Quote Originally Posted by genuine
I'm wondering how to go about a pre-harvest flush for my girlz.

I've had a number of sucessful harvests already using a hydro set up. In hydro I do a four day "flush" ,changing the solution daily, or if possible twice daily.

Strains in this harvest are : Big Buddah Cheeze and Power plant. They both list their grow period as 8-9 weeks. Over the course of growing hydro (cool temps) I've found my harvest window to be consistently 60-63 days.

Now, this is the first run of using a soil set up. Using sunshine mix "soil". This round is due to be ripe around August 5th. They are in 2.5 gallon containers.

A) Should I use Clear-X? or just lots of water? Or some pattern of both?
B) How many days ahead do y'all normally switch from nutes to just water?
C) I've been feeding/watering every other day...should I start doing water everyday to help with flush?

D) With my heat levels higher than "normal" and with different medium, should I be more vigalant and checking Trichrome ripeness vs dependant on previous ripeness times? (should I start, have started flushing earlier anticipating faster ripeness with higher heat in grow area) ...temps now are routinely 90-100 degrees.

E) My next harvest cycle, peaking around 3 weeks later, has the girlz in smaller 7x7 square pots (about one gallon). With less "soil", do these take less flush time period...should I continue to feed later into the cycle.

Thanks for replies +/- links

...sometimes there's too much info on here and it's hard to find a simple answer when you don't have 4 hours to research.

mucho grassy ass :rastasmoke:
Rusty Trichome has a great thread on growing in heat. He says heat causes them to take longer to ripen due to stress. At least a week, if I recall correctly. :stoned:

There is a great sticky on flushing and pH under basic growing I think. It tells you volumes, but generally it is 3 times the pot volume. So, for a 2.5 gal. container, 2.5 x 3 = 7.5 gals water to flush. I believe I've read that you should use pHed water for flushing... but I don't . My plain tap is usually in the 6.0 to 6.8 range anyway. I may change that next grow, for testing purposes.

I've too have had heat issues this summer. In my situation, I also experienced lower yield from known producers, even when I waited longer to harvest. No more HIDs in summertime for me, as I'm just not "efficient" at those temps.

I've had more trouble with flushing, drying and curing than I reasonably should. Sometimes I have residual harshness in my buds that I want to remove, so I have been researching this. One item I found that I missed in previous research passes: excess N in flowering causes harshness. Stinky advised to stop or significantly reduce N two weeks before flushing! So that would be, 4 weeks before harvest, cut the N. Then 2 weeks before harvest, flush soil well with water. No food for last two weeks before cutting.

I haven't used Clearex myself yet, although I have some on hand to try for next grow. As with all preparations, I would use it as directed on the label, until I know what it actually does.

Good luck with your harvest. :jointsmile: