bud rot

[LedElk]

Okay, so I was real close to harvest (+-1week) and I discovered two of my plants had some bud rot. Two buds were visibly rotten with "white fuzz" and a couple of buds were in the early stages.

I cut off and tossed every infected bud I saw. No mercy. The whole bud. And chopped the entire garden, inspected it and hung it to dry.

My questions are as follows:



1. Is the bud rot fast enough to show itself on the drying plants before they're dried and ready for curing?

I'm hoping it is, so I can be certain my buds are healthy if they don't show signs of rot in ~10 days of drying.


2. The drying plants look and smell fine (I think). Should I water-cure the whole batch, eliminating the chances of bud rot "re-infection" or take my chances that it's gone for good and let it continue to air-dry?

All of this happened today.

Thanks for your time.

 

[LedElk]

I've been doing some more research and it seems the unaffected plants are good to air-dry. Any comments on this?

My worst case scenario is that the plants are all carrying spores that will either show themselves during this drying-period or explode as soon as they go into the jars.

 

[mowood3479]

Unless ur drying area is soaking wet it should not spread at all once chopped.
The bummer is it could already be attacking the insides of some normal looking buds..
Some people r very allergic to smoking botryitis...
Id still use it just be mindful that it came out of a room with a rot issue..

 

[LedElk]

Yeah, that's my concern as well. that it is already developing inside the buds that look healthy... If I water-cure it should take care of the rot right? It will be starved for oxygen for a week, and I've heard that kills the mold. If dead spores still are a threat to allergics that won't fix the problem though.. CRAP.

My buddy is allergic to furry animals and he has been waiting for this grow o be ready for months. Who knows if it will be an issue. Actually I highly doubt it. I'm assuming bud rot is quite common and the chances some of the weed we've been smoking throughout our lives has been contaminated to some degree is very high. No problems has ever occurred though, nor have I ever heard of anyone who's had any problems with this ever.

But, if the buds dry with no problem but rot in the curing jars because of spores, I'll be dissapointed. That won't happen if I watercure though.. So, what i need is some basis for an estimate of "risk of mold" versus "cons of water-curing"...

 

[LedElk]

I'm still researching this and it seems a lot of people cut off the sick buds and harvest the rest of the plant as a routine procedure. Others on the other hand treat bud rot like the plague and burn the whole crop chanting protection spells.

Looking for answers on the internet is easy, the problem is finding the correct one. Thanks for your 2 cents mowood, have you had bud rot in your garden?

 

[MIway]

from where you are at now...

continue to dry pref 40%rh, def under 50
get a loupe
open up every bud to inspect... at least all the main colas, strip em apart to look inside
you'll have to make the call based on what you see, how bad the spread... but it is possible all thr smaller nugs have zero germination/mycellium

usually it gets all the main colas, esp 3" diameter & larger
if the dry room rh is under 50rh, it wont grow any more, esp after first two days


problem is temp swings & too high rh, so thats the thing to address next round
also, physan the room in between... all the fans, floors, walls, ceiling, etc... but if you control temp/rh, even if spores are present, cant germinate.


can sensr the stress in the typing, kind of a panicked feeling? feel for ya man. is what it is, next round tho ;-)

 

[LedElk]

I've been trimming the plants now to speed up the drying process and that slightly funky smell I've been worrying about is exactly the same on every single bud, so I doubt it's bud rot-smell. Most likely the smell of this strain.

 

[LedElk]

Hey, man thanks for replying. yep, it's that panicky-feeling allright.. This is my first actual harvest and I didn't even know about this "bud rot" shit before today, so it's a sucky situation. And me being quite meticulous about things isn't helping. well, it is actually. but it's stressing me out. Got some friends waiting to share these buds with me and I can't risk anyone getting sick from it.

I got the plants hanging in a pretty good ventilated area, so it's probably gonna be ok. I don't have the rh #'s but I do have a moisture absorbent placed in the room. (lots of silica-gel). Also I put ~1oz wet to water cure.

 

[LedElk]

MIway I inspected almost every bud and there are NO signs of rot anywhere. I can't see the mushy brown slimey stuff I saw on the inside of the infected buds earlier, anywhere on the "healthy" buds. They are quite wet and mushy though, but I'm pretty sure that is the sticky-icky that's supposed to be there and not rot. I tried pulling apart on some of the mushiest plant material inside the buds and it tears like normal plant material would, so it doesn't seem to be like the slimey dissolving rot I found earlier.

 

[Crooked8]

Drying at 40%rh is too low. Ruins your terpenes. Drying at 55-65 is recommended and safe. Budrot doesnt present itself in the bud until above 65% humidity whether its internally that high or externally that high. Usually its both.

 

[aridbud]

I vote water cure so you don't inhale spore residue.

 

[LedElk]

Just got my rh-meter up and running (a bit late for that tho) and the drying cab is at 30%. Any ideas how to adjust that to the 50's range? bowl of water?

Aridbud, have you experienced and cured bud rot with water curing yourself? Cause I'm probably going down that way, just to feel safe about this harvest. But first I'll take a bud and place it in a "bud rot-incubator" to see if it rots.

 

[ozzieAI]

mould spores are everywhere....we breathe them in all the time. not saying you should smoke mouldy buds but drying in a low humidity environment will halt their development.

i have water cured buds before...not something i would recommend...

i deal with mould every year and find chucking the rotten buds away and drying in a low humidity (after a close inspection with loupe) works for me

good luck

 

[LedElk]

Yeah, ozzieAI, mold spores are everywhere indeed. I've put approx half of the harvest in water-curing. the other half is drying in 30% rh since yesterday, and I still can't see a trace of bud rot anywhere. You would need to be hyper-allergic to spores if you get sick from healthy bud that has only been in the vicinity of sick buds. that's a totally uneducated statement by the way, but it sounds right. And if you're hyper-allergic you would probably encounter some problems early in your weed-smoking career, IF it is that dangerous.

I'm changing my mind twice every ten minutes about water-curing everything, but right now I'm sticking to regular curing.

Thanks for the replies, more info is welcome. I know there's a lot of bud rot threads around, and I'm reading through them all but still I appreciate you replying to this thread.

Has anyone ever heard of anyone getting sick from seemingly healthy buds? I know people have gotten sick from moldy buds, but healthy buds only exposed to spores without being afflicted by the fungus? Where I live there is only amature growers weed to be found and I would definitely assume some of those have experienced bud rot without giving a fifth of the fucks I have and I have never heard of anyone getting sick from weed.

 

[LedElk]

Oh, and Ozzie what do you look for with a loupe that you can't see with a naked eye? It seems the base of the flower stems are a key area to watch for discoloration? I haven't seen any discoloration or any other signs, but I have not used a loupe.

 

[LedElk]

I found this great, level-headed post about mold in cannabis:

http://www.marijuana.com/threads/marijuana-and-mold.152881/

 

[mowood3479]

I should have said what miway said also. Inspect alll the buds.. But look for white furryness not brown.. It starts of looking kinda like hairy roots on a fresh clone(color wise) n the bud will b brittle. N ya ive had rot a few times when i was too lazy to plug in the dehue...
Get it dried.. Most of it will prob b fine if its only shown in a few buds so far. Biggest n densest r most prone

 

[LedElk]

Ok, I haven't seen any white furryness either. The buds really look allright. I'm leaving them to dry for now, but I will inspect every day. The problem might arise when it's going in to jars for curing, right?

 

[mowood3479]

No, once u get it dried out to where stems will break ur prob home free (in my experience)
Never had rot spread much at all once chopped

 

[LedElk]

Ah, good news. I guess I got lucky this time. Next time the humidity will be regulated and every precaution taken. thanks for the help. I'll post the results.