budjamesbud

i was reading another thread and they mentioned that flusing N during final stages of flowering (or using ferts with no N) will help cured product by making it less harsh and burn less hot.
they also mentioned that yellow large leaves, during flowering, on plant are ok because they signify lower N and thereby increase smokability of cured product.

this leads to my question:
how can i reduce the N amounts if i'm using a well balnced mix of organic ferts in a soil mix?
i've been watering with organic food about every 3 waterings. this i also aerate with a pump and airstone for 24hrs.
i have a plant that looks like its about 2-3weeks away. i've begun to water with just water, but how can i eliminate N amounts in my soil? should i flush regularily?
is there a flush product for organic soil?

or is the whole thing moot? is flushing a concern with soil mixes?
my plants are so nice and dark green and healthy. i'd hate to think they were a little to well fed. it took me awhile to perfect my mix. maybe i should use less nitrogen in my soil mix?

i don't know.

any input on the nessecity of flushing in organic soil?
thanks.

jimmy

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ommamedmar

Organic N in the form of urea builds up quickly in any soil medium; it can even make your final product taste and smell like urine.

growers like Delta, for example, use raw salt fertilizers in soil-less grows; it is easy to eliminate a particular nutrient or additive in a soil-less grow such as this. It is not so easy to do this with soil, since the N gets bound up ionically with the soil.

The other issue with N in flushing is that the N Delta uses is not organically derived, and therefore does not affect the taste the same way organic N does.

There are a number of threads on flushing, so I won't elaborate here.

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organic

Flushing will generally remove some of the N from organic soil mixes - not as much, but some. The key, which takes experimenting to get right, is to put in just the right amount of N at the beginning of the grow so that it is tapering off a touch toward the end of the grow. This also means you don't want to be giving the plants any supplemental N during flowering, unless it's early and they are clearly needing it.

For this time I would flush them out pretty good, maybe even twice about a week apart, and you probably won't have much of a problem. For future grows you can start figuring out the optimal amount to feed them, and you'll probably start cutting back on the amount of supplemental feeding. Remember if you have a good solid soil mix, like say good quality potting soil amended with compost and worm castings, you won't need much in the way of extra nutrients.

I did hear of one horror story where a guy grew in a soilless medium and used guano and I think fish emulsion as the liquid ferts, didn't flush, and the bud tasted like creamed corn. Mmm-mmm-gross.

Then again he didn't have soil to buffer the effects, so you shouldn't worry too much.

O

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budjamesbud

ok.
well i'll give you my mix, etc and see what u think.
i intend to grow sog too so these clones are pretty much going to 12/12 when put in soil mix.

12 cups of potting soil mix. lots of peat.
6 cups perlite
6 cups vermiculite

this makes 24 cups, or 6litres, or roughly a little more than 1gallon. (again i'm doing sog and using 6 inch pots in batches of 8 plants so my soil batches are small)

to this 1.5 gallon of soil mix i add:
- 2 not heaping tbsp of bone meal 2-14-0
- 2 not heaping tbsp of blood meal 12-0-0
- 2 not heaping tbsp of all purpose organic (looks like dirty bone meal) 8-4-5
- 1 heaping tbsp of dolomitic lime
- 2 cups worm castings.

it drains nice and has good texture, crumbles easily, no ball effect when squeezed......
but u can see that my fert ratios add up to 22-18-5
thats alot of N. no sign of burning though......
i've flushed my closest to harvest lady with 3x her volume and will continue.....

anyways, ORGANIC, you said i could reduce my N in my mix.
i think my N is too high and the levels won't drop to the desired level by harvest...........
maybe i shouldn't add any blood meal? or just less?
what would you suggest?

i was reading the grow guide on organics and they said the benfit of organics is that chemical fertilizers build up salts.......
isn't salts what i'm trying to flush? are they leftovers in organic mixes too?
or, in my case is it N i want to leach?
she's looking real green and hairs are starting to turn brown now, so i intend to do at least 1 more 3xflush over the next 1-2 weeks.

i know there is alot of questions in this post but once i started one question led to another..........
you know how it is.

thanks to all
jimmy

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budjamesbud

i should mention that i've been watering:
- the younger plants with a liquid seaweed fert. approx 1-2 tbsp per gal
- older plants a liquid bat guano made for hydroponics, at about 20ml/gallon

both of these mixes i try to aerate with an aquaruiium pump for about 24hrs.

i've only been fertilizing them about every 3rd watering, so roughly once a week. i have been dabbling with some liquid worm castings and Pure Blend Pro too, but haven't really kept a proper record

thanks doods

james

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organic

Yes, I would say you are overferting, but the plants haven't shown health effects from the overfert because you're using organics instead of chems. (This is why we say it's harder to overfert with organics.) What they aren't using is just sitting in the soil...however it doesn't give the plant a chance to use up any of its nutrients internally.

for the next grow, I would:
- cut out the blood meal entirely, and drop the bone meal to 1/2 T
- reduce the amount of the premixed fert to 1 T
- don't feed them the liquid guano unless they look like they really need it
- continue with the liquid kelp feedings, this time in both veg and flower.

I know this sounds light on the ferts, but it really isn't. Besides, if it does indeed turn out to be too little, you can always add. It's pretty well impossible to subtract nutes from the soil as you are finding out

About the urea - I'm not exactly sure what omm is talking about. I've never heard of urea buildup in an organic ferting regimen before. I wouldn't worry about it too much, your problem has more to do with the plant not being able to "use" up the N in its tissues, which hopefully will be a fairly minor concern.

O

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budjamesbud

thanks O
i will switch it up next batch.
i'm also considering adding compost.
should i add the compost in place of the castings?
and maybe more perlite instead of vermiculite?
thanks again.

j.b.

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organic

You can add the compost to the mix along with the worm castings...if you do though, get rid of the vermiculite as both of them retain water. Personally I'm not a big fan of vermiculite for organic soil, as you should have enough organic matter in there to hold plenty of water. I do recommend lots of perlite though, and peat moss helps with keeping the soil light and fluffy as well.

You can try adding a cup or so of compost and see how it goes. I wouldn't go much more than 2 cups though.

Sounds like you are on the right track and all that remains is fine tuning and experimenting.

O

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