I'd like to see actual tissue analysis taken before and after flushing. You have all these infomercial cannabis websites hawking flushing products for commissions but not one of them has any actual scientific data showing that they do anything other than flush money out of your wallet.
Would be interesting to see. I doubt the products do much to the plant tissue as you say. Just removes it from the media. Maybe helpful if overfed.
Although the smoothest tasting plants seem to when your let them fade at the end I’ve been finding. Not saying green plants taste harsh or anything, quite the opposite. I’ve just noticed a personal difference when u introduce a fade in the last week or 2.
One way I see it is that before harvest, if there are green leaves. The plant has everything it needs (except water) in the leaves. It can get a perfectly balanced nutrition profile just from consuming itself.
It just seems a waste to feed till chop and remove all those unnecessary green leaves. When I could save some money and effort and just give plain water for the last week or 2 and introduce a fade.
Not flushing in the typical sense of gallons of water through the media. Just plain old rain water to finish em up.
But cannabis is like coffee. Each to their own I guess