If he has pests of some kind.....that will certainly affect that nice scent you are talking about. Pests will stress his plants out TO THE MAX so that would be answer right there. There are tough sprays etc that will work for him but he has to be willing to use them (you said he was old school...). A pest infestation can really put him through the ringer....not only with this grow but in future ones as well.

Most of us do things the modern day way here.....no offense to your friend but its probably the only way I know how to grow.....chemicals and numbers and checking ph etc......so not much help in old fashioned way of doing things I'm afraid.

love the "i am the upper crust" statement. :thumbsup: He should check and adjust his ph before and several times a day while flushing his plants. Anytime it gets out of a good range (5.6-6.2) he wastes times while the plants have to recover.....even if it's not something he is seeing happening.

If the ph is good...the nutes are not too much (1/2 strength you said) and he's using good water without a bunch of crud in it (where is he gettng the water?) then my guess would be that the pests are doing more of a number on his grow than he thinks.