Maximum Yield Australia/New Zealand July/August 2020 | Page 38

LUSHING
OUT THE
TRUTH
IN A CONTROLLED
INDOOR GROWING
ENVIRONMENT
by Rich Hamilton
What’s all the fuss with flushing? Water or nutes?
What’s best? Well... let’s go back to basics first
and look at why we need to do it.
Most fruit/yield producing plants
have a vascular system that
takes in nutrients, water starches, and
sugar around the plants via the roots
and feeds the entire plant, including
the leaves, to fuel the photosynthesis
process. This in turn helps the fruits
develop, along with the overall growth
of the plant. The vascular system
can also store substances such as
dissolved nutrients, water, unused
sugar, and starch for later use. Plants
do this for a few reasons. The first is
they are producing more energy than
they can use, so any spare energy is
transferred into a form of sugar and/
or starch and stored within the plant.
The second reason is to store a small
amount of energy in case of drought
or a shortage of light. The third reason
is the larger the reserve a plant can
store, then the more reserves it has to
make it through the winter/non-growth
period. These sugars and starches
are on hand ready to be used almost
immediately should the plant need
them, and it is these energy-rich
reserves we want to release through
the flushing and ripening phase.
38
Maximum Yield