Do you flush? Do you kill the lights prior to harvest?

Do You Flush? Final Hours of Darkness?

  • Yes I flush. My plants AND my toilet.

    Votes: 34 58.6%
  • I don't flush prior to harvest.

    Votes: 21 36.2%
  • I give my Give plants an extended dark period before chopping

    Votes: 20 34.5%
  • I do not cut off my lights for a long period before chopping

    Votes: 25 43.1%

  • Total voters
    58
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.

Rumple

Well-Known Member
Keep looking at my harvest and telling me I am doing it all wrong. I would rather see what goes inside a rolling paper rather then a scientific study paper done by folks who don't grow Marijuana. My best advice to Koijn: just relax, buy some good bud and laugh at the whole argument about flushing. I want to have a good time here and not be so militant about growing god's herb..

Not agreeing with Koijn is now, trolling? Trolling is calling names and belittling others with a different opinion. I respect all the growers who don't flush. I did not find the need to flush while growing in organic soil (Vic's Super Soil). Just respect others and have fun with the dialog (tiz why we are here). I have nothing but respect for you and love your grow pictures, please don't take my opposing views on small matters as hostile. It is obvious we both can grow weed using either method.

I see nothing wrong with supplying medical marijuana free of charge to the sick. Sorry I can't partake, but who in here could take a jar of my harvest and tell if it was any good?

My brotha.

A picture of me doing it all wrong:
 

Huel Perkins

Well-Known Member
Get over yourself.....

He never said you ruined your crop by flushing, his point was that you're not improving it by flushing and potentially holding it a back in its final days.
 

k0ijn

Scientia Cannabis
Get over yourself.....

He never said you ruined your crop by flushing, his point was that you're not improving it by flushing and potentially holding it a back in its final days.
I saw the post before he edited it out but tbh I can't be arsed to waste any more of my time on this.

Thanks for sticking up for me anyway, well, sticking up for science tbf :weed:
 

mike91sr

Well-Known Member
I would rather see what goes inside a rolling paper rather then a scientific study paper done by folks who don't grow Marijuana.
This thought process is exactly what holds back this entire community. Not knocking your growing skills, they're most likely far above mine, but I trust peer-reviewed scientific studies with quantitative results that actually demonstrate and measure the precise changes within the variable chosen, and fail to understand how somebody can read it and deny it. Then turn around and accept as undeniable fact when someone thinks their crop turned out better one way than the other without even having a control(the most basic necessity to prove a hypothesis) or single quantitative result, especially when the cannabis-specific argument is brought up. Just demonstrates the person's willingness to come up with any excuse they can to believe that the science being brought forward somehow doesn't apply to them. Seems to be the status quo in this hobby though.

Either way, keep doing what you believe works for you. Thats really all that matters in the end, I just prefer to have myths either debunked or substantiated before being claimed as true. No personal interest in proving one way or another as its ignorant to NOT benefit from something to just continue believing you're right no matter what, I just follow the facts. As of now, the only claim being substantiated in the science world is what k0jin has already summed up. And until something disproves it, that is what stands as fact, outside the cannabis forums of course.
 

Rumple

Well-Known Member
I'm glad you don't think flushing will ruin my crop (never wrote that), just want to have some cool dialog with other growers, nothing to get mad about. I like the conversations as long as we don't get into name calling. Please make your point and tell us about the tests you have done and how your grow is going.

I test stuff all the time, I use controls and basic science to form my own hypotheses. True, that small test don't amount to solid facts, but it is a start. I lend my grow room out to test products and publish the outcome. It is very difficult to remain unbiased and to keep to the side of the results (harder than you think). Please don't take offense to my opinions (or spelling), they are not an attack on you or others who believe as you do.
I'm sure we can find a way to disagree and remain friendly.
 

whatisnow

Member
guys I'm all for science and agree that if there is scientific evidence to back it up I will fall into this category... hence why I believe the world is not flat. I am genuinely interested in reading any documentation to support flushing/not flushing. Even if it's plant biology 101. Can anyone refer me to something please? I have 2 small nft trays and at the rate this is going I will be flushing one and not the other haha
 

Topo

Well-Known Member
Well, I harvested all my plants and all were flushed. The taste was very mild, so it's possible that any residual nutes might have been purged out. I should have experimented (flushed some, but not others) so that I could compare, but once I got motivated to do it, I flushed them all. I did not kill the lights though.

The Pineapple Express came out great.... stoned and racy in the beginning....and nice mellow smooth landing hours later! :-P
 

Attachments

m420p

Well-Known Member
Preharvest flushing is a must in my grow room. I am also growing in a hydroponic system and it comes out way better after flushing. Tried it both ways and it works without a doubt. Go with what the scientist making your nutrients recommend. My wife can do a blind taste test of the two and pick out the non-flushed bud ten out of ten times. I still have a jar of non-flushed bud sitting around. She is the myth-buster I guess. Look at my harvest and tell me I'm doing it all wrong.


Let the rock throwing begin....
Exactly, I have a strain I'm growing for the third time, the first time harvest time ended up sneaking up on me and I didn't flush, second time around in the same room with same nutes, I flushed for 1 week using a AN Final Phase and the difference was ridiculous as far as taste went. The biggest difference for me was the non-flushed bud would not stay lit as well and would be hard to smoke in joints or keep lit in a bowl without lighting it every time. Also, you can see the difference in the ash, non-flushed will be black while flushed will be gray/white, that's coming from a old timer I respect a lot and has one of the biggest green thumbs I know.
 

k0ijn

Scientia Cannabis
First of all, I don't quite understand why you have liked posts of people calling you out on your false statements and logical fallacies Rumple but that is your own decision.
We don't agree at all, and it's clear for everyone to see why.


guys I'm all for science and agree that if there is scientific evidence to back it up I will fall into this category... hence why I believe the world is not flat. I am genuinely interested in reading any documentation to support flushing/not flushing. Even if it's plant biology 101. Can anyone refer me to something please? I have 2 small nft trays and at the rate this is going I will be flushing one and not the other haha

All the information is out there, you can find it with a simple search of the forums.

But just to rest the case I've gathered up the points and links in one post (this is quotes of what I've written):




... I find it funny how you can still have unanswered questions.
Have you read all my posts?

The big debate in this thread is about _pre-harvest flushing_.
Not about leaching in general (leaching is flushing but is NOT the same as pre-harvest flushing), which has been explained by all of us against pre-harvest flushing many times, can be useful.
Leaching in general is thought of as to be:

Correcting grow medium errors.
Clearing salt buildup.
And just a general error corrector for solutions or medium in both hydro and soil.

Leaching is used by most growers, because problems tend to occur, even in the most perfect setups.


What we (especially Harrekin, SirLance and myself) in this thread who are against pre-harvest flushing state, is that pre-harvest flushing has not been proven to work for any of the reasons pre-harvest flushers claim they do it.
Many people claim improved taste, odour, yield, less harsh bud, better burning bud, better ash (whiter, cleaner) etc. etc.
They claim all kinds of wondrous things, which are apparently all thanks to the pre-harvest flush.

Although people claim this, there is no proof for any of it.
There are anecdotes of what people have done, there are stories, there are stories from authors (such as Cervantes, who is known to take information from other writes / growers and post it in his books).

What I have posted in this thread is a scientific study on the nutrient storage in plants, particularly ryegrass.

The study is very comprehensive and explains rather well about how nutrients are stored, where they are stored and what happens with the plants when nutrient levels are too high or too low (abundance versus. deficiency).

I will post the image from the study again showing this:





This explains a lot about the points in the discussion about pre-harvest flushing / leaching.

The study says that "growth requirements are generally achieved before high concentrations are attained".
This is a very important point.
Especially since this is about abundance versus deficiency (the optimal is 'critical').

What this study shows quite clearly is that if you underfeed the plants, the yield is affected quite heavily.
But what it also shows is that nutrient stored in the various parts of the plants change a lot depending on the levels on nutrients available (strength of the solution).

Since most experienced growers don't overfeed their plants but keep well measured levels of PPM, they can stray close to the 'critical' nutrient supply, giving their plants as much as possible without overfeeding or underfeeding.

We are not saying overfeeding is correct, we're not talking about overfeeding neither, we feed our plants as close to the perfect ranges of PPM as possible.

The points of Gastanker was that since plants store nutrients, and nutrients are stored all over the plant (including in the calyxes (buds)) and causing a deficiency will cause the plant to 'eat away' at it's nutrient storage, you will end up with less nutrients in the calyxes, therefore less nutrients in your final product, and the smoke will be less harsh.
You will not end up with 'chem bud' so to speak.

This theory is unfounded, and the study I posted contradicts this theory.
First of all nutrients are not stored in the calyxes so there is nothing to flush out.
That in itself should be the end of it but I'll continue explaining.

The study says plants are high efficient, they can consume nutrients before high concentrations are attained, and since none of us against pre-harvest are overfeeding, we are not achieving 'too high' concentrations of nutrients.
None of us have 'chem bud', we have all tried flushing, and not flushing, we don't see a difference.
We might even be receiving higher yields (which none of us have recorded however) if the study is the be correct (nutrient levels in the plant greatly affect yield).
What we do see a difference in is when you dry & cure properly versus dry & cure wrongly.
Drying & curing is probably the single most important step in any grow, it can cause mold, it can cause joy and it can be a pain in the arse.
But drying and curing is where your weed either ages like a good wine or crumbles, molds up and becomes useless.
Most people fail in drying & curing, many are somewhat successful, few master it.
I for sure don't master it, I'm trying to however, I invest in drying & curing equipment quite a lot and I am very careful.
That doesn't stop mold from setting in from time to time though, due to slipup or assistant error.


I'm not saying I don't want people to flush / leach their plants if they have problems with nutrient levels, salt buildup or anything else.
I'm not saying that you can't do what you want with your own grow either.

Where my problem lies, is with people trying to get other people to pre-harvest flush / leach.
When they claim all these myths about improvement of: taste, odour, colour, ash, harshness etc. it irritates me that people are just left to believe whatever this person writes, with no scientific backing, no factual information presented.

This is why I post these studies, why I try to show people the facts.
There are logical explanations to all those things.
Bad tasting weed, harshness and ash can all be improved by doing a proper dry & cure.
Most people have these problems because they do not know how to properly dry & cure.



To conclude, I don't believe in the surplus nutrients / substances theory regarding normally PPM'ed weed (as close to 'critical' as possible without overfeeding nor underfeeding) contra flushed / leached weed.
This is the theory brought up by Gastanker who said that you'll get a surplus of nutrients if you do not pre-harvest flush your plants.
There is absolutely no evidence for this, neither did Gastanker provide any evidence.

Plants which are in a deficiency do not 'eat away' the excess nutrients in calyxes, there are no excess nutrients or stored nutrients in the calyxes.
The plants basically eat themselves (yellowing leaves, withering leaves) to stay alive.
I don't believe that pre-harvest flushing / leaching your weed will give you better tasting, smelling and looking weed.
I don't believe you will yield more either.

In fact, I "believe" quite the opposite, I "believe" that keeping nutrient levels proper all the way to harvest, is the best way to get the most out of your plants humanly possible.
I mark believe because it in fact has nothing to do with belief.
It has to do with facts and whether you value logic, reason and evidence or not.
That is the great thing about science, you don't have to believe in it for it to be true.

When you pre-harvest flush / leach your plants, you starve your plants at the most important phase of growth, late blooom.
You cause deficiency, which leads to (if we are to believe science) decreased productivity.
And most importantly, all the myths about pre-harvest flushing / leaching seem to be false.
Not one scientific piece of evidence has been provided by the pro pre-harvest flushing people.
You cannot find one study that proves any of pre-harvest flushings proclaimed positives.



Just to sum up with some references and sources:

Books & Publications:

Marijuana Chemistry;
Genetics, Processing and Potency

Cannabis and Cannabinoids:
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutic Potential

Plant nutrition - from genetic engineering to field practice.


Research and testing:

montanabiotech.com

http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/



I use sciencedirect.com and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov to look up publications.


There are a lot more references and source I could link to/quote/name.
But it would be a hell of a job naming them all.
I just named some of the most respected (peer reviewed scientific publications only) ones here, you can find loads more by searching on ncbi, sciencedirect or google in fact.
 

akula

Active Member
Oh the flushing debate again. Flushers, keep doing what your doing, keep buying the new and improved flush serum, keep ignoring science and plant biology and do it on great faith because that is all there is, faith. The flushing evangelist will never be open to facts because they have done the taste test and believe. Why bother with science when my buddy didn't flush and we got some nasty shit that wouldn't burn with a blowtorch? Truth, who really needs it?

Anyways while we are on the subject, anyone know the best Kool-Aide favor to feed my bud for some fruity flavor? Ya science!
 
Hey nice post k0ijn. Informative and mature. Much better then many of your other pre harvest flush arguments where you repeatedly state nutes are not stored in calyx's. But imo we smoke more then a calyx when smoking bud. A few things though and please, respectfully, do not delete this post. I really feel; Yeah, its all in the dry, but if you time it right and lower your ppm just the last 3 days or so. Not drowned, over feed, and not starve your plants, but a nice medium to assure your not messing up either way. Yeah, sure, if your a prefect grower and never overfeed then sure dont flush but most people need that extra security blanket in case they have over done it. So I just started smoking some pe that I ran the last 2 weeks at 600-800 ppm and it was very dense and burned very nice down to white ash. A nice clean burn like a flushed plant. A non flushed bc purps was very different as I suspect I had the ppm to high late in flower because it smokes different and not to a clean white ash but more so like charcoal. A lot has to do with the different strains. PE is a heavy eater. Purps not so much. The purps plant showed no signs of overfeeding. So I feel, any novice grower should try to rid the plant of stored nutes the last few days but a complete "flush" is not necessary. You really think a plant is gaining substantial growth the last couple days? I disagree. The last few days to a week my buds size doesnt change much, but the density does. A lower final ppm to assure access to nutes but not a build up seems logically to me.

http://www.cannabis.com/growing/flushing-a-critical-look-at-preharvest-flushing.html
Please, at least read the summary. You will like it.

http://www.cannabis.com/growing/flushing-misterito-s-nutrient-flushing-formula.html
Another good link about low ppm late in flower.

On your drying and not perfecting it yet; im not trying to be a dick, but for real man, you should try whole plant drying. Trim after all the way dry. You can knock my method with science all you want but its working for me EVERY TIME 100% consistency this whole year so far. No need to spend $ on any curing or drying devices. (snake oil for dry noobs) No more low odor and taste! I used to fight this dry crap all the time. Smelled great when damp but not so much when dry. Not anymore!! Try keeping the plant whole and let the cells do their thing. I dont know everything they're doing but its magic. :mrgreen: Im really only trying to help man. Everything set aside, maturely, like a adult, grower to grower only. Please try it and dont trim until the stem snaps. It helped me a great deal. It may help you. Hey, were all on the same side after all, right?
 

m420p

Well-Known Member
"Not one scientific piece of evidence has been provided by the pro pre-harvest flushing people.
You cannot find one study that proves any of pre-harvest flushings proclaimed positives.
"

Instead, do something called a experiment... See it with your own two eyes, as I have multiple times...

I will NEVER not flush my plants again... and that's not because of what some scientist wrote in a article, it's because of what I KNOW from personal experiences.
 

mike91sr

Well-Known Member
"Not one scientific piece of evidence has been provided by the pro pre-harvest flushing people.
You cannot find one study that proves any of pre-harvest flushings proclaimed positives.
"

Instead, do something called a experiment... See it with your own two eyes, as I have multiple times...

I will NEVER not flush my plants again... and that's not because of what some scientist wrote in a article, it's because of what I KNOW from personal experiences.
There's no need to do our own experiments with results being based on our perception when there is credible evidence that definitively explains the process and findings better than any of us can. Have you ever done a tissue analysis to see what the ACTUAL results of flushing were? Because your taste buds are a lot less reliable than that, so "what some scientist wrote in an article" (read: published a journal based on a properly conducted experiment with controls and quantitative results) is much more credible than what you think you did or didn't taste. Let alone the amount of variables you DIDNT measure and precisely control when coming to your conclusions. If you don't know WHAT you're doing, WHY youre doing it, WHERE the changes take place, or HOW youll interpret the results, that's not an experiment.
 

k0ijn

Scientia Cannabis
On your drying and not perfecting it yet; im not trying to be a dick, but for real man, you should try whole plant drying. Trim after all the way dry. You can knock my method with science all you want but its working for me EVERY TIME 100% consistency this whole year so far. No need to spend $ on any curing or drying devices. (snake oil for dry noobs) No more low odor and taste! I used to fight this dry crap all the time. Smelled great when damp but not so much when dry. Not anymore!! Try keeping the plant whole and let the cells do their thing. I dont know everything they're doing but its magic. :mrgreen: Im really only trying to help man. Everything set aside, maturely, like a adult, grower to grower only. Please try it and dont trim until the stem snaps. It helped me a great deal. It may help you. Hey, were all on the same side after all, right?
All of what I just posted is quotes from something I wrote several months ago.
It's the same stuff I've been saying all along.

With regards to me not being having perfect dries was a statement of how nobody has perfect dries/grows/cures whatever you know it to mean.
There are variations in everything, nobody is perfect.

It wasn't a statement to my weed being badly dried or wrongly cured.
It's a recognition of the fact that it's impossible to achieve perfection in anything, we can tend towards it but never fully achieve it.
No grown Cannabis plant will ever be 100% perfect but some experts can get damn close.
I would love it if there was a way of keeping my plants at critical (100% productivity) nutrient levels throughout the grow but it's just not possible, the technology simply doesn't exist to measure or adjust the levels with such precision, and certainly not constantly.

I have tried most ways to grow, dry & cure there is.
I've tried everything from water curing to whole plant drying and to aeroponics.

I have a good and scientifically proven way of doing what I do after years of trial and error and learning, it's why I achieve great results.




"Not one scientific piece of evidence has been provided by the pro pre-harvest flushing people.
You cannot find one study that proves any of pre-harvest flushings proclaimed positives.
"

Instead, do something called a experiment... See it with your own two eyes, as I have multiple times...

I will NEVER not flush my plants again... and that's not because of what some scientist wrote in a article, it's because of what I KNOW from personal experiences.
Do you know what scientific evidence is?
It relies on stuff like empirical data and a rigid method.
It's proving a theory by experimentation while following certain principles of reasoning.

Scientific evidence is deduced by experimentation, except you have twisted the meaning of experiment to somehow exclude it from science when it's in fact a cornerstone of the scientific method. You think anybody can do an "experiment" without proper precautions or a proper setup and that "experiment" would somehow be proof of universal facts.
The premise is ridiculous.


What you're doing is not a scientific experiment, you do not own a lab or have any way of properly measuring and controlling an experiment.
Sure you can do something and call it an experiment but it is in no way related to anything credible, it's personal experience, nothing else.

You can't deduce facts from personal experiences.
 

akula

Active Member
You're joking, right?
Of course its a joke/sarcasm. It reflects my feeling of this debate after watching and debating it over the years.....that's its a joke. I mean when one side argues science and plant biology and botany and the other talks of feelings and popularity and faith and argues with nothing more then vague anecdotal evidence, then yeah it become nothing more then a joke to me. If the best argument you can muster is:

"dude if flushing wasn't mandatory then why does my nute company sell a high tech flushing solution for me to use??? HUH? Yeah thought so, checkmate brah!".

So yeah I put the flushing argument right there on par with the "flavored weed with kool-aide" argument....ridiculous. Sorry I am being a dick, but its hard watching everyone stare at the rain falling and claim dry out. I guess it doesn't effect me much, well other then having to lie about how "of course I flush" to avoid an argument. It just feels like banging my your head against the wall to protect your brethren from continuing to run into it themselves.

So yes....pre-harvest flush...flush away. In fact I am off to flush some tomatoes.
 

m420p

Well-Known Member
All of what I just posted is quotes from something I wrote several months ago.
It's the same stuff I've been saying all along.

With regards to me not being having perfect dries was a statement of how nobody has perfect dries/grows/cures whatever you know it to mean.
There are variations in everything, nobody is perfect.

It wasn't a statement to my weed being badly dried or wrongly cured.
It's a recognition of the fact that it's impossible to achieve perfection in anything, we can tend towards it but never fully achieve it.
No grown Cannabis plant will ever be 100% perfect but some experts can get damn close.
I would love it if there was a way of keeping my plants at critical (100% productivity) nutrient levels throughout the grow but it's just not possible, the technology simply doesn't exist to measure or adjust the levels with such precision, and certainly not constantly.

I have tried most ways to grow, dry & cure there is.
I've tried everything from water curing to whole plant drying and to aeroponics.

I have a good and scientifically proven way of doing what I do after years of trial and error and learning, it's why I achieve great results.






Do you know what scientific evidence is?
It relies on stuff like empirical data and a rigid method.
It's proving a theory by experimentation while following certain principles of reasoning.

Scientific evidence is deduced by experimentation, except you have twisted the meaning of experiment to somehow exclude it from science when it's in fact a cornerstone of the scientific method. You think anybody can do an "experiment" without proper precautions or a proper setup and that "experiment" would somehow be proof of universal facts.
The premise is ridiculous.


What you're doing is not a scientific experiment, you do not own a lab or have any way of properly measuring and controlling an experiment.
Sure you can do something and call it an experiment but it is in no way related to anything credible, it's personal experience, nothing else.

You can't deduce facts from personal experiences.
Show me Scientific documentation published where the Scientific Method was used with two plants in same conditions with one flushed and one not flushed... lets see it... ALL your doing is taking scientific facts and studies of the biology of the Cannabis plant and saying that when you "flush" even when Nutrient Manufacturers tell you to in their schedule, your not necessarily flushing or leaching anything and just depriving the plant of nutrients. I somewhat agree with you there because I am the Scientific type but your missing my point.

I know there is differences(taste, smell, doesn't light well, ash color) between flushing and not flushing your plants, that's general knowledge in my circle of growers. It's to the point now where a few of us can easily tell whether other growers smoke was flushed or not. Honestly, have you ever tried the same strain flushed and not flushed? Probably not, you should try it some time... Even if your yield is effected a tiny bit(which I think is laughable) and you are starving your plants, better smoking bud is worth it to me.
 

whatisnow

Member
Hi K0ijn, thanks for your response earlier. I've only just got home and I will read it later today but I just wanted to say thanks just now. I know you may have commented elsewhere about it so taking the time to reiterate things you have probably said on many ocassions for the benefit of newbie is really appreciated. I will read and respond but I just didn't want you to think you made that effort for nothing.
 
If the best argument you can muster is:
"dude if flushing wasn't mandatory then why does my nute company sell a high tech flushing solution for me to use??? HUH? Yeah thought so, checkmate brah!".
You quote me and then say this? I never said that. And my opinion on flushing is to lower ppm. Not plain water.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top