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Flushing

I flush (in coco) with plain water and organic blackstrap molasses. My filtered tap water PH stays at 7.0 and i dont adjust it and have had ZERO issues. I have flushed for as much as 9 days and as few as 3. I think it boils down to preference, whatever your end of flowering ritual is keep doing it if it works for you! Peace and Positive vibes!
 
I don't flush at the end of flowering, just keep the plant on very low level nutes or water-only. Flushing is mainly for dealing with overfed plants or emergency situations. It's something that a lot of people do without questioning whether it's necessary. If your plants have been fed at very high levels then yes it may be necessary. . If a plant is fed within reasonable levels there shouldn't be any need for flushing. Also- they do better in my opinion if they have a little nutrient left to ripen with. So depending on how the plant looks and how green the leaves are, I'll either cut it off food completely or keep it on a trickle for the last couple weeks.

In general plain water shouldn't need ph adjustment. But it depends on what you call 'plain water'. If your water is already a strong solution coming from the tap at a high ppm, then it's probably best to adjust it- since it's really not plain water. The higher the ppm, the more need for a balanced ph.

Take 5 gallons of plain water, and you can drastically shift the ph of it by adding one drop of ph+ or ph-
Now think of that in opposite terms. That water is going to have very little effect on the ph of your growing medium and your plants. In a resilient medium like soil or even soilless, the ph of plain water is completely meaningless.
In DWC maybe it would be slightly more of an issue as there is no buffering going on there. I don't grow DWC so can't comment as I haven't tried it. But I can say that I do not ever ph my plain water and haven't for about five years. And haven't flushed at harvest for about the last two years.
 
I just did a ton of scientific type of educational reading on the topic of flushing and why so many people think about flushing in the ways they do, and why all of this is so misunderstood and all the history which goes along with this and so many other cannabis myths. First lets address the term "weed" because this term is seriously so misunderstood... A "weed" is any plant you do not want growing, I don't care if it is the world's biggest and best rose if it is in the middle of a corn field, to the corn farmer that is a weed and he needs to get rid of it. A long time ago the US Gov wanted to get rid of all cannabis and deemed it a "weed" as they really went to great lengths to destroy all cannabis naturally growing in the USA. A plant will do everything it can to survive in its conditions, but at some point when those conditions become to much it will die, the same as you and me... you can get sick and get well countless times, but that one time you get to sick... that' it... DEATH.

Now in regards to flushing the final week, the reasoning people do it is to speed up the time it will take to cure the final crop from the chlorophyll within the buds and for the other chemical reactions to take place needed to turn it into good quality bud. If you run the nutes high right to the point of harvest there will be so much chlorophyll left over in the plant it can take a couple more months or more to be able to properly cure the bud according to the information I was reading, thus by cutting off the nutes ahead of the harvest the plant hurries up and uses up those nutes thus speeding up the curing process for smokable bud sooner. Now if you go off setting the pH of the water the plant is getting during that time, you have already started stressing the plant the last week by not feeding it and now you want to stress it even more by not pH'ing the water. Perhaps you do not realize this, but the more you stress your plant, the lower you make your yields... so if you did what you are saying it would cost you end yield weight, but hey if that is your thing do it. However according to the professionals who wrote some really in depth reading I was enjoying, they say only by keeping the plant happy and healthy right up the point of harvest with proper curing will lead to the highest potency, best tasting, and the smoothest of smoking for your enjoyment. Yes this information has also been tested against others who disagreed with what this says and it was found to be true and accurate and the smoke was better in every way compared to the same strain grown and flushed 7-10 days ahead of its harvesting with lower yields.
 
Greenthumb, that was a good read, thanks for the info. I have chosen to PH my H2O, and not change anything from my prior grows.
 
Well based off what the book says and what Big Buds Mag says on the subject, I am going to agree with your articles on it, Big Bud Mag is clearly more up to date and are clearly the better source of information, while I do not debate what the book says I see it being more of a combination of the two aspects now more than ever. Kind of like when you cure, it's all about hitting that sweet spot just at that precise moment and making it count. I know this has always been a long debated issue, but it is finally becoming more clear there is also a lot of progress forward also being made to better understand the issue(s) at hand here as well.
 
I've done some testing based on the "ash test" they base their finding on, which makes sense... and for not flushing, I am only left with white powdery ash that can easily be blown away, and nothing is hard to light either... and it is stored at proper humidity, so while their test makes sense as does the article, I guess I am still doing everything right because not flushing I still end up with their positive results.
 
I've tried Citric Acid and did a bit of digging into it... Citric Acid is just all the same, there doesn't seem to be any differences in brand because there is seemingly only one grade of it being sold everywhere I looked. As far as trying to use Citric Acid to adjust pH, I can tell you do not use it in hydro because it will turn the res water sour. If you are going to use Citric Acid in soil I seriously hope you are prepared for a lot of extra work to keep things in balance, because it will upset the bacterial balance of the good and bad bacteria unless you are skilled enough to keep it in balance. All in trying Citric Acid for me was nothing short of a nightmare, and those who use it are trying to keep everything organic and are willing to go to great lengths to keep things along those lines.
 
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