Please Help!

bobrown14 said:
I'm trying brother I'm trying. Still keep stumbling on flush on cannabis only related websites.

I think this flush thing comes out of the Hydroponic growing technique that was popular in the 80s in Canada. Somehow the flushing process morphed into soil grown cannabis for some weird reason in the states. These 2 growing processes are distinctly different in approach and chemistry.

Backed up with "I watered my plants now they are growing even better".



I water my plants with an automated process. They drink A LOT more water in flower. I would say likely 2-3 times more in flower than in VEG. So I would argue that flushing is actually giving the plants more water right at the time they need it the most.

Going down the stretch I've seen my flowering plants drink upwards of more than a gallon per plant per DAY. This is how I know they are close to harvest, when they stop drinking a lot of water. So my argument on the "its working" is basically down to the farmer giving the plants enough water right at a crucial time - the last few weeks of flower.





Your plants look fine. Its hard to compare 1 grow to another with your memory of events that happened months ago. Everything would have to be the same in the grow. Very difficult to get there but its doable for sure.

My main goal is repeatable result. There's a whole shit load of science on that topic too.

So @Known going forward since your plants are fine just enjoy what you're doing and keep doing it until the plants tell you different.

On the watering thing I see what looks like CLAY pots you're growing in??

They are GREAT at letting moisture evaporate out of the soil thru the clay. At your next up-pot go to cloth bags which are popular or hard plastic pots. If you want to stay in the clay you will need to water more frequently.

IF they are plastic clay LOOK pots disregard what I've said here on that regard. My very first grow I tried clay. I gave them away as soon as I could. I got terrible results from under watering.
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:thanks:
 
Known said:
Sweet. I will stop giving plain ro water as it seems to fucking up the ph. I will let you guys know how its going in a week. Peace
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I would use the RO water. Its not fucking up your pH - its chemically impossible since RO water is nothing but pure water. To alter soil pH it would have to test below 5pH and RO water isn't anywhere near 5pH - rain water yes its acidic, RO water not so much..
 
#noflushclub
Read @InTheShed write up on this and draw yer own conclusions.
I don’t flush because I don’t use synthetic nutes (no salt build up), so I’ll do the next best thing and tag an expert on the subject.
He loves discussing it. Lol!
:nerd-with-glasses:Sorry to drag you in Shed.
 
AdaminCO said:
#noflushclub
Read @InTheShed write up on this and draw yer own conclusions.
I don’t flush because I don’t use synthetic nutes (no salt build up), so I’ll do the next best thing and tag an expert on the subject.
He loves discussing it. Lol!
:nerd-with-glasses:Sorry to drag you in Shed.
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@Emilya loves this subject too.
:green_heart:
 
AdaminCO said:
#noflushclub
Read @InTheShed write up on this and draw yer own conclusions.
I don’t flush because I don’t use synthetic nutes (no salt build up), so I’ll do the next best thing and tag an expert on the subject.
He loves discussing it. Lol!
:nerd-with-glasses:Sorry to drag you in Shed.
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Oof! Thanks Adam. Bo has this pretty locked down. Flushing excess ions and salts from the soil when using synthetic nutrients is a thing in containers (not on farms), and is beneficial to the plants. Flushing by feeding water only to clear nutrients from the flowers before harvest is not a thing.

Same word, two completely different meanings. One real, one myth.
 
bobrown14 said:
So pics of 1 plant is all you got? Seriously?

All good brother if you wanna understand how water flowing thru soil read up on CEC also know as Cation Exchange Capacity.

The ONLY thing you can flush out of soil with water is excess Nitrogen. Cannabis plants need very little N in flower because they stored the N in the large fan leaves early on in VEG.

That said, IF the soil is sandy and has very little SOM (soil organic matter) you might be able to flush out some excess N. If the soil has any amount of SOM in it, nothing will flush out. The fertilizer is bound to soil particles in a chemical process (CEC) and cannot be changed with water or leached out or flushed whatever you want to call it.

Its science.

Here's a good read, skip down to page 7 on CEC but the whole article is very informative and what they are teaching in soil science class at university these days:

https://casfs.ucsc.edu/about/public...-Farming/PDF-downloads/2.2-soil-chemistry.pdf
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This is one sided and completely in error since all it talks about is flushing nutrients out of the soil and does not even address the primary reason we flush our soil... to rid the medium of salt.

Also, flushing is not going to mess up your soil pH... soil pH has nothing to do with that. When you flushed with 6.3 water, all you did is set the pH temporarily to that of the water... it takes months of pouring water into a buffered soil to even start to wear away the buffers and change the soil pH. Just make sure you set your pH to 6.3 on every incoming fluid, and you will be fine @Known
 
@Known on your nutrients - let your RO water sit overnight. pH test it then add your nutrients and pH test again.

If after leaving it sit out overnight and AFTER adding in your nutrients do a pH test and adjust according to the label on the nutrients you're using.

Gonna be that easy.

Using tap water with 150ppms of unknown minerals wont be helpful.

Hope that helps.
 
bobrown14 said:
I think this flush thing comes out of the Hydroponic growing technique that was popular in the 80s in Canada. Somehow the flushing process morphed into soil grown cannabis for some weird reason in the states.
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This again is totally in error. All nutrient manufacturers of synthetic nutes recommend periodic flushes of the soil, just the same as they recommend flushing the hydroponic reservoir... and for the same reason: To get rid of the built up salts. I am incensed that you think it wise to spout this misinformation that there is never a need to flush to new growers as if it were fact.
 
Emilya said:
This is one sided and completely in error
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Those dang pesky scientists always getting in the way. Wish they wood let us imagine things to be true instead of actual scientific proof.

I get it.
 
bobrown14 said:
Those dang pesky scientists always getting in the way. Wish they wood let us imagine things to be true instead of actual scientific proof.

I get it.
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one needs to be able to accurately read and understand the science to realize what parameters were considered and which were not. Just because a scientist made a study, ignoring salt buildup, doesn't mean that anyone else should. That scientist was not addressing the question we have before us today... he was talking about CEC... and as I explained to you earlier Bob, as you keep bringing up this crappy science, to check CEC the very first step that scientist had to do is remove all the built up salt from that soil... salt affects the CEC reading. So essentially, that scientist first flushed, and then ran his measurements and wrote that report. He totally ignored flushing, as it was not part of his experiment. Maybe it would help if you actually understood what you were reading.
 
In a soil-less medium this is how it works.

In SOIL since there's soil organic matter and CEC (cation exchange capacity) those same soluble nutrients get BOUND to soil particles via a chemical process.

This chemical bond can be broken down IN SOIL with the help of micro-organsims and plant root exudate. Cannot be broken down with plain water.

The reason the chemical bond cannot be broken down with water is that water has no way to attract those cations (fertilizer). Its all about chemistry and positive and negatively charges anions and cations. Most all fertilizers are cations. I think they all are. Well the nutrients and chemicals that plants use are cations. This is why CEC is such an important soil test and is basic to everything soil related.

Think of it like a battery

Anoin = negatively charged ion
Cation = positively charged Ion


Water = nether positive or negatively charged so no attraction to the cations which make up fertilizer.

Soil organic matter = negative charge

SOM attracts the nutrients (cations) and binds to them like a magnet.

Water since it has neither a negative or a positive charge cannot break that bond. It's chemically impossible.

The cations (fertilizer) quickly binds to the SOM as soon as it enters the soil substrate. IF there are extra cations its usually in the form of Nitrates which is the salts that @Emilya refers to and is soluble nitrogen.

We cannabis growers know that we dont need to add N in flower (so do the fertilizer companies). So lets say out container has excess soluble N sitting in the container.

Since our flower fertilizers dont contain much N the plant will gladly use up the soluble N. We don't want that in flower we want the plant to move its stored up N in the fan leaves along with complex sugars all from the fan leaves not the soil.

Here's my argument. The excess soluble N IN SOIL will be small to non-existent due to the CEC of the soil. There simply wont be much excess soluble N. All the N and other nutrients will be locked up and bound to the soil particles until called for by the root exudate and then the soil microbes will round up that bound up N and make it soluble for the plant to uptake.

Since the plant already has stored up N in the fan leaves, she wont be calling to the microbes to supply much if any N late in flower.

Here comes the water. Just in time.

I hope that explains how all of this works.

Thats the science now we have to put it into practice which is much harder than descriptions. Mother nature can toss a few curve balls and nothing we can do sometimes.
 
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