A nitrogen taper is a late-flower feeding strategy: reduce nitrogen step by step over the final weeks, approaching zero near harvest, while keeping every other nutrient supplied. The plant draws on its own stored nitrogen, older leaves fade naturally, and buds keep the potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sulfur and micronutrients they need to finish.
In practice
The GenetixBay approach (house position, Supported): taper nitrogen, don't flush. Research shows that lower nitrogen can raise cannabinoid and terpene percentages while lowering total yield (Saloner & Bernstein 2021). It's a trade-off you manage, not a reason to starve the plant.
A typical outline: hold normal N through the bulking weeks, then cut it back over roughly the final 2-3 weeks, while holding K, Ca, Mg, P, S and micros steady. Watch the fan leaves: a gradual fade from the bottom is the goal; a sudden mid-canopy yellowing means you cut too hard or too early.
This is why Jardin uses per-element dosing. A bottled two-part can't drop N without dropping everything else.
Don't confuse with
- Pre-harvest flushing: removes all feed (Myth, harmful).
- Feed reduction: cutting all nutrients equally, which also starves K and Ca.
- Nitrogen deficiency: an unwanted problem, not a managed finish.
The programmed ageing and breakdown of leaves and other tissues, in which the plant recycles nutrients (especially nitrogen) from old leaves to developing flowers and seeds.A micronutrient is an essential element plants need only in trace amounts, below a few mg/L: iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum, chlorine and nickel.Feeding only plain water for days or weeks before harvest to "clean" the plant; GenetixBay rates it a Myth that harms yield, unlike a root-zone salt flush.A cannabinoid is any compound that binds the body's cannabinoid receptors or shares the typical cannabis terpenophenolic structure; the plant-made ones are phytocannabinoids such as THCA and CBDA.Terpenes are volatile hydrocarbon compounds built from five-carbon isoprene units; in cannabis they are made in the trichome heads and are a major part of aroma and flavour.A large palmate cannabis leaf with several long leaflets on a long petiole; fan leaves do most of the plant's photosynthesis and carry few trichomes.Per-element dosing builds a feed from individual salts or single-element stocks so each nutrient can be set independently, such as cutting nitrogen without cutting potassium.Nitrogen (N) is the macronutrient plants use most, built into proteins, chlorophyll and nucleic acids; it drives leaf and stem growth and is fully mobile.The span of days, often one to two weeks, in which a cannabis plant is ripe enough to cut, judged mainly by trichome head colour and bud development.
