# ready to harvest?



## CrashMagnet (Apr 4, 2022)

Getting conflicting advise from friends. Is it time, or should I wait a week?


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## boo (Apr 4, 2022)

I'd wait, I prefer my flowers to be quite amber...I see a few weeks for your flowers to be ripe...


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## SubmarineGirl (Apr 4, 2022)

Not yet imo


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## Bugus_Monkey (Apr 6, 2022)

10 days to 2 Weeks. Based on Trichome color only.  If you cut it now, I'm sure it would do a little something for you but, 2 weeks might mean the difference between just a little buzz and devastating.


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## WeedHopper (Apr 6, 2022)

Yep,,I would wait until ya see at least 30% amber.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

I have three others in the tent several weeks behind that one, and I'm going to be out for a week starting on the first. I hope the pet sitter doesn't mind watering them : )


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

I agree with Bugus and Weed. It is not ready to harvest. I have harvested way too early, way too many times. The effect is always jittery and not enjoyable at all. Bonus points for increased yield…


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## Bugus_Monkey (Apr 6, 2022)

Actually for many Including ME - You are now at the very hardest part of the grow stage. The last 2 weeks.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

These were a long and challenging grow for me. At one point I was convinced I was over watering them and bought one of those soil moisture meters. It read "wet" until all the leaves and most of the branches fell off two plants, and I tossed the stupid meter in the trash. Those two plants were literally sticks at one point. I'm still amazed they recovered when I started watering them again.


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> These were a long and challenging grow for me. At one point I was convinced I was over watering them and bought one of those soil moisture meters. It read "wet" until all the leaves and most of the branches fell off two plants, and I tossed the stupid meter in the trash. Those two plants were literally sticks at one point. I'm still amazed they recovered when I started watering them again.


I had one of those and trashed mine also. When I get to flowering in 3 gallon felt pots, I go by the first knuckle rule. Stick your finger in the soil to about the first knuckle. If you feel moisture, they don’t need water. It usually works out to about every 2 days that I water or feed them. Some people go by weight of the pot but is difficult if you are doing a SCROG and also you need to get a feel for it. I also hear ya on the being out of town thing. Trusting someone to care for your plants the same way you do is a leap of faith.


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## WeedHopper (Apr 6, 2022)

I go by the feel of the pot when i pick it up. I can tell if it needs water. Those meters are trash. I also had one yrs ago and it sucked.
Be careful with sticking your finger in the soil thing. Your top two inches can be dry to the bone and the rest could be wet as hell. Almost lost a plant like that one time. I re poted it and guess what. The bottom 4 or 5 inches was wet as a mother fker. That's why i always use Perlite now and haven't had that problem since.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

I mostly water on a schedule now. With all the potted weed, tomatoes, okra, etc. checking each pot got old really fast. If something looks droopy on watering day, I skip it until next time. Otherwise, they all get watered to run off two days a week, or every other day in the flower tent.


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## DavidfromMichigan (Apr 6, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> Getting conflicting advise from friends. Is it time, or should I wait a week?
> 
> View attachment 292747
> 
> ...





CrashMagnet said:


> Getting conflicting advise from friends. Is it time, or should I wait a week?
> 
> View attachment 292747
> 
> ...


 Do you flush?  Looks like it's about that time to start. Good time to measure the solids from your flush also with a tds meter.  Remember plain water already measures around 70ppm. Gorgeous girls you have!


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

I'm poorly setup for measuring runoff. Most of them just drain onto the tent floor mat. It's pretty crowded in there, and the bottom trays were taking up too much space to get everything in the tent.

I'm planning to switch to just water on the last week, but probably not before. They are in coco-perlite "soil", so the water is their only source of nutrients.


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## WeedHopper (Apr 6, 2022)

Only thing i flush is my toilet.

Plant botany will tell you,,,you cant flush chemicals out of the buds once its in the tissues.. That chemical is in the bud and is not going to magically drain out because you flush the soil its growing in. All your doing is flushing chemicals from the soil where it cant uptake them anymore.

To Flush or not to Flush
Plant Care
Nutrients

Flushing has been a debate for a long time. If you google “Flushing Cannabis” the very first Websites says “Flushing is free and easy technique that may improve the quality and smoothness of your cannabis buds before harvest.” …but is that true?

Do I flush?
Is flushing the right choice for my garden?
Will flushing help my grow to a cleaner smoke?

These might be some of the questions you might have. To answer these questions, we must first understand what flushing is, and where did the term come from.

FLUSHING - to flush, the act of cleansing a plants roots of nutrients and contaminants by giving the plant large amounts of water (usually equal to 3 times the volume of soil the plant is in).

The term Flushing came to be when a soil grower used the wrong nutrients, and instead of throwing the soil, this idea came to be.

From the same website aforementioned above, they go on to myths of growing and say this:

***However, flushing does not “leach out” nutrients/minerals that are already in the buds. While your plant can use up extra stored nutrients in the leaves of the plant, this does not remove a “chemical” taste from your buds if you’ve provided too many nutrients throughout the flowering stage.

Many people believe that flushing with plain water takes nutrients (and thus bad taste) out of the buds, in a sense, returning them to their ‘natural flavor’. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case.

When it comes to ensuring good taste and smell of your cannabis plants, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Instead of relying on the flush to prevent extra nutrients from being stored in your buds, it’s better to avoid ever giving the plant more nutrients than it can use in the first place. That means keeping nutrient levels as low as you can throughout the grow while preventing nutrient deficiencies.***

I personally don’t believe in Flushing at all, unless used for its original purpose of cleaning out wrong nutrients from the soil.

(By YarraSparra)
I will list some points that not only challenge the absurd impracticality and illogicality of this myth, but point out how the pseudoscience behind it is fundamentally flawed (as is all pseudoscience) and can be countered by what is known about basic plant biology.

Robbing plants of essential nutrients at any stage of their life cycle is NOT beneficial for growth. I challenge anyone to provide a single peer reviewed paper from a reputable journal that provides evidence suggesting otherwise.

If this was practical, wouldn’t you expect all big agricultural hydroponic growers adopt the same practice?

Plants take minerals into their tissues, from their roots via the treachery elements; i.e. xylem. Once these minerals are in the plant, they are there to stay, the plant does not expel them, unless it’s through senescence-driven abscission of leaf petioles. From the treachery elements nutrients are translocated into the phloem - the plant’s ‘blood supply’ - after being integrated into various biomolecules, or are used for various metabolic functions. Where is the logic in thinking the plant ‘uses’ these up in that last week of flushing, in order to avoid smoking them? All the N P K Fe Mg Ca etc. is still there.

For arguments sake say we counter the last point by suggesting these minerals in their ‘raw form’ will taste ‘hasher’ or ‘nastier’ in the form of pyrolytic breakdown products (formed when weed is burned) than artifacts of larger biomolecules of which these minerals/macro nutrients are now a part of, for example phosphorylated PO43-. Even if this was the case it still doesn’t correlate with the myth, as the transports steam in the treachery elements is measured in minutes not a week. i.e. a PO43- molecule does not wait around in these vessels for a week before subsequent translocation and modification.

If there was any truth to this myth, then plants grown in soil would always taste worse than plants grown in hydro. Why? Because obviously soil is not an inert medium you can flush for a week. And a plant CANNOT distinguish between a PO43- molecule that comes from soil from that of a PO43- molecule that comes from hydro solution (which also debunks another myth, but we’ll leave that one).

Are there studies that have conducted double blind trials to investigate if flushed weed tastes any ‘sweeter’ than unflushed weed. Again, need peer reviewed papers. And doesn’t have to be weed, can be strawberries or any other type of fruit.

What is the proposed mechanism to support this myth, and how is it consistent with fundamental plant biology.

How does starving the plant of food in the last week increase thc production in the trichome? Papers?

Given, under certain conditions stressed plants upregulate certain defence compounds, but they will almost certainly produce less inflorescence weight per watt of light. Growth is always retarded under stress - not promoted. Nutrient starvation is a form of stress. Looking for peer reviewed papers that suggest otherwise.

Those of you set in your ways, each to their own and best of luck to you. Those who are willing to change their views in light of new evidence, or lack thereof, be ready for increased yields by feeding those hungry ladies right up until the second you chop


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## OGKushman (Apr 6, 2022)

It’s funny, I read your title hadn’t even clicked yet and I said to myself “wait another week.”

Generally we get impatient and cut early. Wait for those hairs to change a little more she is still growing. Looks like 2 weeks to me looking at your photo.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

I like the line, "growth is always retarded under stress". I'm sure it applies equally to stem splitting.


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## OGKushman (Apr 6, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> I like the line, "growth is always retarded under stress". I'm sure it applies equally to stem splitting.


Applies more to society today then any other.


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

WeedHopper said:


> I go by the feel of the pot when i pick it up. I can tell if it needs water. Those meters are trash. I also had one yrs ago and it sucked.
> Be careful with sticking your finger in the soil thing. Your top two inches can be dry to the bone and the rest could be wet as ****. Almost lost a plant like that one time. I re poted it and guess what. The bottom 4 or 5 inches was wet as a mother fker. That's why i always use Perlite now and haven't had that problem since.


Agreed. I have used the same type of soil (Roots Organix Green Lite) for my entire time growing. It has great drainage(though I learned the hard way that it is not reusable-pH problems up the ying-yang affecting yield). I soak up the runoff with a sponge and also feel the exterior of my felt pots to gauge water requirements as well. I am no expert but I get by. When I read comments like yours I realize I do some things out of habit and instinct and it doesn’t always occur to me that I am not relaying everything.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

OGKushman said:


> Applies more to society today then any other.


But in society's case, causation is reversed : )


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## OGKushman (Apr 6, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> But in society's case, causation is reversed : )


Correct it is carefully planned and clearly intentional. **Cough cough** Event 201


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

WeedHopper said:


> Only thing i flush is my toilet.
> 
> Plant botany will tell you,,,you cant flush chemicals out of the buds once its in the tissues.. That chemical is in the bud and is not going to magically drain out because you flush the soil its growing in. All your doing is flushing chemicals from the soil where it cant uptake them anymore.
> 
> ...


I don’t flush but I hold off on nutrients the last week or so. I do give the plants some black strap molasses in the waterings but that is out of habit, not based on any data I have(since I haven’t tried to run a side by side experiment). From what I have read, molasses provides some micronutrients and food for the microherd. I don’t think it is helpful for non-organic growing. I grow organically only because I am lazy and don’t like to pH(I am fortunate that my water supply works with my grow style).


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## WeedHopper (Apr 6, 2022)

I feed that b.itch until i chop her down. Trying to make her fat.


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

Prolly makes sense. I may try it if I wind up flowering what I have going now.


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## WeedHopper (Apr 6, 2022)

To each his own and thats what makes the world go around. But i don't stop feeding my tomato plants when they start fruiting. I want that b.itch to produce bigger fruit. I want my Girls to swell as much as possible right up until i harvest. This means i need to keep feeding her. I have smoked both, flushed and nonflushed and never seen the difference except in the taste from the different strains or terpenes. But to each his own.
Telling ppl that flush that it doesn't matter is like telling someone who believes in God that it's not going to matter in the end.
I use science and can back up every word i say about flushing,, with science. Ask a botanist about flushing. Then again,, it wont matter because no matter what they tell you,, if you flush you will still flush.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

Here's a nice study on flushing cannabis. It does have a purpose, but not what you think...


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## Hippie420 (Apr 6, 2022)

That's why I grow R-DWC. I check the PH and add H2O2 every morning, and change the whole system's water once a week. Easy peasy.
Fun fact; My first grow was a two grow tank, six plant apiece SCROG. Second grow, I went to one grow tank of six plants. In two extra weeks, they filled the 4X4' screen just as thick as the 12 did.


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## oldfogey8 (Apr 6, 2022)

WeedHopper said:


> To each his own and thats what makes the world go around. But i don't stop feeding my tomato plants when they start fruiting. I want that b.itch to produce bigger fruit. I want my Girls to swell as much as possible right up until i harvest. This means i need to keep feeding her. I have smoked both, flushed and nonflushed and never seen the difference except in the taste from the different strains or terpenes. But to each his own.
> Telling ppl that flush that it doesn't matter is like telling someone who believes in God that it's not going to matter in the end.
> I use science and can back up every word i say about flushing,, with science. Ask a botanist about flushing. Then again,, it wont matter because no matter what they tell you,, if you flush you will still flush.


If I had to guess, back in the 70’s there was no flushing(maybe no nutes either) and I recall some pretty sweet tasting smoke. And some rank tasting smoke. Paraquat cough was wicked. Stuck with me for days. And God has had it in for me for quite a while. Not sure why but I am sure a lot of folks played nicely with others and got screwed just the same. If there is a God, I think we are just a chemistry and physics experiment and he is seeing how the **** shakes out. Maybe we are God to our plants and we wind up killing and smoking them in the end. I hope he catches a good buzz off of me…


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## DavidfromMichigan (Apr 6, 2022)

WeedHopper said:


> Only thing i flush is my toilet.
> 
> Plant botany will tell you,,,you cant flush chemicals out of the buds once its in the tissues.. That chemical is in the bud and is not going to magically drain out because you flush the soil its growing in. All your doing is flushing chemicals from the soil where it cant uptake them anymore.
> 
> ...


Blind taste tests reveal people actually preferred the unflushed over the flushed.  Go figure. Sounds like a big waste of time.  How come weed some times pops and crackles when lit? I always thought that was nutrients from over fertilizing.  So,  there wouldn't be any remedy for that,  except I guess don't over fertilize, if that's what's causing the cracking to begin with?


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

DavidfromMichigan said:


> Blind taste tests reveal people actually preferred the unflushed over the flushed.  Go figure. Sounds like a big waste of time.  How come weed some times pops and crackles when lit? I always thought that was nutrients from over fertilizing.  So,  there wouldn't be any remedy for that,  except I guess don't over fertilize, if that's what's causing the cracking to begin with?



Moisture trapped in the fibers turning to steam and blowing the fibers apart.


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## Hippie420 (Apr 6, 2022)

Spider mites will make it pop, too.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 6, 2022)

Hippie420 said:


> Spider mites will make it pop, too.


If you inhale, do you get to keep the protein?


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## WeedHopper (Apr 7, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> Here's a nice study on flushing cannabis. It does have a purpose, but not what you think...



Thank you brother. Another scientific study proving that Flushing does absolutely nothing but waste water the plant didn't need in the 1st place. I hope ppl will watch the video by a Botanist giving them prove that it's a fking myth but they won't and if they do they will still flush.


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## WeedHopper (Apr 7, 2022)

DavidfromMichigan said:


> Blind taste tests reveal people actually preferred the unflushed over the flushed.  Go figure. Sounds like a big waste of time.  How come weed some times pops and crackles when lit? I always thought that was nutrients from over fertilizing.  So,  there wouldn't be any remedy for that,  except I guess don't over fertilize, if that's what's causing the cracking to begin with?


Spider Mites and seeds pop,, not fertilizer.


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## OGKushman (Apr 7, 2022)

If I flush the plants they start to yellow immediately. I never ever flush. I run top feed drain to waste at 650-750ppm. No more no less. If I run more the tips of the fans burn. Less and I get deficiencies. Flushing has never seemed benefit anything. If it’s in the buds it’s there until you smoke it. Flavor changes during cure. I believe this is mostly due to the chlorophyll being converted to a sugar. Drying and Curing is by far the most important aspect of end flavor.

“Crackling sound” is what plants do when you accelerate fire and oxygen with a high oil content. Pine, creosote bush, eucalyptus… all crackles more then oak, and all 3 of those are extremely high in oil content. 
Week 6 of 10:


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## WeedHopper (Apr 7, 2022)

Yeah that.


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## DavidfromMichigan (Apr 7, 2022)

A


OGKushman said:


> If I flush the plants they start to yellow immediately. I never ever flush. I run top feed drain to waste at 650-750ppm. No more no less. If I run more the tips of the fans burn. Less and I get deficiencies. Flushing has never seemed benefit anything. If it’s in the buds it’s there until you smoke it. Flavor changes during cure. I believe this is mostly due to the chlorophyll being converted to a sugar. Drying and Curing is by far the most important aspect of end flavor.
> 
> “Crackling sound” is what plants do when you accelerate fire and oxygen with a high oil content. Pine, creosote bush, eucalyptus… all crackles more then oak, and all 3 of those are extremely high in oil content.
> Week 6 of 10:
> View attachment 293024


Ah. OK that sounds about right.  Lol.  That avatar.  Did you pay rent?


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 19, 2022)

Now?? ✂


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## SubmarineGirl (Apr 19, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> Now?? ✂
> 
> View attachment 294347


I’d say sleep on it…


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 19, 2022)

Starting to have bad dreams about this one! I go out to the grow room and smell smoke. I open the tent, and there it is smoldering in the nutrient burn I gave it... In reality the buds look fine, but the leaves are a mess.  

This weekend is as long as I can wait. I need to setup and test an auto watering system before I go on vacation, and this one is sitting where I want to put the bucket.


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## DavidfromMichigan (Apr 19, 2022)

CrashMagnet said:


> Now?? ✂
> 
> View attachment 294347


Looks good.  I'd be snippin away.


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## CrashMagnet (Apr 20, 2022)

Quick trim before chopping. Pretty sure it has more than double the bud I got from the two little autos I harvested on my first grow. No idea what I will do with it all.

I realized while I was trimming it that it was actually part of the first grow as well. I nearly killed it at one point with a mix of over and under watering, and the red/purple part of the stem was all that was left. It was literally a stick protruding from the dirt. It wasn't in my way, so I let it sit there and dumped my spare water in the pot. A week later it started growing new leaves, and I ended up putting it in the harvest tent with the second grow.


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