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Ice Cold Water Flush?

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Ice Cold Water Flush?

Gamechanga12 37 Replies 119,628 Views
Page 1 of 2 · Replies 1–20 of 38
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Gamechanga12

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#1
Hello all,

I am in a soiless mix and have two days left before chop. I am going to feed two more times a buddy of mine told me to feed with ice cold water to shock the plant and bring out colors/more trichs. Has anyone every done this?
 
#4
I wouldn't feed any at this point, should of stopped feeding about 2 weeks ago...if anything just plain water, but with just a couple days...don't water. let the medium dry up. With your soil dry your plant will use all moisture in itself.
it will create more trichomes to protect itself, plus your buds will be partially dry when harvest.

I have done the cold water flush. not ice cold, but cold. At two days prolly not worth it.

My pre harvest regiment:
At about 2 weeks before harvest stop feeding.
Do a good plain water flush... I use cold cold water. ice will help get it colder, but you don't want it too cold to ware it may do damage to roots, just shock them.
I have a very aerated medium. A lot of perlite and holes in pot, so my drainage is fast.
So I was able to flush again a week later.
I also lower temps in my grow room.
This next step, not recommended if your humidity it too high.
I had a clean room and a way to control my air and humidity.
so I also misted my plants with cold water. to simulate a late fall rainy day. misted right before lights on and also in middle of light cycle. (raised my lights as far as I could) real good air circulation. every day.
Mostly I didn't mist the buds directly, didn't want them to get moldy.
To be sure tho I would shake them to fling off water, they seemed to react to that imo.

The last 2-3 days I would leave them in total darkness before chopping.

If you have a lot of plants to deal with, just don't do the misting... prolly best to leave it out, so as not to cause problems for you. most people will say "do not spray or mist" your buds that late in flower, I agree. but I have been able to do it successfully.
There will be some people say none of this works, but it does for me.

Good luck
 
#5
Gamechanga12 said:
Hello all,

I am in a soiless mix and have two days left before chop. I am going to feed two more times a buddy of mine told me to feed with ice cold water to shock the plant and bring out colors/more trichs. Has anyone every done this?
Click to expand...
Stop nutes a week or 2 before chop. You need to FLUSH your weed for 5-14 days with pure pH water to remove all the salts, and crap from your buds, otherwise harsh smoke ahead buddy. Also, try water starving your plant the last 2 weeks. Dry soil=dry air=increased trich/resin production. I start my flush 2 weeks before chop. Cold water on day 1, day 4, day 7. Second week of flush gets cold water on day 3, just enough to wet soil and keep leaves from wilting. Do this, and watch the resin flow. But never feed up till chop. Yuck man.
 
#6
You don't want to actually flush with ice water. I think you may have heard a misconstrued interpretation of a method called shock ripening. You turn the lights off for 48 hours before you want to harvest and keep the bucket very cold by chilling it with ice. Then turn the lights on for 2 hours before harvesting. Chilling makes the plant think she's in a freeze situation tricking her into bulking up on trichomes and essential oils to protect herself. The light at the very end causes her to absorb all the water she can because hydrostatic pressure in media is highest in the morning. The thought being if she swells with water that pressure will drive the remaining goodness into the flower.
 
#7
Gamechanga12 said:
Hello all,

I am in a soiless mix and have two days left before chop. I am going to feed two more times a buddy of mine told me to feed with ice cold water to shock the plant and bring out colors/more trichs. Has anyone every done this?
Click to expand...
I put my last few waters in the fridge over night.
 
#8
Sugarbooger said:
You don't want to actually flush with ice water. I think you may have heard a misconstrued interpretation of a method called shock ripening. You turn the lights off for 48 hours before you want to harvest and keep the bucket very cold by chilling it with ice. Then turn the lights on for 2 hours before harvesting. Chilling makes the plant think she's in a freeze situation tricking her into bulking up on trichomes and essential oils to protect herself. The light at the very end causes her to absorb all the water she can because hydrostatic pressure in media is highest in the morning. The thought being if she swells with water that pressure will drive the remaining goodness into the flower.
Click to expand...
Nope, not at all. It's called cold water flushing, been doing it for years lol. Also, the periods of darkness before harvest is mostly a fluke. Studies on thc production in flowering cannabis shows thc levels/trich production barely affected by 24-48 hours dark. What does happen during this time is breakdown of chlorophyll, that's it, which your proper cure will do for you. Also, what this dark does is loosen up, fluff up your buds, making them less dense, and causing plant to stretch. If you were plant looks better after 24 to 48 hours of Darkness it is because it was suffering from too much light beforehand and needed a break. Cold water flushing is done by adding ice to your flush, or placing in fridge for an hour or so before use. Never heard of the bucket thing before. Seems counter productive as when ice melts, it will raise humidity in tent, something on last few weeks of flower, you certainly don't want.
 
#9
Sugarbooger said:
You don't want to actually flush with ice water. I think you may have heard a misconstrued interpretation of a method called shock ripening. You turn the lights off for 48 hours before you want to harvest and keep the bucket very cold by chilling it with ice. Then turn the lights on for 2 hours before harvesting. Chilling makes the plant think she's in a freeze situation tricking her into bulking up on trichomes and essential oils to protect herself. The light at the very end causes her to absorb all the water she can because hydrostatic pressure in media is highest in the morning. The thought being if she swells with water that pressure will drive the remaining goodness into the flower.
Click to expand...
Also, never, EVER harvest once lights go on. Here's why. The same studies on flowering cannabis show thc levels DECREASE during daylight, and INCREASE at night, having the highest concentrated thc levels just before sun up, or lights on. Also, another, almost as good a reason to NOT harvest after lights on is the biological functions plants do during night, and day. At night, plants move sugars, starches, and nutes (NPK) from their leaves, buds, etc to their root mass. Once day time comes, they start to rapidly suck back up these sugars, starches, and nutes from the root mass, back into leaves, buds etc. So when you harvest after lights on, here's what you are doing. Lowering your THC content significantly, while increasing all the crap you tried to flush out of plant for last several days and increasing your cure time. Just food for thought.
 
#10
Seems like a waste of ice. Why over complicate an easy transition to harvest? Honestly lowering rh to 30% before cut for a day or two would be more beneficial imo. This causes the plant to pull everything from the roots and "die on the vine"
 
#11
Cold water drops electric conductivity and brings out anthocyanins.
Anthocyanins are linked to antioxidants.. the more the better.
a lot of people chop green plants and they have way too much nitrogen in them. Cold water locks this up a bit.

Ill run the whole flower at 30% rh
 
#12
Leew421 said:
Seems like a waste of ice. Why over complicate an easy transition to harvest? Honestly lowering rh to 30% before cut for a day or two would be more beneficial imo. This causes the plant to pull everything from the roots and "die on the vine"
Click to expand...
Also, if you have a flower tent with multiple plants, all in different phases of flower like I do (my flower is done so I harvest a lady every 4 weeks) the ice would lower the temp in tent as well, cooling plants you don't want chilled. That's why I just cold water flush, and try to lower the number -40% like you said. Letting pots drain outside tent, not over watering, not misting anymore, constant cross breeze blowing thru tent, and actual covering the exposed soil with those shower cap like things for salad bowls in between waterings have lowered my Rh to about 38-40% during day, although at night they climb to about 55%. Need a tent dehumidifier bit this is working alright until i get one,
 
#13
Midnite Tokr said:
Also, if you have a flower tent with multiple plants, all in different phases of flower like I do (my flower is done so I harvest a lady every 4 weeks) the ice would lower the temp in tent as well, cooling plants you don't want chilled. That's why I just cold water flush, and try to lower the number -40% like you said. Letting pots drain outside tent, not over watering, not misting anymore, constant cross breeze blowing thru tent, and actual covering the exposed soil with those shower cap like things for salad bowls in between waterings have lowered my Rh to about 38-40% during day, although at night they climb to about 55%. Need a tent dehumidifier bit this is working alright until i get one,
Click to expand...
Also, my washing machine exploding the other night and flooding the other half of the basement opposite from tent area hasnt helped with tent humidity any... smdh
 
#14
I try to follow vpd so my rh doesn't stay at 30 in my tent. I added my dehu a while back and it was raising temps way too much. When I harvest I water a couple days before then I take her out and put her in a dark tent with rh at 30 and constant fans. Once the soil is almost dry I take her down. Usually in 2-3 days.
 
#15
I find a grace period in the dark almost speeds up metabolism and helps ripen
 
#17
I've tried the bucket method a couple of times and would never have done it if I hadnt done everything right. (And also wouldn't if circumstances didn't require a measure to be taken to speed something up that's going to happen anyway) By doing it right I mean not overfeeding, which is the only reason to flush. We're talking the last 48 hours here so by the time something like this should be considered, and it does speed up ripening in that I could harvest everything in 2 to 3 days instead of the week or so it usually takes to harvest each bud individually as it ripens, the starches should almost be converted (hence ripening) and almost no (hopefully absolutely no) nutrients are present anyway. That's if she wasn't overfed which I never do anymore on familiar strains. Dunno about the thc levels fluctuating. If I knew that to be true I definitively (obviously) wouldn't fuck with it. But I didn't notice any difference in the quality or potency of the smoke and I achieved the goal of harvesting a bit quicker. It definitely didn't affect density or humidity, beyond my dehumidifiers ability to control it anyway. Gonna do a little research on night day thc level fluctuation. I'm not gonna claim to be an expert on the science of this but have had good luck with it a couple of times in unique situations. Thanks for the info btw tokr.
 
#18
I shouldn't have said you don't actually want to do anything, or that anything was misconstrued I didn't really mean that. Just something I'd never heard of.
 
#19
Sugarbooger said:
I've tried the bucket method a couple of times and would never have done it if I hadnt done everything right. (And also wouldn't if circumstances didn't require a measure to be taken to speed something up that's going to happen anyway) By doing it right I mean not overfeeding, which is the only reason to flush. We're talking the last 48 hours here so by the time something like this should be considered, and it does speed up ripening in that I could harvest everything in 2 to 3 days instead of the week or so it usually takes to harvest each bud individually as it ripens, the starches should almost be converted (hence ripening) and almost no (hopefully absolutely no) nutrients are present anyway. That's if she wasn't overfed which I never do anymore on familiar strains. Dunno about the thc levels fluctuating. If I knew that to be true I definitively (obviously) wouldn't fuck with it. But I didn't notice any difference in the quality or potency of the smoke and I achieved the goal of harvesting a bit quicker. It definitely didn't affect density or humidity, beyond my dehumidifiers ability to control it anyway. Gonna do a little research on night day thc level fluctuation. I'm not gonna claim to be an expert on the science of this but have had good luck with it a couple of times in unique situations. Thanks for the info btw tokr.
Click to expand...
Flushing is done if you over feed or not. What flushing does is removes all nutes and their associated salts from your grow media. This forces your plant to cannibalize itself for the NPK it needs to survive. What that does, is mellow out your smoke dramatically. Tests on non flushed buds habe shown traces of pretty nasty things you don't want in your body. Aside from nutrients being present, there was also radioactive particles found, although not sure their ppm, the ppm of the trace elements was significantly higher in non flushed bud. There is a reason 99.999% of pro growers flush their plants, and that's because it makes a big difference in burn ability, taste, smell, and smoothness. Weed ash shod be white, and fluffy. The herb should stay lit, and have an even, smooth burn. If your weed ash is heavy, dense, and anything but white like cigarette ash, what you are seeing is nutes, salts, and other varied nasties you didn't flush out. So helpful tip in life, and cannabis cultivation is watch your ash. Hahahaha
 
#20
GT21 said:
Cold water drops electric conductivity and brings out anthocyanins.
Anthocyanins are linked to antioxidants.. the more the better.
a lot of people chop green plants and they have way too much nitrogen in them. Cold water locks this up a bit.

Ill run the whole flower at 30% rh
Click to expand...

Just to clarify... you run the entire bloom cycle at 30% rh?
 
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