White Ash: what does it mean?

It either means you're using hampf papers or you're plant has essentially used up all available chemical, and organic ferts inside your plants that need to be flushed out well for a good smoke. I've seen joints shooting sparks, and it wasn't lysergic.

I'm an indoor grower. I have trouble growing outside. It's all different. I wish I could grow outdoors like I can indoors. I can not.

Grower's pay close attention to that ash. Grey means nutes are almost out, but white indicates they are all totally out. Very invaluable if you want to smoke good smoke. And there's no doubt you do.

For me being an indoor hydro grower, I had no idea when to stop fertilization.
 
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well, I know when the ash on my j's burns white or light gray, the smoke is smooth, doesn't make me hack up a lung and the flavor is fantastic. I've had stuff that sparked when it burned, or burned black and gooey and it tastes like shit and makes me cough, hard.

I was speaking with an outdoor grower from Oregon and she told me they lessen up watering towards the end of flowering to get the plant to use up it's stored nutrients..........

i'm going to keep flushing my plants, which in my grow is running 2.5 gallons of RO water through the pot at the beginning of the flush period, then plain water until harvest. The flavor of the buds when smoked is very remarkable and the smoothness of the smoke is fantastic.
 
alabaster said:
It either means you're using hampf papers or you're plant has essentially used up all available chemical, and organic ferts inside your plants that need to be flushed out well for a good smoke. I've seen joints shooting sparks, and it wasn't lysergic.

I'm an indoor grower. I have trouble growing outside. It's all different. I wish I could grow outdoors like I can indoors. I can not.

Grower's pay close attention to that ash. Grey means nutes are almost out, but white indicates they are all totally out. Very invaluable if you want to smoke good smoke. And there's no doubt you do.

For me being an indoor hydro grower, I had no idea when to stop fertilization.
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with the strains i run, i know they finish around 9 weeks. So I stop feeding around 7-7 1/2 weeks, depenedning on how big the plant is and how hard i've been feeding and how dark the leaves are. The Bigger the plant, the nger i can wait to strt the flush - bigger plants eat more so I know the bigger plant will consume stored nutes at a faster rate. Small plants will have more nutes stored so I flush them longer. In my room at the moment, I have a Tokyo that tops out at almost 6 feet tall. I'll check trichs at 7 weeks. depending on how they look (I'm going to mostly cloudy with some amber on this one), is when i will start the flush If they are mostly cloudy with some clear, I'll start the flush - I figure a week to get the clear to go cloudy and some amber to start, so I will start the flush at 7.5 weeks or maybe wait an additional day to 2 max. Flush the pots of coco with 2.5 gallons of RO water with some Signal in it, maybe 20 mils. then plain water til harvest, unless the leaves aren't yellowing quickly enough. At that point, they get another 2.5 gallon plain ro flush. With a 3-5 gallon pot of coco, that should be plenty, since i do feed my plants on the lite side. After a few days flush. i take a sample, quick dry and smoke it. And judge from there

One thing I have noticed, and it blew away a couple other local growers, is this: buds flushed the way i flush are smooth as a baby's butt to smoke and tasty too. No chemical taste at all. One local guy tasted the blueberry Yum Yum and asked how long I'd cured it. He about fell out of his chair when I told him i clipped, trimmed and fast dried the buds 2 days prior to our session .
 
The white ash is smoother. No doubt about it. I think it’s something to do with the temperature it burns. Seems when there is too much fertilizer in the substrate or built up/locked in it burns darker and harsher.
 
I use Glass cellulose..I won’t use anything else..not even hemp parer..but thats just me

I believe white ash means lack of extraneous fert residue.......

since going organic its been a cake walk
 
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I recently had an occurrence where i flushed the plants to zero ppm in the substrate, took samples the next day, quick dried and smoked them the following day. Ash burned very light grey to white and the smoke wasn't chemmy at all. The smoke was so flavorful and smooth too. The plants fan leaves had barely started to lighten up.
I'm thinking a couple things: either the plant isn't storing nutes like we thought they do OR the new chelated nutrient lines are being used by the plants more efficiently to where I can feed the plant barely enough to keep them happy without them storing an abundance of nutes. I was always told to listen to the plants and give them what they ask for. My plants have been happy for a while now. And now I am very happy with the buds and final smoke. I treat cannabis like a fine wine. i'm pretty sensitive to flavors. These buds don't taste chemmy at all. I'd love to get them tested but that would be impossible where I live.

any thoughts??
 
Guymandude said:
I recently had an occurrence where i flushed the plants to zero ppm in the substrate, took samples the next day, quick dried and smoked them the following day. Ash burned very light grey to white and the smoke wasn't chemmy at all. The smoke was so flavorful and smooth too. The plants fan leaves had barely started to lighten up.
I'm thinking a couple things: either the plant isn't storing nutes like we thought they do OR the new chelated nutrient lines are being used by the plants more efficiently to where I can feed the plant barely enough to keep them happy without them storing an abundance of nutes. I was always told to listen to the plants and give them what they ask for. My plants have been happy for a while now. And now I am very happy with the buds and final smoke. I treat cannabis like a fine wine. i'm pretty sensitive to flavors. These buds don't taste chemmy at all. I'd love to get them tested but that would be impossible where I live.

any thoughts??
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only thought is that a quick flush is not gonna change much and if it burned good then it was treated well all the way through
 
This is a topic I would love to hear a deep scientific explanation for. In my personal growing experience, the white ash has a direct correlation to the amount of calcium I use during the run. I'm a living soil enthusiast so there isn't really a time I "flush" as for the most part my beds are watered with water only via a gravity fed blumat setup (sans an occasional tea / biology inoculant). I will foliar / root soak / topdress with some form of a calcium supplement such as WCA, gypsum, calphos etc... I try to do this on a weekly basis but sometimes my day job takes me away from the grow for weeks at a time. When I'm not able to supplement Ca on the regular I tend to get more of a gray or darker ash, and when I'm able to apply that weekly dose the ash is gleaming white. I'm not entirely sure whats going on here, its just purely my observation. Would love to know why this is the case though. Maybe someone out there can shed some light on that for me.
 
When you put fire to black or grey ash it turns white, which can be a sign of incomplete combustion from larger, unevenly ground particles of bud. Also can be a sign of incomplete breakdown of molecules during the drying/curing process. Most blunts and bleached papers can also give a deceiving white ash and burn grey on the interior. Lastly I’ve noticed sometimes some batches or packs have some white ash and some black or grey ash which I’ve thought to possibly be an improper moisture content. Whether the buds are too dry or too moist it can mess with the combustion. Just based of my research and xperience
 
i did figure out that I was feeding my plants just enough, luckily. I've had some strains lately that needed more of a flush to let them burn off the excess......
 
Wavvy said:
When you put fire to black or grey ash it turns white, which can be a sign of incomplete combustion from larger, unevenly ground particles of bud. Also can be a sign of incomplete breakdown of molecules during the drying/curing process. Most blunts and bleached papers can also give a deceiving white ash and burn grey on the interior. Lastly I’ve noticed sometimes some batches or packs have some white ash and some black or grey ash which I’ve thought to possibly be an improper moisture content. Whether the buds are too dry or too moist it can mess with the combustion. Just based of my research and xperience
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now that I have had a chance to digest this, I wonder if the added calcium Ive been using is helping aid in the drying aspect to enable the white ash to flourish then? 🤷‍♂️
 
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