Drying & Curing buds ON the plant?

Aye mates!

Just a simple (or not so simple?) question that came to my mind:
Can you dry and sunsequently cure your bud by letting the plant dry out in a dark room? I have heard that the harvest/smoke using this method should be excellent.

Theory:
The plan is to veg, then flower normally. At the end of flowering, the light is turned off completely and air circulation is turned down to a minimum. Also the plant is not watered so it dries out. As the plant dries, the buds also dry equally because Phloems and Xylems (water and nutrient transportation systems) have not been cut yet. Nutrients still travel through the plant allowing for buds to gain more cannabinoids. After some days the roots and stems will shrink and the mass transfer is aborted.
The curing process is similar to some others used to dry and cure tobacco. The plant is left at an appropriate rH and you wait until chlorophyll and ammonium compunds are depleted. During this process, air circulation is raised every now and then (with regard to humidity of the product).
Once you are finished, I'd say in roughly about two weeks, you cut the colas and manicure them. Voilá!

I couldn't find any answers by searching or googleing (sounds funny), in fact I just stumbled upon this method in the shallows of the internet..

Opinions (+ & -) and links are appreciated, but most of all I'd like to hear from someone who actually worked his way through this process.

try something like that, but only some of the plant. maybe it will give you a better smoke? who knows. no reason not to leave some larf on there and see what happens. process the rest like everyone does. theres a reason its been done that way for so long. it works great. maybe your way will give you the results you are after. most people are going to say to just grow great bud and let it be what it be.

I will do that, but the issue with this is that the plant is probably going to put the nutrients it has to the places where stems had been cut. In addition it is likely for it to suffer from stress which prolongs the time by some days at least - and that's the critical point, because then the plant will be dried out and nothing happens to the buds anymore.
Unfortunately there is only one plant atm and it is pretty small (but 2 weeks of bloom already) so I think the overall effects will be more drastic with this little dwarf.. That means if I'm not sure about my theory I will just do it the conventional way

probably something to try when you have more plants kicking around. its good yr thinking,,,, im always thinking..... who knows some of the craziest ideas have have made some major waves. i try to keep an open mind. speaking of....

You're really just describing a "raisin" cure, and yes, been there done that.

There are several variations, possibilities, and results. What you describe, the true "raisin" cure, is done on the live vine. I've tried that, and invariably the end result is a dangerously prolonged plant death that promotes mold and poor flavor. A better variation is to cut the stalk close to the soil and leave the plant suspended vertically on its stakes. Of course this works best when the plants can be held in a temp/rh controlled environment.

The end result is a plant where the original appearance of the buds is maintained, and as gravity doesn't close the bud in on itself, the plant keeps an open floral look. With many strains there can be a dramatic improvement in bag appeal. Trimming may be a little easier and drying is a bit faster. You still want to buck the plant down and do a final sweat/cure in a more closed environment once the plant has finished initial drying and taken a set.

Other then the unique appearance, there is always a taste/cure advantage to drying buds on the plant - so a proper raisin cure is usually a sweet smoke, but it's all just shits and giggles really...

I've read a couple people as far back as the OG forums claiming to have let their plants "die in the pot" instead of cutting, drying, and curing them, and I recall one in particular saying that it improved the flavor and smoke itself because the "chlorophyll leached back into the soil." Take that with a box or two of salt, since half the crap I've read on pot forums over the years is complete bullshit.

some of the early "lore" is really interesting, some of it is silly. but back in the day growing weed wasnt like today, kids on forums growing Kush in closets and hydro stores all over, dispensaries providing true strain clones etc, it's awesome, but someone had to pave the way. think of all the crazy stuff youd try if you were the only person you knew trying to grow pot inside? i wonder whoever did the first scrog?

This is how I do my plants. I do it because if I trimmed my plants I would be over my weight limit. By drying the entire plant it counts as a plant till it is trimmed. So I only trim enough to hit my limit and stop. When that is gone I trim till I hit my limit again and stop.

What I do is just turn the lights off. I skip the last watering. I increase the air movement in the room. No prolonged direct air on one spot of the plant. I use a rotating fan. For half the day it is doing the top of the plants and then the other half the bottom of the plants.

After a day or two the plants will start to wilt. At this point I drop the RH in the room to 35-40%. I want to dry the bulk of the plant quickly. When the buds start to feel a little dry on the outside I increase the RH to about 50%. Then I resume a normal dry. It takes me 9-11 days to get to the point that I trim. If during that drying it feels like the buds are getting moist on the outside I will drop the RH till the are dry on the out side and then raise it.

The temp is about 72 to 76 degrees during this time. Some times a little less or more. But for the most part it is in this range.

One of the draw backs is that some strains will get a little fluffier this way. But for smell and smoothness of smoke this is a small price. When you open a jar of my stuff you know it in the next room.

Another thing is that because I didnt give it a long cure it may have a slightly greener taste. 95% of the people wont notice unless they are a serious pot snob. You can fix this by not dropping it to 50% and taking a little longer in the last part to dry. I do it because it allows me to trim about 4 ounces a hour at this moisture content.

When I drop my stuff off at the dispensary it flies off the shelf. The first thing that grabs people is the over powering smell this drying style gives it. I have opened 11 jars at the dispensary and just one of mine over powered all of them combined. But if the bud does not look pretty smell wont sell it alone.

Which leads to another point. My buds dont look tumbled. The hairs stick straight out all over and the buds are not flat. They look just like they did when you shut the lights off with the exception of a few elongated calixes.

Thanks for your answers!
I am going to cut the stem close to the soil/roots, hang it upside down and dry it, then manicure the buds and give them a good cure in a jar.

@Ichabod Crane
Besides smell/aroma/appearance..would you say the raisin method gave you a more potent bud? More weight? Do you have any comparison to another method (concerning potency/weight)?

I wonder if someone had already compared different methods like these e.g. on clones to see how one product differs from another despite of the same genes...

Merry Christmas everyone and don't forget to light up that christmas tree

I can not say on potency. Smell yes that went way up. Weight I dont think went up.

For me I was looking to reduce the amount of usable product on hand. This allowed me to keep that in plant form instead of usable product form. It also made it so I didnt loose product before it could be processed. Another by product was that I could have many different strains nearly ready to go. This way gave me better variety with just a simple trimming. No wait for growing and drying.

thats clever. i like it!

i have done this with a small plant.
the smoke was screaming head high and took me by surprise.
left it, it dried outdoors. leaves were brown when i picked. so was bud. but had amazing pine smell to it. strongest head high ive ever had off a small plant, maybe because it dried on plant like you said?

To those who have done this, how is trimming when it's dried upright vs upside-down, easier, harder, better looking nug?

I dont think it matters. The leaves just pop off. Hanging the fans wrap the bud but are still easy to snap off. Standing up they kind off stick out and you just work from the bottom up they are straight out. But really they are about the same.

I've tried this OD, and Indoors.... Except I just stop watering and left the lights on their usual 12/12 cycle...

results in a super faded bud look.... Normally light green buds looks white/yellow... Upside it always seems to extract lighter....

I did it out of necessity indoors (got hurt couldnt trim)... and outdoors it was just a plant I missed chopping for 2 weeks that was in a pot...by the time i discovered the poor gal she was just a big old foxtailed mess....surprisingly potent tho Strain OD was durban poison.

I'd not do OD again deliberately...too many chances for mold.....

I remember reading this thread where Riddleme does this. I've never tried it though.

You want to chop and hang... doing this leaves your plant susceptible to rot.

I dry the entire plant and get no mold. Currently trimming about 3 pounds that dried at 75 degrees and 48%/H. I have no mold. Good air flow stops that.

I started drying them on the 15th of last month and they are just now ready to trim. Maybe a little to wet yet.

lmao. Chlorophyll isn't going to leach back into the soil.

I care more about having sugar leaf wrap around the bracts. Some strains don't get huge or dense bracts, so sugar leaf is very much apart of the weight and bag appeal.