Help Diagnose Issue In Late Flower

InTheShed said:
I go with 2-3x the pot size depending on how heavy my feeding has been. 3x definitely gets the runoff PPM down closer to my tap water. I don't use any products though, just tap water from the hose.

If you flush your plants and don't immediately feed them, then you are leaving your plants with a depleted medium for what...2-4 days? Could be part of the problem you're seeing.
Click to expand...
Interesting point, even though the FF FAQ says to not feed them immediately. I did check my runoff PPM and was at 600PPM using 700PPM scale, so am guessing there are some nutrients just not the 1500+ the chart calls for. Hopefully that buys time for the soil to dry a little before resuming dosage.
 
InTheShed said:
I go with 2-3x the pot size depending on how heavy my feeding has been. 3x definitely gets the runoff PPM down closer to my tap water. I don't use any products though, just tap water from the hose.

If you flush your plants and don't immediately feed them, then you are leaving your plants with a depleted medium for what...2-4 days? Could be part of the problem you're seeing.
Click to expand...
isn't a flush just a hard watering, in the end? Sure, you ran a lot of water through there, but how much remained when you were done? Exactly the same amount of good clean water that would remain after a f/w/f/w water only session. When you come along every other time and give only water, that is the whole point... to allow the plant to clean up the soil of leftover nutes from the last time, and create a "depleted medium."
 
PistolPete80 said:
One question - when using Sledgehammer, should that be PH to 6.3 or just mix with tap water and no adjustments? I have been PH'ing my water/sledgehammer mix...not sure if that is the right thing to do
Click to expand...
The ONLY reason we pH our solutions is so that the nutes are in the pH range where they break free of their edta bonds and become mobile in the soil. If it wasn't for nutes, we would have no reason to pH adjust. Since there are no nutes in a flush, there is no need to pH adjust all of that water.
 
PistolPete80 said:
One question - when using Sledgehammer, should that be PH to 6.3 or just mix with tap water and no adjustments? I have been PH'ing my water/sledgehammer mix...not sure if that is the right thing to do
Click to expand...
When you do a flush, check the ppm of the first runoff and compare it to the finish. That will tell you how much you removed from the soil.

Emilya said:
to allow the plant to clean up the soil of leftover nutes from the last time, and create a "depleted medium."
Click to expand...
When you flush the soil, you are flushing the nutrients along with leftover salts and ions. If you leave the soil in that state there is nothing for the plant to eat and you are starving it right when it is trying to bulk up the flowers.
 
InTheShed said:
When you do a flush, check the ppm of the first runoff and compare it to the finish. That will tell you how much you removed from the soil.


When you flush the soil, you are flushing the nutrients along with leftover salts and ions. If you leave the soil in that state there is nothing for the plant to eat and you are starving it right when it is trying to bulk up the flowers.
Click to expand...
no more so than when you just give water and let it chew on that for 3-5 days.
 
Giving a plant plain water doesn't clear out the nutrients. Flushing does. If you are doing a proper flush with 3x the container size in water to clear the salts out of there, then just continue on with strong finishing nutes. You do want big buds at the end don't you, so don't starve them at the end, just when they are growing the fastest.
 
So i've got mixed feelings on this conversation between intheshed and emilya. I have to go with in the shed on this one.
My GG was locked out and for few times i just watered it, but the plant wasn't showing any changes. The flush 3x bigger than the pot cleaned the salts out and the growth started again.

However, I do think that Emilya has a point and if i would of periodically water instead of feed then it shouldn't of locked out.
 
InTheShed said:
Giving a plant plain water doesn't clear out the nutrients. Flushing does. If you are doing a proper flush with 3x the container size in water to clear the salts out of there, then just continue on with strong finishing nutes. You do want big buds at the end don't you, so don't starve them at the end, just when they are growing the fastest.
Click to expand...
Sorry, not trying to be argumentative but the plant clears out the nutrients on the water only pass, the plain water doesn't do it by itself. Does it not makes sense that the plant is still feeding on that second pass, and when you give pH adjusted water, it simply reactivates any leftover nutes and makes them available to the plant? And as a consequence of this action, the soil is cleaned of excess nutes, by the plant itself, every other watering.

You mentioned ions earlier. This is the whole point of flushing. The cation exchange rate of soil means that it can only hold so many ions of nutes before there is no more room, and no more can be held. Unfortunately, salt is also an ion, and excess salt building up in the soil as a result of the nutes being used, takes up valuable spaces in the soil's ability to hold ions of nutrients. A flush dissolves that salt and moves it out of the soil, freeing up the soil's ability to hold OTHER ions besides the salt, and allowing soil to do what it does... hold onto ions of nutrients for the roots to use as they are able.

This is why a flush at 6 weeks is so important. Salt ions have likely taken over by that point in the grow and are holding a large percentage of the spots where nutrients could be held, so we say that the nutes have been locked out, are immobile, and are unavailable to the plant. A proper flush clears the pipes, and allows for free exchange and capturing of ions other than salt, feeding the plant just at the time they are growing the fastest.

If you wish to prove to me that a flush is somehow harmful, please get Fox Farms to stop recommending 5 flushes during their grows. If you can convince them to stop advising this, you will have convinced me too.
 
Correct me if i'm wrong inthe shed, but I think when you slow water it your just pushing the top salts further down. This is a slow process because you are not doing a flush. When you flush the everything opens up and the salts wash off rather then go forther down.
 
Flushing is not a watering pass. Pouring 3x the pot size of water through a potted plant will bring the PPMs down to the level of the water used to flush, and will deplete the soil of enough nutrients to make it hungry. It's not just leftover ions that run out, or the PPM would always remain higher than the tap water no matter how much you pour though.

This is why Emilya tells people to feed their plants after flushing.
Emilya said:
why not just do a proper flush with 3x the container size in water to clear the salts out of there, and then just continue on with strong finishing nutes? You do want big buds at the end don't you, so don't starve them at the end, just when they are growing the fastest.
Click to expand...
Emilya said:
Then you should do a 3x flush and immediately follow that up with more full on nutes until the end.
Click to expand...
 
InTheShed said:
This is why Emilya tells people to feed their plants after flushing.
Click to expand...
Not exactly. Usually when we get to this point we are looking at a plant suffering from salt lockout, ie, all the cation holding spots in the soil are holding salt, not nutrients. This plant is starving and needs food, yesterday. Yes, I advise to clear the salt and then immediately feed.

This is different than a preventative and regular flush. A regular flush can just be treated as a regular watering. Just as you can go a couple of days without food, but still need water, plants are just the same. They handle a flushing just fine, the microbes still hang on and keep doing what they do, and contrary to what you are envisioning, not all of the nutrients are evacuated from the soil when we do a 3x flush... its not like we are using a fire hose. I would guess that 99.9% of the soil and everything in it stays right there in place when we gently flush.
 
You grabbed a quote of mine,
Then you should do a 3x flush and immediately follow that up with more full on nutes until the end.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
and taken out of context, it might sound like I said here to immediately give nutes while in the act of flushing, but I did not... I was saying that after you have cleared the pipes by flushing, you should feed/water/feed/water right up to the end with none of this nonsense of trying to starve the plant for the last 2 weeks.
 
I don't want to belabor the point, and I'm not sure what a gentle flush is, but when I used FF trio, my flush would go from around 1800ppm to my tap water of 220ppm. This isn't an LOS grow where microbes are chewing though molecular structures to split them into something the plant can eat. This is a synthetic nute grow, and leaving the plant without the synthetic nutes they have been getting and hoping that the soil has the correct balance of elements to feed it in the meantime is not the way to maximize your harvest.

PP has a plant with deficiencies, and I have offered two suggestions...raising the pH to the correct level for soil (assuming his slurry test is correct), and feeding the plant after it's flushed.

That's all I've got here!
 
I have a video on how to do a slurry mix :thumb:
I think that would resolve conclusion. knowing your soil readings.
 
Thank you. So far after a really solid flush it seems to be doing better. Buds are looking healthy, super dense even though the top level cola's fan leaves are pretty tore up the middle and lowers are pretty healthy. Looks like it will turn out to be a decent yield and quality so am happy. Just want to get this problem solved so I can have a full run without any issues at all.
 
Back
Top Bottom