First grow (flowering stage only) with pics

I just re-read your question & realised I didn't give you a very clear answer. The three run throughs are your flush, done at one watering + the molasses water. All at the same time, just giving them a little time, few minutes, to drain between each run through. Then plain water as need till the end. Maybe using molasses one more time if they start to visibly swell again, no closer than a week before harvest (or as close as you can estimate). You actually have a better handle on this than you seem to think, so don't panic (you're not prone to anxiety, are you)? LOL!
-- Now you can sit back & contemplate your next grow. They were BIG, but is that how you like them (some people do), or would they be more manageable smaller? Now that you've seen how much they stretch in bud, you can time going into 12/12 at the right time to get the finish size you want.
-- (d00g, I hope you're reading this), I want you to google 'grow pot easy/mainlining'. What you get with this method is nice colas without the light fluffy sm popcorn buds. When done right, its doesn't cut down on yield, but concentrates the plants energies to the big solid colas. You can pinch as many times as you want to increase the number of solid buds, or as little (4 ) for fewer bigger buds. From there, you can go straight to 12/12, keeping them sm, or let them get as big as you want. D00g, this is what I wanted to point out to you. My flowering space is 5' X 2'. Not big at all. I'm still keeping my plants sm, going with only 4 branches/colas, but because this variety is a dense plant by nature, I wanted them open headed for light & air, which helps with bud health once they swell & start getting dense. This will work perfect in a small space without the room for a bigger fan (I'll only have space for a sm clip on fan, but good exhaust & intake). But check it out. Nugbuckets does a great tutorial & the pics are great. Very interesting even if your not into trying this technique. Have fun! Its almost party time!!!! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

Wow. This is really great stuff and thank you. I really wish I could load you up a karma bowl. We'd have fun. But I need to think about what you're saying here and research it as you say (with your links). When these girls are done another batch moves in. They are a different strain and I have veg'd them with super cropping and some LST. They shouldn't be as big as this first crop. They're bushy. I'd really like to go smaller, as OMB and some others around here have done with great results. Thanks cat. :pimp:

You and I are basically at the same point Chromophore, glad I'm not the only one that was getting nervous over the "standard" stuff. Lol
...and I'm glad I read this too! I thought you just flushed with water, I didn't know about the Epsom salts. (Thanks Mama!)
So flush 3x's with the Epsom salt water solution, then straight water, or Molasses and water....Got it.
They are looking goooood!...and smelling even better. Yep, wish we could all sit down together and smoke a bowl while we ooh and aaah over each other's plants.
Almost there chromophore! I have the next round rolled in already too. :thumbsup:

It's amazing the passion this topic elicits in various threads aroung the internet. I mean down and dirty nastiness. Not sure why people get so worked up about it. There are some that say flushing is the worst thing you can do. There are some that say Not flushing is the worst thing you can do. There are some who say flush with pure water is the only thing you should do. There are some who say flushing with very dilute nutes/epsom salts/molasses is the only thing you should do. For various reasons I'm going to follow your advice catbuds, unless someone can come in here and convince (us) otherwise. The idea of flushing with pure water bothers me because it's going to be very stressful on the plant. Root hairs can be damages by stripping the ionic strength around the root zone. So flushing with a certain level of tonicity, which catbud's method would do, makes more sense to me. I'm also bothered by the whole "nutrient starvation" aspect of this. I realize that heavy nutes can adversely affect taste, but stripping all the nutes away from the plant stresses it greatly, and that causes chemical changes as well, which very well could affect terpenoid chemistry in the trichomes as well. I guess I just need to follow advice and maybe experiment on my own and find out the hard way. It just seems to me it would be better to gradually reduce nute concentration than to do something so drastic. On the other hand Ocean Forest is a pretty hot mix anyway, so there are probably plenty of nutes around to keep the plant from stressing too much.

And I forgot to mention, there are some people who believe flushing for taste is a myth and that taste and burn is controlled entirely in the dry/cure process.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chromophore

And I forgot to mention, there are some people who believe flushing for taste is a myth and that taste and burn is controlled entirely in the dry/cure process.

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Wonder if they have ever seen a plant that looks blue from all the miracle grow, they taste bad!!

ranger after sifting through the "literature" for weeks now I can conclude that most accomplished grower's as well as "experts" like Rosenthal firmly believe in flushing, so that's good enough for me. What I may do is test slightly different flushing methods on a couple of the plants and see how they differ in the end. Maybe one will flush with pure water and another I will do with epsom salts/molasses, etc.

The forest Attachment 297585 t5s add blue to the room so in combo with the HPS I get some odd coloration in my photos.

trichomes are definitely moving toward the cloudy stage. Looks to me like its about 50/50 Attachment 297586 Another from same cola Attachment 297587


Flushing to commence today! :smokin:

Nice young trichs! They're all looking good! Flushing isn't as important in organics as it is with chem nutes. Your right. Fox farms is pretty hot soil & you can't actually rid it of the organic nutes anyway. What you're doing is flushing out the disolved nutes that would be the most easily/rapidly absorbed by the root hairs. I don't like commercial flush products, because like you mentioned about 'striping' the roots, the chemical products do that in a big way. By doing away with the disolved nutes, your making the plant rely more on the stored energies for bud ripening. These stored nutes & energies don't taste good in your smoke. One of these products being chlorophyll. You want all this to slow down a week or two before harvest. The epsom salts doesn't assist the flush, what it does is insure the plant has adequate magnesium or you can't get the buds to burn. They become 'fire proof'. So if you flush one without the epsom, compare it to the one with epsom for burnability. If you've ever harvested a lb or two that won't burn (& I have), you'll be afraid to omit the epsom. Since I find I can't taste the epsom salts, I always use it with my flush. Molasses does have some magnesium, so your buds still may burn fine without the epsom, but after that experience in the 80's, I'm always leary. One of those 'better safe than sorry' things. Not sure on this, but I don't THINK big bloom has anything you can taste in the final product, so if you want to chance it, you could try a sm amount in your flush, or maybe the next watering after that @ 1/4 strength. By using only plain water therafter, shouldn't be anything left to taste.
-- But hey! The hard work is done & this is you relaxation time! So sit back & enjoy. Your need to save your energy for harvesting & bud trimming! Then if you've time & energy left, check out all the things you can do with the leaf, cannabutter, green dragon, RSO, etc (don't forget to check out recipes)! Waste not want not! ;)

P.S. taste & burn are ENHANCED by proper drying/curing, but some nasty tastes won't be REMOVED that way. Especially that metalic taste of chemically produced nito nutes.
-- Once you've hung your buds to dry, go back & read your entire thread. That will give you a chance to 'digest' the things that were new to you that you've learned with this grow. With the stress over, you'll see you got it down & from here on out you can work on developing your own style/technique. That's the fun part where you get to experiment! :)