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Dean
Today we’re talking about flushing. It’s a controversial topic where you manipulate your nutrient feed slightly in order to achieve certain results. Some people say yes, others say no. But we’re going to dive in with a little bit of our own experiences. today. I’m joined by Luke, Luke, thanks so much for for coming on the show.

Luke
Thanks for having me, guys. It’s always an absolute pleasure.

Dean
Let’s dive right in today. For the listeners, what exactly is flushing,

Luke
flushing is the practice of sort of giving your plants only water for a period of time before harvesting, you know, said to you, while it does actually reduce and remove excess nutrients, it said to improve the smoothness of the smoke and flavour of the buds. But I think we’ll just dive into a little bit more on that, as we as we go along here. Yeah, exactly.

Dean
I mean, it’s, it’s a, it’s a task that does take a bit of time, it’s not something that can happen immediately. So yeah, they are apparent a couple of misconceptions about it. And then also, there’s varying different results, I think a lot of the time dependent on dependent on your strain. But tell me a little bit as to why there’s a bit of controversy around the around the subject of flushing,

Luke
I suppose recently, there were some studies done that said, you know that flushing isn’t necessarily needed, it doesn’t affect the smoke, it doesn’t affect the overall result low or high. You know, and I think a lot of these are also up to interpretation, and you have to tinker around and find what, what works for you, and what’s good for you, you know, I think Personally, myself, I do love to flush, but also at the same time feel that you can’t just, you know, take a whole bunch of fresh water flush the your medium that you’re growing in completely out of nutrition, and then expect to try and feed fresh water with nothing in it and hope your plant, you know, reacts fine to that it still needs nutrition to end off its cycle and end its life off, you know, so I think it’s very important to understand, flashing in a sense of for me is is just reducing your, your nutrition input quite exponentially, and maybe even your lighting as well

Dean
over a period of time, that’s the, that’s the main thing I look, the way we’re referring to deflashing today is basically to find have a controlled end of your, of your growth environment and to sort of, you know, as the season starts to change outdoors, or as you’re kind of mimicking a season change indoors, you want to kind of get those environmental to give the plant as natural over finish as possible. And in my mind, if it says natural as possible, it’s going to, it’s going to present you with the maximum that that that strain can be at colour wise or potentially terpene wise, and just give you a better a better well rounded product. So Luke told me a little bit about you know, some of the visual things that you would see during a flushing period and is it gradual? Or does it kind of happen quite quickly as to depending on I suppose the substrate that you’re growing in

Luke
Yeah, look like the visuals are definitely there I like to think of starting the flushing process as you’re kind of sending your your plant into the finish of its flower autumn call it that you know so bringing you lessening your nutrients exponentially through it, you know, over a two week period we’ll introduce some some cool colours, whether it be your red hues, maroon hues, purple hues, you’ll even start to see that happen in the body as well. Some of the factors that can contribute not only with with flashing to colours and cannabis can be the temperatures you know so then again trying to make autumn season ending it’s getting colder that can really introduce some some really cool colours and flushing does implement and that happens quite quite quickly as well. You’ll notice it

Dean
yeah I think for full bag appeal it’s it’s important to know and also to have the most natural expression of the of the specific strain if you see beautiful colours sort of you know advertised and specific packshot you’re going to want to try and achieve those same colours yourself and by letting the plant I think and off naturally and consume what’s what’s available and kind of been told that it’s the life is coming to an end rather than being fair to the maximum the whole time. And I mean if you’re doing it at a cost saving point of view kind of makes more financial sense to also lay back a bit you know, if you’re using costly nutrients, why waste them when it may not be necessary at the end of the day, but look, I suppose for for newbies who are going to be hearing this these sort of terminologies for the first time or for people who haven’t tried to Yeah, what are some what what would you sort of say to someone they should be cautious about when, when when kind of if they were to ask you a couple questions related to Flushing,

Luke
I would say if you you know, if you’re following a strict nutrient shedule bottled nutrient, whether it be salt based or semi organic, organic nutrients, follow the recipes they have on their bottles and you know, whatever you’re using, usually come with the shedule. And you’ll see that they gradually scale it down, they don’t cut it out completely. If you don’t do that, you can fall into some some problems to remember, we started the flushing process sort of two weeks prior to harvests, let’s talk two weeks of growing time. So be careful not to completely flush your medium and your feeding water have no nutrition in it, because it could cause issues at the end of the day, with an organic grow that you’ve been dry mending. And your last feeding was, you know, four weeks back, just carry on feeding, feeding water, and it should gradually, you know, see see the colours and start to flush out sort of by itself, it is a living org living soil. So you don’t need to do much except just feet of water,

Dean
I think there’s always slightly more risk on sort of, if you may be doing a hydroponic grow, you need to be more strict to your schedule schedule. As organic growers know you kind of the players a lot more sort of leeway to, to play around. But, you know, when you start to see differentiating Hughes across a sort of big canopy, it really does add to the visual striking appeal, you know, if you if you’re going to, if you’re going to with a long enough time, like like Luke’s been saying, you can’t just jump into it and think it’s going to happen immediately, you might chalk your plants and then that might those last two weeks, you’re gonna get a lot of growth, you know, the plants are going to swell up. And you don’t really want to negatively affect that either. But, you know, it’s flushing rarely necessary for for all plants, if you’re not going to, you know, if you or does it depend entirely on the on the individual what they’re trying to achieve.

Luke
I like once again, you know, it’s your personal opinions and preferences and what you believe on fleshing, but for me personally, I think it is necessary and it just helps you get the most out of that plant and have its, you know, natural expressions towards the end of its its lifecycle and its flower cycle. And, you know, that’s when you I believe that you’ve maximised the, everything that you could possibly get out of out of that plant and out of your, your season on it.

Dean
Yeah, I think when you get to see these beautiful colours at the end of the grow, it really gives you that sense of things are coming to an end, you know, you can start to see the final expression that you’ve been working towards for months and to see a plant go from completely green to this sort of deep purpley kind of kind of colour, it really does look look cool. And we’ve just been working with this plant, this platinum gorilla and are under the first time running the rainbow berries, which is quite popular here in South Africa. And we’ve seen some amazing, some amazing fade, sort of following a gradual drop off, we’re going to release some content on that soon, which I’m pretty excited about. But Luke any any final thoughts to close the episode off

Luke
here and just, you know, end off those ladies, how they should be ending off. If you want to get some colours, you know? Do your flashes don’t cut it out completely follow your schedules. They are they are your guide through it and if you do have any questions, please comment down below we will be happy to answer them

Dean
amazingly. So guys, a lot of this is you know, a lot of the time will bring you these episodes were kind of working on maybe something similar at the time. And a lot of this stuff is is our personal practical opinion. You know, there’s multiple methods. It’s up to you at the end of the day. We just tried to bring you sort of, you know, as current information as possible. So we hope you enjoyed the show. Please remember to like and subscribe until next time, guys. Peace out