Flushed too early?

[MrAutoGrower]

So I’ve never been one to practise flushing, in fact I never flushed at all. I tried it on one plant, and she smells and smokes soo much nicer than the other I did not flush.

Right now, most of my upper canopy is more mature than the rest, and wondering if I’ve maybe flushed a bit early.

Tbh, I am using coco and been feeding until run off so I imagine I didn’t have much nutrients left in the pot. I fed fairly light ppm wise.

So I decided to just start feeding ph balanced water to let it use up any nutrients left.

But I’ve noticed my lower canopy still has some white hairs on the buds. So right now I’m starting to wonder if I should stop feeding water and add some advanced nutrients overdrive back in then flush again when the lower canopy is more mature looking.

What do you flushing guys think? Flushed too early? Continue feeding again for a bit? Most of my bigger buds are super dense, but now I’m kinda shitting myself in case I’ve starved her too early, and end up with more larfy buds.

I have no idea how long she’s been flowering now. My phone was stolen with my grow logs on it to keep me right. She’s been flowering around 8 weeks so far though, and yes... she is an auto.

Upper canopy pictures:

Lower canopy;

 

[LabRat]

Looks like toxic salts buildup from overfeeding long term to me. With normal yellowing the leaves go limp and soft but those look all dry and crunchy caused by excess salts buildup toasting them from the inside out.

It's normal for the tops to ripen before the lower buds so I'm in th habit of cropping the big colas first then letting the lower ones ripen up for another 10 - 14 days before cropping the rest. I never flush and am wondering what you did for a flush. A real flush is 3x the pot volume of water run thru a pot to remove almost all the nutes. Even when running DWC I'll just remove most of the nutes and top up with RO water to keep the ppm around 300 so those lower buds have a little something to feed on as they finish ripening.

Flushing at any level does not remove salts from the plant. The only way to do that is to starve the plant to force it to use up any excess mobile nutes that it can re-locate to still growing parts of the plants. If all nutes are removed before the buds have finished fattening up like they tend to do the last 2 weeks they won't get as fat so yields will suffer. N-P-K, Mg and Zn are all mobile but all the rest have to come from the roots. Lack of those shows on older leaves first but the rest cause problems with new growth or stunted buds. Root problems as well but those aren't so visible.

 

[MrAutoGrower]

Looks like toxic salts buildup from overfeeding long term to me. With normal yellowing the leaves go limp and soft but those look all dry and crunchy caused by excess salts buildup toasting them from the inside out.

It's normal for the tops to ripen before the lower buds so I'm in th habit of cropping the big colas first then letting the lower ones ripen up for another 10 - 14 days before cropping the rest. I never flush and am wondering what you did for a flush. A real flush is 3x the pot volume of water run thru a pot to remove almost all the nutes. Even when running DWC I'll just remove most of the nutes and top up with RO water to keep the ppm around 300 so those lower buds have a little something to feed on as they finish ripening.

Flushing at any level does not remove salts from the plant. The only way to do that is to starve the plant to force it to use up any excess mobile nutes that it can re-locate to still growing parts of the plants. If all nutes are removed before the buds have finished fattening up like they tend to do the last 2 weeks they won't get as fat so yields will suffer. N-P-K, Mg and Zn are all mobile but all the rest have to come from the roots. Lack of those shows on older leaves first but the rest cause problems with new growth or stunted buds. Root problems as well but those aren't so visible.

She did have a salt build up but came out it. I’ve been feeding ph balanced water only. Not actual “flushing” in terms of feeding the plant with shit tons of water to rid salts.

I noticed a difference in quality between my two plants. One flushed and one not. So I’m going with this method for this run on this girl until she finishes off.

That way I can compare the smell and smoke between them. This run has been an experimental one and learning curve for me. I have been trying out different things on different plants, different drying methods and so on. I was also experimenting with that girls feed and did overfeed her to begin with, and treated her like soil for almost two weeks of her life (was my first coco grow). The longer coco isn’t fed fresh nutrients, it becomes to accumulate into salts. So that’s what happened with her. Her crispy leaves started around week 6 of flower because I adjusted her lighting. She was receiving way more light than normal therefore she was up taking salts at a fast pace)

 

[Doug58]

Flowering for 8 weeks and it's an auto? What strain and breeder? If I had a plant that looked like that does in the first 3 pictures it would have already been cut. I don't go as much by pistils as I do scoping the trichomes with a pocket microscope.

 

[MrAutoGrower]

Flowering for 8 weeks and it's an auto? What strain and breeder? If I had a plant that looked like that does in the first 3 pictures it would have already been cut. I don't go as much by pistils as I do scoping the trichomes with a pocket microscope.

She is much bigger than she looks and suffered some stress in the beginning of her life and throughout. Most of her is ready to chop, I’m just waiting until tomorrow before I cut the mature parts and leave the rest to mature

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

This is the only scientific study on flushing that I am aware of. It concurs with what I have believed for years now. You should be flushing coco every time you fertigate with a 20% run-off to waste. Fertigate means watering with nutrient solution. Which is what you should have been doing every time you watered.

Cannabis Flushing Research Study

In our research study, RX Green Technologies evaluated the effects of different flushing times on chemical profile, flavor, and smoke of cannabis flower.

www.rxgreentechnologies.com

 

[MrAutoGrower]

This is the only scientific study on flushing that I am aware of. It concurs with what I have believed for years now. You should be flushing coco every time you fertigate with a 20% run-off to waste. Fertigate means watering with nutrient solution. Which is what you should have been doing every time you watered.

Cannabis Flushing Research Study

In our research study, RX Green Technologies evaluated the effects of different flushing times on chemical profile, flavor, and smoke of cannabis flower.

www.rxgreentechnologies.com

Thanks boss! I was going to go with this approach and just keep feeding lightly to run off because it makes sense. This is just an experiment for me and once again I’ve learned something.

I went along with it because I pulled a forbidden runtz without flushing, and been curing a while and she’s still quite harsh. More so In the beginning.

I decided to do a test with feeding one plant just water for a week before I pulled her, and obviously fed other plant until the end of her life.

The water fed one smokes and smells a lot better. It’s not a scientific test ofc. Not to mention I ran out of base nutrients last week.

But, i think I’ve potentially lost some density doing this. Live and learn!

Will provide a smoke report and harvest weight for her soon.

 

[MrAutoGrower]

Flowering for 8 weeks and it's an auto? What strain and breeder? If I had a plant that looked like that does in the first 3 pictures it would have already been cut. I don't go as much by pistils as I do scoping the trichomes with a pocket microscope.

Forbidden runtz. She is around 4ft tall. So was her sister, and her sister had much more bud sites from a lot of training. I got 6 and a half oz from that girl.

She suffered quite a bit to begin with. So she’s taking her time to finish. Most of her is finished, but I will be pulling her today partially until the least mature buds mature a bit. No point pulling the whole plant when only 50% is mature enough. Most of those larfy buds still need some time.

I like to have my microscope handy to check everything but my Android phone was stolen last week which is the only phone I had compatible with my microscope. Sad times!

I am preparing for harvest and will be setting up a better environment afterwards. The environment was real hot in the summer time last month, and humidity was crazy. Not to mention she’s in a 15L pot. Most 15L pots I’ve done take longer than smaller pots to finish

 

[CannabisMingus]

If all nutes are removed before the buds have finished fattening up like they tend to do the last 2 weeks they won't get as fat so yields will suffer.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Looking for terps in all the wrong places Over the years I have been chasing better bud! I was just looking in the wrong places. When I changed my light spectrum I found what was missing UVA and UVB. Since I have added these lamps to my grow and now cure in Grove Bags my dope is dope!