pro mix hp.
Click to expand...
Just got a small grow tent and qb288 v2 to try out in dawg's comp. Will be my 1st LED grow.
Perpetual is going well.
I see you have been missed lol.
Just in case you venture back to Politics and get banned tonight.
Happy New Year!
 
MichiganMedGrower

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
Kushash said:
Just got a small grow tent and qb288 v2 to try out in dawg's comp. Will be my 1st LED grow.
Perpetual is going well.
I see you have been missed lol.
Just in case you venture back to Politics and get banned tonight.
Happy New Year!
Click to expand...

That was awesome! But its too late. I had to post in there. And the crybabies are already crying so maybe i will see you on the other side. Lol.
 
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