Week 6/7 of flower

[Crystal Anderson]

What are signs your plant are showing at this stage? Are you seeing “fall colors” at this point in every grow this time of cycle?

leaves are still looking very green so flushing beginning today, what signs would you look for to start flush!

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[Brad104]

I normally notice the leaves (big suckers) start yellowing before anything else, although that’s not the only factor I also start looking with my jewel loupe then and checking out the pistols and last but not least I keep track of her drinking habits when they stop eating as much they start slowing down there eating towards the final week

[Somatek]

I wait until the rapid bud growth has stopped, around when the bracts start to swell as that means the plant is past peak growth and slowing down, so cutting nutrients won’t have much effect on yield but will reduce the cost of growing. I don’t flush to “reduce the mineral content and improve quality” like I learned 20 years ago, there’s no science to back that up and I’ve known many people who fertilize up to harvest and grow great bud that burns to a clean white ash. The study that refuted flushing reducing the mineral content did note there was no significant difference in yield, which suggests it’s an effective way to cut costs without compromising yield/quality though. As long as you don’t do it too early like a lot of people, wait until the plants mostly done growing and then cut them out.

[NeuroticTurtle]

Depending on how many weeks of flowering your strain is capable of… you could always give it that classic 5th week top shooter or PK13/14 then week 6-8 instead of flushing go with shooting powder or liquid koolbloom.  Could even still ‘flush’ for the last week.  You could see some additional weight on there instead of just burning kilowatt hours.

 

I think in one of your other posts you mentioned a new millenium line of ferts, looks like Winter Frost is their pk support for late flower.  I’m not seeing a second-stage initiator like H&G’s Top Shooter or canna’s PK 13/14 products, but you’d know your lineup better than I do, and it might just be a gimmick.

I have a tendency to feed right up to three days prior to harvest, letting the plant just respirate normally for a bit. So far, no ill effects, I still get soft white ash on most strains and more importantly, clean extracts out of the deal.

Flavor’s subjectively higher than with a two or one week flush, with less terpene loss…. in my opinion.  I’ve never done side by side clone run comparisons, but I have grown successively the same strain a few times in a row, with different options selected.

hope this helps, or even stimulates more discussion… even a week late.

 

-NT

[Somatek]

A week late but solid content is better then more Spam spam spam spam….  (I hope you’re happy that’ll be stuck in my head all day lol).

Isn’t H&G Top Shooter a pgr that basically spikes the auxins/cytokins to force the buds to elongate and extend the flowering by a couple weeks for an increased weight?  I haven’t used it myself but that was my understanding of it which seems fundamentally different from  PK 13/14 which is simply a nutrient supplement to grow denser buds but doesn’t affect the hormones.  Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by “second stage initiator”

I basically agree with what you’ve said about flushing, although I haven’t noticed any significant difference in terps to speak of.  Then again the variable temp/humidity that I dry in probably has a much bigger effect on them in the end anyway.  That’s always why I hammer on about learning the basics and creating stable conditions which allow you to test things with minimal variables.  When I see people forming strong opinions off of minimal experience and not considering the variables it tells me it’s probably more bias then substance.

[NeuroticTurtle]

H&G Top Booster is a PK 13/14 with Eddha iron.

the Top Shooter I’ve got is only a 0-9-7, claims no PGRs… [is also available dry as Shooting Powder]

I really wish I could edit for clarity, but you know how it goes. I was trying to give a couple different options altogether, but I called it top shooter the first time incorrectly, and then it stuck.  [I currently feed liquid koolbloom 0-10-10, but am switching to top shooter at 0-9-7, with different composition and additives.]  I personally skipped the PK 13/14 spike and went to feeding full time with the boosted pk early.  I wasn’t sure where to place the ethylene promoting Top Booster in rotation for a long strain like this.  I’m not 100% sure if all pk13/14’s promote ethylene production or if that’s another additive. I’ll go find some 5head articles on this later, as now I have that need to know.

 

There’s also H&G Bud-XL with some enzymatic stimulants.  H&G Amino complex with protein hydrolysates. both could be considered unlisted growth regulators anyways.

I guess it depends on where you draw the line between enzymes and seed extracts and heavy synthetics.  I tend to like the H&G line a lot, for various reasons, the natural stimulant and cofactors being one of them.

However, it was my understanding that if I wanted a heavy dosage of (somewhat natural) auxins and cytokinins I would want Liquid Karma as my kelp product as it contains both a wheat seedling and Zea Mays extract for those.

I think there’s still five paclobutrazol products allowed in Canada for instance, if you really want a real PGR to point at.  I mean that sort of PGR you can just paint on the inside of a pot and have it work for 2-3 grows in a row.  Scarily potent stuff.

I think the GH Liquid Koolbloom I’m currently feeding has just 0-10-10 to it, with no organics or stimulants…. and is also ammonium based which is why I was planning a switch to the supposedly pharmaceutical grade top shooter.  Top shooter’s also potassium based instead.

Hope this clears up some of my last post.

-NT

 

 

[Somatek]

Yep, that clears things up wonderfully, thanks for elaborating.  I should also clarify I didn’t mean to use PGR in any derogatory sense, although in retrospect I should have worded it more carefully.  I meant it in the purest sense, a product which affects growth through hormone balance; so that’d include natural ones like kelp which are perfectly fine.  I didn’t mean to use it in the more stigmatized pot grower sense where they’re referring to PGR’s meant for ornamental plants and aren’t safe to consume.

Which like you said can be scary, I knew a lot of growers who’d use old nursery pots without realising the kinds of heavy/persistent PGR’s are used with mom’s and other ornamentals.  Funny listening to them brag about their “dense buds” and short plants lol…

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