Flushing Plant before harvest method

[Aweedtec]

How can you know you got all the nutrients out of the plant before harvesting so that the nutrients in the stems and buds get processed and no unprocessed nutrients are in your buds just by flushing? The answer is, you can't know and you probably are not getting them out fully.

Maybe this is a stupid method. But I believe I achieved the goal I was going for. Sticky great smelling buds. That smelled the same as when the plant was at its highest scent while growing.

I had a Gold Leaf strain in a five gallon felt Vivosun pot and it smelled excellent all the way through growing. It was the plant that had the most scent for a good while. Then as it got closer to harvest the smell died down a bit. But I could also smell something else in it. Assuming it was nutrients I flushed the plant with three times the pot. So 15 gallons of PH balanced water.

Some people say flushing is unnecessary. But, there is a reason I disagree....

The smell of my plant had something else in it other than the smell of the buds while growing once near finish time.

I believe there is unprocessed nutrients in the stems and buds. You want those nutrients processed. I did one grow of a few plants where I didnt flush and those buds did not totally keep their scent through 3 and a half months of curing. They still had scent. But not like they did growing. And they did lose a bit of their scent toward the end just like the Gold Leaf strain did.

While flushing I noticed something. The damn water kept coming out brown. Dark, brown. Nutrient brown. Still after 15 gallons. I was dumping the water in and watching it go down. There was a nice rim of soil around the edges so I assumed just dump until you start to get just to the top of that rim and it has to go through the middle. Unfortunately it didnt. Most of it would just run down and out the sides anyway after about 3 gallons went through it. But you couldn't tell it was doing that by just looking at it. So I tried something. I poured just a little on top and waited.
It took a good long time to go down. MUCH slower than when I dumped water on top to almost the top of the rim.

So I did the math. I counted how long it took the water to go down and how much I was actually pouring on top each time to make sure it went through the center of the pot where the main root ball is and not down the sides. I had clearly already cleaned the sides out since that is where most of the 15 gallons went.
I figured it would have taken me about 4 to 6 hours of pouring water at the rate necessary to flush it properly with 15 gallons. And still I could not be certain all the nutrients were gone.

The medium was tough on top. The top was really spongy but tough. So it grow a lot of damn roots. Roots up and down the pot and it was just one big huge root ball.

I had an idea.
So I pulled the felt pot off and just started using regular un PH balanced water and tried to pressure spray the medium out of the roots.
Nothing doing. It would pull just a bit off the side. Enough to see just how much the roots had developed during the grow. But it could not get deep enough to clear it all out. And if you use too much pressure you will soak the plant and blow soil all over it. And that's not good either.

So after about 20 minutes of doing this I decided this is stupid. Im never going to get all of the soil out.

So I pulled all the roots off the plant and put it in a straining pan on wheels(yep I have one of these) and even dunked it in a bucket while using my hands to gently pull all the medium out of the roots..... with the exception of all the roots around the main tap root. I made sure to keep those roots intact. Then it became really easy to clear the rest of the medium out.

I took the remainder of the roots, cleaned them off with some PH balanced water and then put some fresh Pro mix in the bottom of a one gallon pot about 2 inches high loosely and then put the root ball on top of it and then added some more fresh medium about 2 inches from the top of the 1 gallon pot. Then I lifted the plant a little to get the roots to raise through the medium shaking it a bit. (the medium was dry of course). After I felt the roots were not all in one place I filled the rest of the 1 gallon pot will medium.

I watered it until it was soaked. Then I started pressing it really hard down to re-stabilize the plant in the soil so it wouldn't fall over.

Once I had it packed nicely the plant stayed upright. I did have to keep adding medium as I pressed it down and watered with PH balanced water. The goal was to have the roots sitting in saturated medium with no nutrients at all.

After I was finished the plant stayed upright and balanced nicely.

Then I placed the one gallon pot in a five gallon bucket. Not a growing bucket. Just a five gallon household bucket. Cleaned of course.

I placed it outside(it was grown inside) all day in the sun. Making sure the roots were good and wet. I put it outside for 4 days from 10am to about 3pm. Then I brought it inside and put it under a 660nm RED light with only darkness and the red light on the plant. I dont know if that light did anything but the point was to have it in cold air. My AC had my room at 63 degrees. Sometimes 65. Then at 10PM it went into a cold dark closet all night.

After 4 days all the scent came back strong, the buds fattened up a just a bit more and the other smell I didnt like was gone. I only soaked the plants base for 3 days. Then just let it go hoping the plant would draw the rest of the water up over the last 2 days and it did.

After 5 total days I harvested the plant.

I believe this process is the best way to flush a plant now before harvesting. Flushing it while in the pot with all those nutrients in it is a waste of time and effort. You cant clear enough out of the medium to matter if the goal is to have the plant process the rest of the nutrients that made it into the plants stems and buds. If you want straight pH balanced water to run into your plant for its last few days the only way to do it is this method. Before doing this I even tries using a poking rod and put like 200 1/4 holes through the soil and nothing. It still would not sink fast enough to know I was clearing nutrients out. But after it was in that one gallon pot... The water ran out clear into the 5 gallon household bucket. I know I got those nutrients out doing this. Not a maybe. No leaves ever drooped over the 5 days except those which were turning yellow and ready to fall off anyway and that would have happened whether I did this or not.

It did take me a while to do this but I believe since it was an experiment is why it took a few hours to get it in the pot. I can probably do that same thing with every plant before I harvest it in about an hour now. And the benefit was very good.

When you flush a plant because its nutrients are burning the plant... That is good to stop burning. But I dont believe you are getting all the nutrients out. Especially if you just put dry amendments on it and then realize its time to harvest within 2 or 3 days. How can you wash out nutrients that are designed to slowly release over weeks? You can't. Unless you do it the way I did this plant. It has to be nice and wet and the plant will not suffer from pulling all those roots off as long as you leave a decent amount of roots on it and dont destroy the tap root.


I will post some photos of the process when I get home this evening from work.

If you dont believe nutrients need to be fully processed to get the best smelling harvest then keep doing you. I was not even sure this process was going to work for me. But it did. It made a huge difference on the finished product.

 

[Phytoplankton]

I'm glad it worked for you (or you believe it did), but it is far from anything scientific, basically anectodal observations, prone to extreme bias. Find any scientific study that supports flushing (not a blog or unscientific bro science). I urge you to read this: Cannabis Flushing Research Study

 

[Aweedtec]

I'm glad it worked for you (or you believe it did), but it is far from anything scientific, basically anectodal observations, prone to extreme bias. Find any scientific study that supports flushing (not a blog or unscientific bro science). I urge you to read this: Cannabis Flushing Research Study

While I agree with you I also agree with the article and their finding agree with my findings.

That flushing does nothing the way people say to flush three times the capacity the grow pot of water through the grow medium.

My findings were that it didn't clear the nutrients out. Not hardly at all. That it was a waste of time.

Which is why I changed the method.

I would like them to do the same test again only use my method of cutting off all the roots except the main root ball and tap root...removing all the medium and soaking the roots in pH balanced water before repotting it and leaving it in soaked medium for a few days.

Is my findings anecdotal. At this point they have to be. But It definitely changed the scent back to what it was supposed to be from what it had become.

So I think as far as reading their findings...of course they found no difference. They used the method I found did nothing to actually flush all nutrients from the medium.

So I agree.
If there is a way to get them to do this test again but use my method of flushing ..I would be interested to find out if there is a difference that way.

 

[SmokingWings]

But I believe I achieved the goal I was going for. Sticky great smelling buds. That smelled the same as when the plant was at its highest scent while growing.

I understand what you were hoping to accomplish and what the basic method was.

However, replanting back into the soil mix seems like it defeats all the work up to that point. The micro-organisms in the soil mix will immediately start reproducing and within a day are back to the population levels, or at least close to the population levels of an established pot of soil. So, the plant has a refreshed source of the same nutrients you were trying to remove. The result is that the plant has no need to start using up the nutrients stored in the leaves and all the green plant material in the buds.

You would have to come up with a way of forcing the plant to use the stored nutrients because it cannot go back to absorbing new amounts through the root system. You will need to get the whole plant including all the flower buds to turn a nice shade of yellow indicating that the nutrients are gone. I have the feeling that it will take a lot longer than 2 days, more like 7 days or more.

 

[Canachris]

I agree with Smoke.
it would be easier for to just grow hydroponic

 

[SmokingWings]

I agree with Smoke.
it would be easier for to just grow hydroponic

I had figured that many growers would not want to go hydro because they want the taste, smell or whatever that they feel that they get by growing in an organic material based soil.

Maybe the answer is removing all the soil and then sticking the absolutely bare root plant into a net pot or whatever is used would then be the next step. The water would have to be distilled or RO or whatever is need to remove all possible minerals. Probably have to get the pH of the water to 7 because that is the neutral pH.

Then there is the light situation. The lights are needed for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is what will use up a large portion of the stored Nitrogen. Or, should the lights be turned off which will reduce the production of the Chlorophyll which is the green color.

 

[Canachris]

does it make that much of a difference between soil and hydro. Most of the sensimelia I smoked back in the 80's was grown hydroponic, it was very tasty and a bright green also very skunky. that was a long time ago and the good ole days always seem better than they were

 

[Aweedtec]

I understand what you were hoping to accomplish and what the basic method was.

However, replanting back into the soil mix seems like it defeats all the work up to that point. The micro-organisms in the soil mix will immediately start reproducing and within a day are back to the population levels, or at least close to the population levels of an established pot of soil. So, the plant has a refreshed source of the same nutrients you were trying to remove. The result is that the plant has no need to start using up the nutrients stored in the leaves and all the green plant material in the buds.

You would have to come up with a way of forcing the plant to use the stored nutrients because it cannot go back to absorbing new amounts through the root system. You will need to get the whole plant including all the flower buds to turn a nice shade of yellow indicating that the nutrients are gone. I have the feeling that it will take a lot longer than 2 days, more like 7 days or more.

//However, replanting back into the soil mix seems like it defeats all the work up to that point. The micro-organisms in the soil mix will immediately start reproducing and within a day are back to the population levels, or at least close to the population levels of an established pot of soil. So, the plant has a refreshed source of the same nutrients you were trying to remove. The result is that the plant has no need to start using up the nutrients stored in the leaves and all the green plant material in the buds.///

I dont know why this site wont work the way it used to on my screen but it appears the ability to put your different comments in quotes is not on the page. Strange.

Anyway, I didnt plant it back in its own soil mix. I used new peat moss. With nothing in it but some perlite. No mycos and nothing to keep it moist. Literally nothing. Just peat moss and perlite.

Microorganisms are for soil, They dont get utilized in the buds or the plant at all except keeping the root zone healthy. There were no nutrients in that fresh medium.

The nutrients I was trying to move was the Dr Earth NPK and 13 other nutrients as well as the Bud Doublin and its Micros which has nutrients that Dr Earth does not have in it. THOSE are the nutrients the plant utilizes.
And those were the nutrients that I was removing. And I felt it was worthless to flush the plant as everyone says... running 3 times water the amount of the container through it.

//You would have to come up with a way of forcing the plant to use the stored nutrients because it cannot go back to absorbing new amounts through the root system.//

That is exactly what I did.

Nutrients stored in leaves are still processed nutrients. They are part of the plant now. Sure there is some that are in the stems of the leaves waiting to be processed, but once processed the plant is grown more. During my 5 days of outdoor light(very sunny and hot here) and then a few hours in only 660nm red light in 63 degrees and then cold nights in the dark... the plant DID yellow. A lot. The photos you see are 5 days prior and on the 6th day I harvested. It did use the nutrients in the leaves. Because there was NONE in the soil. It had no choice. And that was the entire point of the post.

I am kind of shocked at your response because usually you read my posts because I am having an issue and have constructive things to say regarding it.
I told you all I will be good at this very quickly. Quicker than most. I will soak up every bit of information online and will probably even change things. Because there is always a better way.

The questions you have, I had as well. That is why I decided to chop all the excess roots off. So I could get all the soil enriched nutrients out of the main root ball and have it just suck pH balanced water for 5 days. Maybe it should have been 7. But I was not taking the chance of getting more amber trichs than it already had. I have enough of that 30% of amber smoke laying around. I wake up 3 hours later wondering what the hell just happened to the last three hours.
Narcotic like affect almost. I dont need more of that. I need highest THC levels at the top of the arc before the amber gets to even 5%. Hell I dont even want 2% if the trichs are milky enough. Well that depends on what I am growing and why.


//I have the feeling that it will take a lot longer than 2 days, more like 7 days or more.//

I stated that I watered it for 2 days and then stopped giving it water. But the soil was soaked. I mean to the point where the bucket was necessary because it had 3 inches of standing water in it to ensure the roots were getting water. And the top of the soil was also soaked. Then I dumped it after 2 full days and then let the roots drink up the rest of what was in the soil.

The end product turned out perfect. The scent that I attribute to nutrients near the end of a plant was gone and the scent it had that overwhelmed my entire house while growing had returned.


I know I am new here generally speaking. But I am in no wise a dummy. I did not defeat the purpose of what i was trying to achieve. I smelled way too much of something covering the original scent of the buds. Ya know, it could have been that it was going to fatten those buds up more and was pulling a lot more nutrients up. But at the same time It could have been causing more amber trichs.
My friend told me gold leaf grows small nice buds. Well, It grew large buds for me. She has grown that plant a few times. I have grown it once. She has been growing plants her entire life. I have never grown a plant in my life and killed a friggin cactus when I was in my teens that a teacher told all the students to grow. She said its not hard you hardly have to water them. So, I listened. And hardly (well never) watered it.
I started about a year ago when I joined this forum. Those first 4 plants were the first 4 I ever grew. And now, I dont have issues with plants anymore. This grow had 7 plants in it. Some are for the neighbors. They have no lights and no light in their yards.
7 plants is a watering and nutrient nightmare when they are all in flower. In the very beginning one plant did have issues. But I sorted it. I started recognizing what the issues were and now nothing gets by me. I can spot an issue and know what to do immediately. It too me a year to learn this in my spare time. I probably could have gotten it sooner had i not let myself get stressed thinking it was all for nothing when an issue rose up.

And there is so much information online, half the information is junk and half of it is good. But no plant is the same. They all act different. This place has been invaluable because of a few people. You being one of them. Many times your posts have stopped me from doing something I was going to do that was highly unnecessary. I have a very high IQ. But that IQ means nothing when you are concerned and anxious thinking your plant is going to die and your time wasted. Your posts have caused me to pause before taking action a few times. So I appreciate you.

I believe I achieved what I wanted to achieve with this an that is why I am sharing it. I think the traditional way of flushing a plant is worthless. You could pour 50 gallons of water through your plant in a felt pot and its not going to get any nutrients out of the soil. Especially if you use time released nutrients.

So that is why I changed the method. I didnt add nutrients back in and I did not use the same soil that came out of the plant. That soil got washed down my driveway. Good thing it blows away after the water dries out.

Sorry for the long post. It just seems people are missing what i stated in my post. I dont agree with the old method of flushing. I would rather had just let it sit in water with no soil. But there was no way to do that. I could not find a way to keep it upright without it all laying over so I could put it under sunlight for 5 days and in cold nights.

 

[Phytoplankton]

Organic growers claim there is a taste difference, but the issue of synthetic vs organic nutes being different is a fallacy, the nutrients absorbed by the plant whether organic or synthetic are exactly the same, only the delivery system is different. In orgainc grows microrganisms break down the molecules into a form absorbable by the plant, in synthetic grows the nutes are chelated to a salt and dissasociate in water leaving the nutrients in a form immediately available to the plant, but what the plants are absorbing is exactly the same.

 

[Aweedtec]

I had figured that many growers would not want to go hydro because they want the taste, smell or whatever that they feel that they get by growing in an organic material based soil.

Maybe the answer is removing all the soil and then sticking the absolutely bare root plant into a net pot or whatever is used would then be the next step. The water would have to be distilled or RO or whatever is need to remove all possible minerals. Probably have to get the pH of the water to 7 because that is the neutral pH.

Then there is the light situation. The lights are needed for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is what will use up a large portion of the stored Nitrogen. Or, should the lights be turned off which will reduce the production of the Chlorophyll which is the green color.

Totally agree with this. I wanted to just put the root ball in water alone. But I had no way to stabilize it to stay upright under the sunlight. That is why I used the medium. Just to stabilize the plant upright.

My schedule was this once the plant had no nutrients in it.
from 10am to 3pm... Sunlight.
From 3pm to 10pm 660nm Deep red light in 63 degrees
Then from 10pm to 10am total darkness in 63 degrees.
For 5 days.
No water added after 2 days.

I should have went longer. But I started to notice the yellow leaves drooping a bit. So I harvested it. I felt like the water in the medium had dried enough to where it could no longer draw water so I harvested.

So my plant got light. Necessary stronger light. I just lowered the amount of exposure and made sure it had more time in cold while under red lights and then more darkness.

I would love to do Hydro. I think it grows the best plants.

 

[Aweedtec]

Organic growers claim there is a taste difference, but the issue of synthetic vs organic nutes being different is a fallacy, the nutrients absorbed by the plant whether organic or synthetic are exactly the same, only the delivery system is different. In orgainc grows microrganisms break down the molecules into a form absorbable by the plant, in synthetic grows the nutes are chelated to a salt and dissasociate in water leaving the nutrients in a form immediately available to the plant, but what the plants are absorbing is exactly the same.

Do you mean, what they are processing turns into exactly the same thing?

The only thing I would argue is that organic is just free of non organic agents. And this may be totally anecdotal. But if I smoke from the dispensary, after about a month I cant eat without smoking first.

But if I smoke what I grow myself, I dont have that issue at all. And I did go back and forth over the course of this year and it happened every time I went with dispensary product for more than a month. And I need a lot of calories a day.

I think there is something they are using that is causing this. Maybe its a pesticide. I dont know. But I also believe their product is always too dry.

I dont know about the taste difference other than it being dry can cause it to be a bit more harsh. But you can remedy that very easily with a little bag of wet paper towel in a jar or the orange peel method and then its not nearly as harsh from the dispensary. So I definitely dont think the difference is taste.

I hear there is an issue of nutrients unprocessed in the plant can cause inflammation if not flushed. But I dont know that I believe that either.

 

[Aweedtec]

does it make that much of a difference between soil and hydro. Most of the sensimelia I smoked back in the 80's was grown hydroponic, it was very tasty and a bright green also very skunky. that was a long time ago and the good ole days always seem better than they were

I have had stuff back in the early 90s that blows anything I have ever gotten from a dispensary or anything I have grown myself and it was Hydro grown. One was from a guy I used to work with who had stuff that blew me away. And another guy was growing it in his house and until he got busted, man those were some good days. I never see anything like that today.

 

[Phytoplankton]

Do you mean, what they are processing turns into exactly the same thing?

In synthetic the nutes are immediately available, in organic microbes break down the coumpounds into the same form as the synthetic nutes.

I hear there is an issue of nutrients unprocessed in the plant can cause inflammation if not flushed. But I dont know that I believe that either.

I very much doubt that too, they don't flush fruits or vegetable, nor do the "flush" tobacco, and tobacco is heavily fertilized with synthtic nutes. How harsh a plant smokes is a function of curing.

 

[SmokingWings]

does it make that much of a difference between soil and hydro.

I don't know but there are growers who firmly believe that it does.

 

[Aweedtec]

I don't know but there are growers who firmly believe that it does.

From my experience with just remembering what I saw in the 90s when a guy I knew was doing hydro and what I see in dispensaries today and what I grow myself and what some friends are all growing... There is no question hydro is way superior. But I also think its probably takes way more technical ability. I dont know if that is true but I suspect it is.

 

[SmokingWings]

Anyway, I didnt plant it back in its own soil mix. I used new peat moss. With nothing in it but some perlite. No mycos and nothing to keep it moist. Literally nothing. Just peat moss and perlite.

Interesting. I did not see that mentioned at all in your message. The closest was mentioning "medium" and it was easy to figure you were talking about your growing medium that you have been using all along.

 

[Aweedtec]

In synthetic the nutes are immediately available, in organic microbes break down the coumpounds into the same form as the synthetic nutes.

I very much doubt that too, they don't flush fruits or vegetable, nor do the "flush" tobacco, and tobacco is heavily fertilized with synthtic nutes. How harsh a plant smokes is a function of curing.

There is just way too much information out there and no way to know if its true or not until you find out yourself.