Buds started smelling like mold 5 weeks into flower

[otherwhitemeat]

Guys, I think I may have caught this just in time. I can smell the mold, but even with a 10X I can't see it. I took my plants out for some photos and noticed they smelled less like lovely skunk buds and more like sweaty socks/mildew....I seem to have encountered a N deficiency in mid flower and adjusted in by giving it a bit more of the veg nutes, that has stopped the leaves from dying. But now....

I was told my cab temps were too high, so I am leaving the doors open (don't think the passive intakes on my cab are workig well) and got the temps down to low 80's (from 85-87) But since it's in my basement I think it took more mold spores than it could handle. I'm a newb so anything I get is gravy but can anything be done to stop the spread of this? With my amateur mycology experience (yay shroomery) I know that weak h202 can kill some molds but will it affect my soon to be harvested girls's and their delicate trichomes? I have an ionic breeze and put it in the cab for kicks based on some threads I saw elsehwere. Will my plants get Ozone burns? Since I may just harvest it early I don't want to use any Neem or Sulphur
PS-I have a food dehydrator that goes down to 90 degrees and dries my shroomies out in a day (even the one footers) I was thinking about immediately dehdyrating them after harvest to stop the mold growing---that is, if I harvest early. Any thoughts on this?

What STRAIN are you growing? BAGSEED
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) SEED
What is the age of your plants? ABOUT 3 MONTHS
How Tall are the plants? 2-3 FEET AVERAGE
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? FLOWER
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) NATURAL
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 2 GAL-1 PER POT, hols in bottom a and clay pot pieces for drainage
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?) FFOF STRAIGHT UP
What Nutrient's are you using?How much of each with how much water? How Often? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* EACH PLANT GETS ABOUT 1-1.5L every 3-4 days, use 1 capful of Botanicare PBP Bloom each watering or every other water
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used? Don't Know
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? 6.8-7.0
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen? pH pen, about 6.8
How often are you watering? Every 3-4 days
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? About 3 days ago, feeding with each watering
What size bulb are you using? 250 W HPS
What is the distance to the canopy? 6-12 inches, varies
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) About 30%
What is the canopy temperature? About 80-85
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range) 80-85 F day, 70 F night
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) 4 in Can Fan going 24x7 with a small muffin fan to keep air moving and passice air intakes
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? pretty much
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? Not really, moist for 2 days, dry for 1, then they get water
Is your water HARD or SOFT? Water is pretty neutral, but tending towards hardness
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? Tap, sits for 24-48 hours to dechlorinate
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched? No
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when? No
Are plant's infected with pest's? No

 

[sirgrassalot]

Check the guide on fungi/mold.
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688

 

[otherwhitemeat]

sirgrassalot, I did read on about mold and fungi before posting..esp in the sticky. I also found some confusing info on this site about baking soda and milk, H202, as well as a product called Zone.

Ok, now that I am done panicking....I talked to the hydro shop guy a bit...he's great, he never asks me what I am growing but gives me awesome advice.

He advised that I apply neem oil (1tsp/quart with two drops of dish detergent) and wait a few days without watering, don't rush to harvest unless I see mold. Close the doors to my cab to keep out spores, then check again in 5 days for smells. A faint hint of anything other than fresh flowers and I am to hit it with neem every 3-5 days until 1 week before flower. He said if I was worried about the neem smell, I could use a weak dish detergent solution (one drop to a quart) and spray that up to seven days beofre the flush then water 3-5 days before I harvest. With no water being provided in the last 3 days or so. He also said I could run the ionic breeze inside the cab on low and that would help a bit, but the neem should do the trick.

As far as the dehydrator, if it runs at 95 degrees and has good air flow it would dessicate any spores within 24 hours and then I can go back to line drying. The first 24 hours after cutting are critical and any buds with mold should be discarded.

We'll see how it all goes.

 

[sirgrassalot]

Sounds like solid advice.

I never had bud rot. I thought I had it once & I was peed. What happened was I had some bud hanging in the basement...everywhere & some fell off wires etc into the sink when my girlfriend was doing the laundry. The machine was in the cycle where it spits out water so the sink had linty water. When she pulled the bud out of the sink & hung it back up lint was on it when dried it looked just like mold. Than there's me with the loupe checking the shit out pulling my buds apart & discarding any with the lint hahaha. A day or two later I mentioned what I saw on the bud & she confessed what had happened. *I@(&**^$

 

[MynameStitch]

Bud rot is not curable except for removing affected pieces out of the grow room and hoping it does not spread, while controlling youe humidity or stop misting the plants late into flower.


Have you ever tasted neem oil on buds? I bet it taste like the biggest S*** you never wanted to taste.
I would not advise putting anything on the buds. If it smells like mold your humidity has to be high or you are misting too much in mid to late flowering.

Are you using a RH meter to tell your RH or are you guessing?
If it smells like mold and your RH is correct, then there is something else wrong, or the smell could be strain related and your smell is off

Mold spores grow very well is high humidity and warm temps and I am sure the warm temps is speeding up the process, if it is like that, there is no way your RH is at the % you listed and must be higher.....

You must control your RH first, otherwise it will keep coming back, you want your temps to stay under 75 when you have high humidity issues, but you must get a dehumidifier, because arounmd this temp, powdery mildew can form, it switches over from a different fungus to another one which thrives in cooler to warmer temps.

 

[HeadyPete]

^^^ What she said! Neem smells like crap, wouldn't want to smoke it. Any "hydro guy" that advises you to spray anything, let alone a foul smelling, sticky oil on your buds should be bitchslapped right out of business. When that oily coating goes hard and rancid, you will be in for a real treat!

You need to improve your intakes if there are restrictions. Also, you will not keep out mold spores unless you build a NASA clean room with high tech filtration, so don't fret about the open doors. The high temps and humidity are worse than open doors.

How crowded is it in there? Some selective pruning of underdeveloped lower scraggly branches can help out with circulation. You will lose some bud, but those weak branches were never gonna give nice buds anyways. 2 weeks before and 2 weeks into bloom I prune out all inside/weak and short branches to let the plant concentrate on the nice ideal budsites.

 

[sirgrassalot]

Einstein only before bloom. I agree, I reread that post & I don't think he says spray it on the buds! Also I wouldn't spray my buds with water or soapy that long into flowering although they make a point about washing off the oil.

 

[otherwhitemeat]

Headypete, yes it's very crowded....this is my first time and I have four plants in a 3" x 2" space....that's prolly a big part of my problem. I wasn't sure if I had all girls and when they finally showed, I couldn't bear to cull a girlie. On my next round I am going to put no more than 2-3 in my space and scrog it, also need MUCH bigger passive intakes and a better circulation fan. Gotta get temps close to 80, right now...way over during the day. Thanks for the advice.

Mynamestitch, I don't think it's bud rot...I think it was just some mildew caused by temporarily high RH from overwatering and not enough air movement. I turned the fan a bit up and I am being very careful not to overwater now. I think my tendency to overwater also had lots to do with it.

I have a digital wireless hygro/thermo setup for the 'cab, it's very accurate. My RH is very low for this room, it's actually in the same room as my furnance is the basement. It is usually about 30-40% but during the day it gets up to 85F. I think I was overwatering so I had a pool of water in the catch tray for about a day a few times a week. Although the RH spiked at 50%, withe the doors open, the can fan cranking and warm temps....it created the perfect environment for mildew.

I'm afraid that I wasn't able to log in for a while and see all this great feedback. I am sorry to say that I sprayed my buds down with a weak solution of Einstein (Neem). One of the plants buds are bit hard and dry, the other three look absolutely fine-almost unaffected. Oddly enough, the one that's most affected by the Neem also seems to the most Indica Dom of the 4 (all mixed bagseed, but I got some great looking plants from it) The buds on this one almost seem partially cured/dry...I treated them about two days ago and and came back and they all smelled like nice skunk...no neem smell apparent, though I noticed that most of my trichs are headless. One of the colas smelled a little funny still, all other budsites smell normal with no apparent signs of rot/mold and no neem smell. I gave them another shot of the neem concoction, then came and read this thread :-( I will likely wind up harvesting one of the fastest growers in a week or so (hopefully my trichs' heads grow back!) and not treating any further with neem. I am going to fast dry the first plant in the dehydrator set to 95 to keep them from gettting moldy while drying. I learned alot from this first run and I am glad I used bagseed....while it still exceeded my expectations I learned quite a bit. If I get a zip or so, I will be happy....already started planning improvements to my cab and am sprouting some new beans.

I really appreciate everyone's help...thank you.

 

[MynameStitch]

It will be bud rot if you do not get your temps under control.

 

[otherwhitemeat]

Got my temps olding at about 80 daytime, and 65 at night thanks to help from mother nature. RH is about 30% right now thanks to a dehumidifier and much more self control when watering. I trimmed some of the low growth to get more air movement and opened up my passive intakes a bit better. Also, I have the Ionic Breeze inside of the cab on med to attract mold spores, the effect is probably negiligible but I don't think it's hurting any.

 

[otherwhitemeat]

Just figured I'd provide an update to everyone who helped. Turns out I had the Ionic Breeze on too high and Ozone burned a few leaf tips. It's been on low and harmless ever since.

I was worried quite a bit about using the neem oil but after two applications and a few lost trichome heads my buds are none worse for the wear. Some trichs did not fully recover, but new growth is now taking over and they are looking good and frosty. I think the surfactant (dish soap) that I used had more to do with lost trich heads than anything else.

One plant hermied on me but I am pretty sure it was on it's way to doing that anyway. It was culled and dried in my foodsaver for 16 hours on 95 deg F, when I removed the buds from the foodsaver---the outsides were dessicated and I put them into paper bags for 48 hours, then into the jar. They've been jarred for a few days are are starting to gradually lose that hay smell, the moisture is evenly distributed in the buds and the stems are snapping nicely. The smoke tastes surprisingly light but because this one had less post neem recovery time, the stone is not too potent. Naners were splitting everywhere and I had no choice.

I don't really like the Dehydrator because it dries the pistils first and a number of these fell off when being transferred. If I had to rush to dry out buds for fear of mold again, I think I would go with 8 hours in the Dhydrator and then an overnight in a a jar or bag, then 8 hours etc, until they wre dry enough for a proper jar cure. Now that they are in the jars, the buds are curing nicely....and the girls that remain standing smell like nothing but pure, sweet kind with no hint of the moldy smell or neem. I owe my recovery to learning that I was watering too much, and that I had to open up my passives better to reduce the temps and maybe a little help from neem. A very valuable learning lesson, but not a painful one.

 

[MynameStitch]

I was just about to say about those, you must have the old one that does not have the ozone filtration on it...... they remade them with them on due to high amounts of ozone coming out and causing people to have asthma problems.

I found it completely messed up that the asthma and allergy association backed it when a side effect caused asthma to become inflamed.

You have a pic of what the ozone damage looked like on the tips?

I would try to keep those temps up at night, those cool temps is also helps contribute to mold, so try to stay above 72 at night.

 

[otherwhitemeat]

I was just about to say about those, you must have the old one that does not have the ozone filtration on it...... they remade them with them on due to high amounts of ozone coming out and causing people to have asthma problems.

I found it completely messed up that the asthma and allergy association backed it when a side effect caused asthma to become inflamed.

You have a pic of what the ozone damage looked like on the tips?

I would try to keep those temps up at night, those cool temps is also helps contribute to mold, so try to stay above 72 at night.

Temps are around 70-72 at night, but it's never much below 70 and rpolly sometimes gets up to mid 70's. I harvested 1 of three a few days ago and tonight the last two are coming down.

Might I add? I am SOOO HAPPY, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'VE DONE THIS!! I AM SO PROUD OF THIS. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever created. Making children wasn't half as hard as growing weed, though perhaps equally rewarding.

(sorry, don't mean to shout but I can seem to tell any real people, so telling the internet seems like a pretty good idea right now)

Sorry, I didn't save any of the damaged leaves, it didn't even occur to me you'd be interested in phtotos of them. To more correctly describe as what I though was Ozone damage...I had N defs early on and that caused some yellowing to browning, this was nothing like that. The 'allegedly' Ozone damaged leaves were more like little burns holes, between the veins...almost like they had been eaten by leafsuckers...total necrosis, like the plant had decided to eat itself from within. When I first noticed the problem, I figured it could be Ozone damage and turned the thing off for a day, then put it on low the next. The spots obviously didn't heal themselves but stopped getting worse and new leaves didn't develop the same thing. It seemed mostly on the lower fans, where air is more stagnant, the tops had no deficiences and everything else went great. Got some new air movers, bigger passives and have learned so much. I probably will get 2.5-3z from the plants and I am so happy to not have to give money to a dealer this month.

I inherited the Ionic Breeze from an older family member that bought them thinking the were the sheezy. Turns out, like two years later the AAF came out with their scathing read on on the Ionic Breezes. I didn't know this and was using it in my CLOSED bedroom to cut down on plaster dust during a remodel. Woke up with a headache and ill quite a few times. I'm in very fine health too, no allergies or asthma. Ozone is good at killing things, my feeling is that humans are included in that category. It decimates mold spores and I used them quite a bit to keep down on spore counts was I was practicing amateur mycology.

 

[Bigge]

I can't start a new post but I found this one that describes my problem....two of my platinum cookie clones are 23 day of flower and the buds smell like wet socks. I pulled them and am on the verge of putting them outside to grow by themselves. Any thoughts on this smell and what to do about it? Leaves are dark green and healthy looking...no fungus or mold on the leaves or the buds...I pulled a couple of smell buds and split them and checked with a loop..no sign of bud rot. All buds on two of these girls smell like wet musty socks.

Humidity is 35 to 40, and temps are 70-82,soil, GH nutes.

I've have read about odd smelling phenos that stink for a week or so during flower but haven't run into a wet sock smelling plant. My AC had some bacteria smell during first turn on...different smell but could it have contaminated the plants....and why do only the buds smell this way?

 

[Bigge]

Well I pulled the plants from the tent cleaned it out with anti bacterial soap did a smell test on all plants and the tent running empty...it's definitely two of the girls that were next to the AC input....I think I was running the AC during lights off and the cold made RH higher...mold grew or mildew grew...but I'm hoping that it is the type of mold or mildew from the AC and not a kind that can deal with high temps and lots of light and since there is no outward or inward sign of a problem other than odor...I've quarantined them and mixed a 7.0 ph 50/50 tap water and H20 folliant and drenched them...buds, leaves, stems, pot, top soil......will let them dry in the dark for thirty minutes and then put them back under the light...this is the best I could come up with....fingers crossed...if they continue to smell guess its the bin for them. Any ideas or thoughts on my remedy or other remedies are welcome....no harsh chem suggestions please.

 

[Bigge]

After the drenching with peroxide I put them back in with the others...turned off the AC...added another 6" fan in line and made sure the two stinky plants have good airflow to buds....they don't stink yet...we will see...I can see some brown/tan pistils on the stinky plants after the peroxide application.

 

[Bigge]

Didn't work. I'll try the neem and see what That does.

 

[Bigge]

Removed the plant from grow....dried it, no signs of mold...cured for a couple days and smells great and very potent when smoked..on par with full term strength...wow. Well, I guess this cloud had a silver lining...along with removing moldy smell from the grow I ended up with 1/2 oz of platinum cookies for the crew...meaning me. Also learned that you can harvest in week 7 flower and salvage some strong stuff with decent smell and taste (no bag appeal though).

Lesson here is prevention is the key...Bud rot with a mildew is tough to fight on flower...watch temps...