leaching

[States Zone]

Ive seen and heard about it many times but still the general thought Im alittle inexperianced with it and having alittle trouble finding more information as to how to do it properly anyone give me some tips??

 

Thank you

[jackfrost]

Hey dude,

 

are you talking about leaching the salts from the growing medium or leaching the chemicals from your plant at the end of your grow?

 

Jack

[F420]

to leach it from the medium you just put plain water in the system and let it run through its normal process for 12-24 hours.

 

TO leach it out of the plant before harvest do the same thing but let it have PH adjusted water for 2 weeks in soil and 7 days in hydro.

 

Or am I reading this the wrong way, also does anyone do this differently?

[Nath]

You can get flush additives, but I personally think they ruin the plant. I had a friend yeild just under two pounds from a large grow he did at his place and he used 'banana flush' stuff.. made the buds smell and look crappy, they had a bit of a 'wet' mouldy type of look to them.. didnt smoke well and didnt have the best taste either. Worst part about them was the look of them. He was pissed offf, but never really admitted it, i could tell

[States Zone]

ya i was talking about from the medium i seen a few things on and knew of it but wasnt to sure how to properly do it without messin up my plant. Thanks for the info guys =)

[Luke Skywalker]

I flush my plants by running 2 or 3 ten liter loads of ph adjusted fresh water. This is done weekly, and allowed to drain fully, before returning to their normal feedings.

 

This is done to make sure that the chemical salts used in hydroponic nutrients don't form excessive build up on the media itself. Over time the ec of the runoff from an unflushed pot will rise, until the media itself is soaked with salts.

 

The cure? Regular, weekly flushing... Or using organics, but that's another discussion...

 

For the final flush in the home stretch to harvest, I do the same flush as before, and then run fresh, ph adjusted water through the recirc system for two weeks or so.

 

Hope that helps.

[Nath]

Whoa, thanks for the info Luke... i never even knew about weekly flushing.. Im using cocopeat for my first grow though, with 1.5cm and 7cm rockwool cubes inside them (1.5cm cube in the 7cm cube in the cocopeat in the pot) would I need regular flushing also with this? The cocopeat looks a bit dodgy.. doesnt look like it would drain very well. Im kinda regretting getting it, i bought a bag for $32 the other day. It says I can add perlite and vermiculite.. so I might do that when I take them out of these pots and put them into larger ones (In a week or so).. Might make a 70% Perlite, 20% CocoPeat, 10% Vermiculite mix up or something... the hydro shop said that it wouldnt be a good idea using expanded clay for my first grow.. and now Ive bought the cocopeat, i guess it will do me for this first grow. Ill get some plants started out the back on this in the soil, should make them grow nice.

[Pure]

Whoa, thanks for the info Luke... i never even knew about weekly flushing..  Im using cocopeat for my first grow though, with 1.5cm and 7cm rockwool cubes inside them (1.5cm cube in the 7cm cube  in the cocopeat in the pot) would I need regular flushing also with this? The cocopeat looks a bit dodgy.. doesnt look like it would drain very well. Im kinda regretting getting it, i bought a bag for $32 the other day. It says I can add perlite and vermiculite.. so I might do that when I take them out of these pots and put them into larger ones (In a week or so).. Might make a 70% Perlite, 20% CocoPeat, 10% Vermiculite mix up or something... the hydro shop said that it wouldnt be a good idea using expanded clay for my first grow.. and now Ive bought the cocopeat, i guess it will do me for this first grow.  Ill get some plants started out the back on this in the soil, should make them grow nice.

Coco isn't dodgy at all it is actually pretty high quality it is just a different type of medium it retains water instead of allowing it to just pass through

 

I use a mix of 70% coco and 30% perlite. wouldn't bother with vermiculite it retains a bit of water too and thats obiously not what your after if your using coco

 

try a 50/50 mix if you want it to drain more but I have been told coco increases your yeild so personaly I could keep atleast 50% ( yeild is ofcourse dependent everything else is in order it's nto boild down to one thing ) all the perlite is there to do is to add drainage an airate the soil a bit

 

as for flushing yeah coco needs to be flushed aswell I do mine in a bathtub . I fill the tub and adjust the ph of the water with ph down .

then one buy one I dunk them into the tub bottom first and let water seep up through the drainage holes to the top of the soil after that I put them on a milk crate and leave them for 30 mins to drain out the majrity of the excess before popping them back into the grow room

Edited July 11, 2004 by Pure

[Nath]

Ahh ok, cheers for the info.. but doesnt it affect the plants if you keep moving them around? I was thinking of budding some plants early, for some quicker smoko.. I was just going to keep the light going on 24/0 but ill just take out 3-4 of them after 12 hours.. but then, ive started 8 plants so far, some of them i will cut really small and try make them into little bonsais, but it depends, ill see after i tell which might be male or not.. this is my first indoor grow, so out of 8 really healthy (Definately Indica strain.. they are growing pretty tall already, so im thinking they may be mixed with sativa.. the smoke from them wasnt that potent, because the buds I got werent the best (Still good, but wouldnt classify it as chronic weed) Also, the leaves are really fat.. and its growing reasonably slowly. But its been only just over a week I think since sprouting. So they are doing ok, Im just expecting too much from bag seeds i think. Next grow will be with proper Indica/Sativa seeds.. Ill have two of each. Ill work out what I think is a good sized room/area to grow in after this grow.