Let's discuss flavor in relation to hydroponic growing

I currently grow in and love my water to waste dutch buckets also known as hempy buckets. Growth is much faster than in soil, I don't have to haul heavy dirt, and I rarely deal with pests anymore. The only caveat is that it seems more difficult to achieve the desired flavor than growing in soil. When I first started growing about 10 or so years back I always grew in dirt. I wasn't an organic nut or anything. It was just easier than hydro for a rookie gardener. I never once had an issue with flavor. Without effort it was incredible every time. I just gave 'em straight water for the last 7-10 days and let them fade out. When I switched to hydro my first harvest was stellar. Looked like high times centerfold material. THC Bomb grown to perfection. I used the GH 3 part flora series with koolbloom liquid. I did not flush. It was absolutely awful to smoke. I wasn't sure if it was attributed to drying far too fast (4 days with very large flowers) or growing hydroponically and adding koolbloom which I had never used before. Some people said it was probably the phosphorous that ruined the buds. It snapped and crackled. It was truly awful. But it looked like high times shit. I think we've all been down that road where the smoke quality didn't match the eye candy. It just never happened to me with my own home grown until then. I personally feel 3 things ruined that grow. It was dried too quickly, bloom boosters add too much P&K negatively impacting flavor, and failing to allow the plants to fade and ripen with a 7 day flush.

It's been 6 or 7 years since that awful experience. I've learned a lot. I do not use bloom boosters. I give plain RO water only for the last 7 days before harvest and let them fade out to fall colors. I slow down the dry time. I now get excellent tasting buds every cycle. Except for 1 plant this last flower cycle. It is the only plant I did not flush. It was my only black widow in the flower room. It is potent smoke. The flowers are gorgeous and heavy. I was conflicted about putting up a 600W HPS in one of my nursery tents for another week to let it continue flowering, because I felt it really needed another 7-10 days to ripen. There were still quite a few white hairs shooting out the top, but the trichomes were full and milky. I thought what the hell, I'l go ahead and chop it out of convenience and wanting to simply clear the room and be done. I think it was ultimately a bad error in judgment. While I do not feel allowing it to ripen any further would have affected the flavor in a positive way it would have allowed me to complete a 7 day flush. I've heard all the anti flushing arguments over the years and how nobody does that in soil outdoors. That's really a falsehood and misleading. I'll use myself as an example here. When I grew in soil years ago with outstanding flavor results I stopped feeding them fertilizer for 7-10 days prior to harvest as suggested by every experienced soil gardener I followed on RIU and ICMAG. Nobody continued feeding their organic cocktails of seabird guano and worm castings up to the day of harvest. They all allowed the plant to fade and ripen as the plant ended it's life cycle. There was no purpose to dump 1000PPM of fertilizer in the soil after all the buds had grown and the plant was ripening. The same seems to be true of hydroponic gardening. When I flush and allow the plants to fade for 7 days the flavor profile is fantastic. I do not taste any difference between these flowers and my former soil grown plants. However, the 1 black widow I failed to flush and watered 900PPM up to the day before harvest tastes terrible. It's incredibly potent. Mind blowing. And I hate smoking it out of my beloved bong, because it's harsh. I won't even be providing it to my patients, because it isn't up to my standards. I'll be biting the bullet and smoking it myself over the next 3 months. That will serve as a daily reminder to not let that shit happen again. I'm running black widow 1 more time in an effort to confirm my suspicions.

If the widow needs another 7-10 days to finish I will give it to her and I will make sure it receives the same 7 days of 0 PPM RO water as the other plants. I'm so far attributing the poor taste to operator error on my part. I don't want to give up on black widow that easily just yet I'd sure love to hear some other grower's opinions on this. I'm in a personal bubble of theories and emotion here. Thoughts anyone?

I believe flavor is genetic. It's hardly influenced by growing medium.

smokinrav said:

I believe flavor is genetic. It's hardly influenced by growing medium.

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I have no issue with that theory. I recently grew hash plant 3 cycles in a row. The 3rd and final was stellar. The strain reached it's full potential and it did taste good, but it's very earthy due to it's 100% indica genetics. That's the polar opposite of something like a sour diesel or a blueberry, and not desirable to many people. Myself included. It's possible even if I grow black widow again and correct what I theorize were the suspected deficiencies in my previous under performing flower cycle, and the flavor fails to improve I just have to call it undesirable genetics. However, the genetics theory fails to explain the THC bomb debacle. The flowers burned to a hard charcoal. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Shit was dry as desert sand. I can probably find my old thread on here from 7 years or so ago when it happened. Had a great thread going about it. Most claimed it was dried too quickly locking in chlorophyll and starches that failed to off gas resulting in poor burn quality. Several immediately said dried too quickly and typical results of applying too much P and K. The snap crackle and pop was attributed to the P and K specifically according to several other grower's theories. The hard charcoal ash was theorized to be locked in starches and chlorophyll that failed to off gas.

smokinrav said:

I believe flavor is genetic. It's hardly influenced by growing medium.

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Not at all about medium. I theorize it's about fertilizer intake prior to harvest regardless of medium. Of course in addition to proper dry time. I know another grower here on RIU that feeds full strength all the way up to harvest, and he grows plants the size of outdoor trees. I hope he chimes in to offer his perspective

Flavor is genetic but straight hydro using synthetic nutes brings out the most of that flavor.

Renfro said:

Flavor is genetic but straight hydro using synthetic nutes brings out the most of that flavor.

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And there he is. So could black widow just be a terrible tasting strain genetically speaking? Or maybe a better way to put it is that it's not my desired flavor profile

jonnynobody said:

So could black widow just be a terrible tasting strain genetically speaking?

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Indeed. I have grown some strains that just taste like garbage. Some that even smell great but taste like garbage.

I do feed to the end, it's a ripening feed though so it is low in nitrogen and phosphorous and has plenty of potassium, sulfur, chlorine. When you find a ripening feed that you like you will notice that the day after you first feed it the aroma gets more intense, like a good 30% more intense usually. If you aren't getting that from your ripening feed then something is wrong.

Let me throw another question at you. I'm interested to hear your opinion. Before growing my own I bought from dispensaries many times. Sometimes bud would look fantastic. Smell great even. Then filled with excitement I break up a stinky bud in my grinder. Load the bong. Then proceed to cough my lungs out from the harsh chemical taste. This happened mostly with dispensary pot. On occasion I've experienced the same with other's home grown pot. If fertilizer isn't causing that what is? Just bad genetics?

Renfro said:

Indeed. I have grown some strains that just taste like garbage. Some that even smell great but taste like garbage.

I do feed to the end, it's a ripening feed though so it is low in nitrogen and phosphorous and has plenty of potassium, sulfur, chlorine. When you find a ripening feed that you like you will notice that the day after you first feed it the aroma gets more intense, like a good 30% more intense usually. If you aren't getting that from your ripening feed then something is wrong.

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Thank you for that man. I'm rethinking my whole pre-harvest routine now.

I put in a second tent just to try out hydro. Rooting clones for a dutch bucket 3-plant test. After all the negative posts about the flavor, I think I'll just make cannabutter or edibles with hydro-produced THC & maybe alternate CBD-rich plants.

Assuming my "test" had success, of course...

Flavor is mostly genetic. Some strains you can grow like shit and they will still taste good. Others you can grow to perfection, have all the bag appeal and smell, but the smoke is just meh.

Great topic,I have Cali O that im playing with.First time smoke was so orange flavored 20 min after you could still taste it.It was grown in FF soil with remo nutes added at about week 2 of flower,plant always looked underfed yellow leaves etc...
I got a cut did my RDWC thing, buds were huge room smelt like oranges.Food was lucas with GH Micro-Bloom.Plants faded nicely at weeks 7-9.Taste was no where close,smell was there but not the taste.
Fast forward to coco with different nutes,same result.
Im now in organic with my own cooked soil,one week of veg.Time will tell.

Genetics, drying and curing are the biggest influences. Everything else is background noise.

Try using magnesium and sulfur products towards the end of harvest. Drying for at least 10 days in a 65F room. Some terpenes can evaporate at cooler temperatures than you would think.

Flushing for too long at the end of the harvest anf then drying in 4 days can negatively impact the taste. Which is chlorophyll. The snap crackle you associate is either from the plant producing seeds in relation to grow stresses. The seeds could have also given bad taste. Or this could have been water trapped inside the bud from your 4 day dry. You ever rinse out a pan and place it on the burner and you hear snapping and crackling as the heat touches the tiny water droplets?

There have been studies on this topic of flushing to remove nutrients and its no longer stoner/bro science and with the wave of legalization big science has stepped in. It doesnt. And this topic has been beaten a thousand times. And then ten thousand more times.

Also, perhaps your memory of a 10 year old harvest is fading

If you ruined 14 ounces of pot you worked 3 months to grow would you forget the fine details? There were no seeds. The strain was THC Bomb. Here's the link from 2014:
The strain grows very large flowers. It's just a genetic trait of the strain. This was my first grow doing hydroponics. It was just water to waste hempy in perlite. I believe the err was an extremely fast dry due to my own fuck up. I was growing in a 2 bedroom apartment back in those days, so I had to dry all of my crops inside of my tent with a carbon scrubber. I dialed down the air flow to low so the air was exchanged but at a very slow rate to prevent over drying. I was so nervous about bud rot because the THC bomb flowers were incredibly large I not only increased the speed of the exhaust fan, but I had a small clip on fan running inside of the tent. Just a bad move on top of another bad move. I sure didn't have to worry about bud rot, but I had buds that were horrible to smoke. I could feel a metallic feeling in old mercury based cavity fillings I got as a kid when I inhaled the smoke. Awful would be an understatement. At the time when I posted my results in 2014 the RIU guru's of the time indicated 2 sources of the problem. The primary issue was too quickly drying the flowers. As the flowers dry chlorophyll is being off gassed and starches are converting to sugars. If you rapidly dry your crop chlorophyll gets locked into the flower instead of being off gassed resulting in a horrid flavor and terrible burn qualities hence the charcoal ash.

Here's a followup thread where I was asking for help from RIU members in an attempt to figure out what went wrong:


The secondary cause was said to be the telltale sign of phosphorous overload. I used kool bloom for the first and only time on that grow cycle. I do not believe in nor do I use PK boosters. I have never had a repeat of the same issue since. However, even when my crops are potent and flavorful they don't touch my dirt grows. I'm not of the opinion that organic fertilizer makes the difference either. I used synthetic general hydroponics 3 part flora system on a feed, water, water feed regimen with floralicous plus. That was it. I discontinued any fertilizer 7 days prior to harvest and provided water only. It was the best tasting pot I've ever grown. It's something about soil. Even when using synthetic fertilizer cannabis produces better flavor when the plant is rooted in soil. Anybody else have a similar observation?

The way I understand it is high CEC in soil. Almost none in hydro. In soil the roots have a smorgasbord to pick from. Eat what they want. Hydro is a funnel right in there mouth. That’s what I got from what CEC is and how it works.

myke said:

The way I understand it is high CEC in soil. Almost none in hydro. In soil the roots have a smorgasbord to pick from. Eat what they want. Hydro is a funnel right in there mouth. That’s what I got from what CEC is and how it works.

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I can dig on that man. I grew for 2 years with reliable great harvests before my hydro debacle with thc bomb. I never had issues with flavor or burn quality at all, and maybe it's a testament to the very low amount of fertilizer I used coupled with the use of soil. I watered every other day and they only received fertilizer every 3rd watering so once per week basically. Best tasting pot I've ever grown. Matter of fact this threas has convinced me to run 2 soil plants on my next flower cycle to see if I can recreate the magic. Same fertilizer. Same regimen. Should be a lot of fun. I always used quality soil like ocean forest mixed with a little hapoy frog and I will do the same this time. I'll journal the results in my LED grow journal I have going. Stay tuned.

jonnynobody said:

I can dig on that man. I grew for 2 years with reliable great harvests before my hydro debacle with thc bomb. I never had issues with flavor or burn quality at all, and maybe it's a testament to the very low amount of fertilizer I used coupled with the use of soil. I watered every other day and they only received fertilizer every 3rd watering so once per week basically. Best tasting pot I've ever grown. Matter of fact this threas has convinced me to run 2 soil plants on my next flower cycle to see if I can recreate the magic. Same fertilizer. Same regimen. Should be a lot of fun. I always used quality soil like ocean forest mixed with a little hapoy frog and I will do the same this time. I'll journal the results in my LED grow journal I have going. Stay tuned.

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Same here, will have some hydro and soil next run.I already have gnats, arg.

myke said:

Same here, will have some hydro and soil next run.I already have gnats, arg.

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35% h202 @ 3ml/gallon will nuke those little bastards instantly. $20/gallon at any reputable hydro store. All sorts of products that will take care of that. Mites are like the black plague. Gnats are easy.

Renfro said:

I do feed to the end, it's a ripening feed though so it is low in nitrogen and phosphorous and has plenty of potassium, sulfur, chlorine.

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How many days/weeks do you use this ripening feed?

How do you make this ripening feed?
With Jacks 3-2-1 for example you could give less N by giving less Calcinit.
But how could one lower the amount of P?

jonnynobody said:

35% h202 @ 3ml/gallon will nuke those little bastards instantly. $20/gallon at any reputable hydro store. All sorts of products that will take care of that. Mites are like the black plague. Gnats are easy.

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I dont know,can you give that amount of h202 to living soil ?