lets get it on with this debate… … enjoy!
So I’m not a big fan of this new phrase “Flushing”. It completely misrepresents what it is we are actually doing with our plants at the end of their life cycle. We used the frame leaching back in the day.
All we’re doing is forcing our plants to use up any stored nutrients it has. Forcing it to leach those stored nutrients up and use them. We can use flushing agents that are supposed to help with that, but I feel like they don’t really do that much. Cannabis is a cumulative plant and there’s no way to strip stored nutes out of it by flushing. But you can force your plant to use up its stored reserves. 
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I mostly agree, especially with organics. But with salts the risk of scale is a real issue and takes a very long time to break down without a descaler (flush solution) I have also noted that flushing organics mostly speeds up the cure drastically.also ash color is due to pH not whether there’s nutes still there, if u research rolling papers, cigarettes and cigars this is what you will discover as well. Think of it like invisible ink , either too high or low and u get a dirty dark ash (scale shifts pH bad)
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I agree with you @hoppiefrog. That’s why I still use Flawless finish my last week of flower to hopefully help strip some of my salt buildup out of my plants. I’m sure it helps quite a bit cuz I do the ash test also and it’s been a nice clean white since I dialed my grow in. Organics is definitely the way to go! I tried once but couldn’t stand the smell of my house that week. Organics for dwc is tough if you don’t have an separate isolated grow space.
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So in science class when we would light salts or sugars on fire, they create a poisonous gas. Would this still be the case? In smaller increments.
I am soon to be trying that sugar based nute system. I am crazy excited to see the results I get. I grew my roses with sugar when I was younger and they were the size of my open hand. I love growing plant life. I grew a wisteria that ripped apart a pergola in 3 years. Super tough. Smelled like heaven.
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Also doesn’t the watering in-between feedings like a automatic leaching ? Or am I the only one watering and feeding? Lol 1 feeding and a couple waterings a week.
@Tygrow78, thanks for the background information between leaching and flushing. There was a very detailed post on here several months ago about a company that tested “flushing” plants side by side, and their conclusive results were it does not do anything. This was the results from tests conducted.
My personal opinion, I do leach for at the end of a grow cycle. Its just something i like to do, it feels right, like cleaning a fish after descaling it. Its also if you look at how quickly a plant responds to water, I think its necessary, and @hoppiefrog, another thing learnt, I thought that black grit when you smoke a joint is the nutes. I just got some hydro and it was not lighting, burning black, you waste half the joint relighting and removing the black.
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That’s something I plan to fool around with(organic hydro) ya I hear it’s not the easiest way to run hydro.
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It’s a old myth;) check out tobacco and paper industry studies it explains it well.i am a fan of the flush too it just don’t work the way most think is all 
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Thats what I find interesting. Tobacco is leached and flushed many times before it becomes smokeable. The dehydrate it, rehydrate it a few times before it becomes smokeable? I might be wrong, but that is what I believe. Also one of the reasons I like adding pure H2O at the end, just makes me feel like it drys slower, better cure, better smoke.
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It explains that to make cigars they like to have some salt and some pepper ash the dark stuff has either a high ph or low. White is around ph6 ish and paper cos do the same and come up w almost identical info. Black ash in my experience is from scale like a crop u over fed hense scale build up.where scale don’t flush it will be hard to fix soil ph and will require a extra long and aggressive flush to correct soil ph. I have fooled around w the theory and can say it sure seems to be the case
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I don’t call it flushing… I call it not feeding… in living soil I stop feeding for a week, and for salt base 10-14 days before harvest… it’s just what I have done for the last 6 years since I got back into growing and will probably continue to do… my experience with this and letting cold and one frost hit them it does help with the purples and blacks to colour…
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Might have to try that with cannabis…lol… dry, hydrate, dry … I am hoping to get a wash in and run the hash through my freeze dryer… I want to freeze dry some bud to see what happens to… I finally am getting close to having all the settings so as not to burn up the terps… I then want to squish the hash into rosin… some wookie hash hash rosin would be nice…lol…
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Please fill me in on those settings when you get a moment. I’m picking up a freeze dryer for the same purpose as you. So I can run it through my extractor.
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When I run a successful run… you will get the settings…
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I leached my plant last night and left it in the bathtub overnight with door closed. This morning I put it back in the tent.My plan was to leave it in the dark for a few days then harvest. Am I rushing the dark phase?
I harvest outdoor… I harvest when I get to them… I am not trying to be a douche… but do you harvest your tomatoes this way or peppers… it is just a plant…
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Lol thank you.
These are all subjective subjects. You do many different styles while growing so you can test what really works for you. Sometimes folks just see what they want to see.
But as ladi says. Its a plant. Do what the plants do naturally and you won’t go wrong.