Great read, one of the best thought out threads I have seen.
I'll jump out there and say that it is my beliefe that flushing at the end of a plants life is unnessasary in all cases if the grower feeds his/her plants correctly thru the entire grow.
I use GH 3 part. I use shreaded rockwool as a medium in 2 gal pots. My indepth experience is with hydro systems, I have no real experience with soil.
So, everything below is based on hydro.
IF a grower uses a proper plan, meaning that they control the ppm's of the nuit solution properly, then flushing is not needed. One way to check is to test the runoff. If the ppm's are the same as the soulution fed, then all is well. The plant is uptaking properly and not needing a higher/lower ppm for that stage in it's life.
If this is done throughout the plants life, then no excess salt.nuit build up will occur. Simply, if you choose to deny the plant nuits the last couple of weeks, you are indeed starving the plant at the most critical stage for flower development, imo.
As far as taste,smell or "crackeling", I have not seen a difference at all. I have had my herb tested by dispensaries, and never have I heard of any "odd" comments about the herb at all. Between friends, noone can tell a difference at all.
Now, thats a perfect case with a good grow.
What I see ALOT, is OVERFERT on grows. This will cause nuit issues and excessive salt build up. A flush is needed in this case, sometimes far before the end of the cycle. This is and probably allways will be the number one issue facing growers. It seems the general mentality is to feed it more to get more, which couldn't be farther from the truth.
So, all in all, I do beleive that flushing has it's place for sure, but as a "needed" step at the end of the grow is not allways so.
