Preserving the Crop:: Final Stages of The Harvest

Everyone has their own techniques when it comes to harvesting and preserving the crop. Some may trim the plants apart and dry on screens with fans while others uproot the plants and hang it in the nearest tree.

What do you do to get the crop to the oh-so-sweet zone of moisture? What are the best cropping methods? What are the best storage methods?

To improve security, outdoor drying methods seem to work the best for our situation. Almost anything can be used to shed water. So long as the flowers don't get soaked with rain and have good ventilation, they are in a very interesting environment for curing.

With each morning comes heavy dew. Moisture fills the air and dissipates with the morning sun. Temperatures are constantly changing. This is the ideal environment for preserving cannabis because it allows the moisture to slowly leave the flowers during part of the day and then leaving more quickly during other parts of the day, when the sun comes out and teperatures rise.

Cut into arm length 2-4 branch sections. Trim fan leaves and some easy to access closer fans, not getting too picky. Hang over or tie to a tree branch with a rubberized canvas tarp covering the branch and anchored down. Camoflage is preferred of course. Hemp twine is preferred because it blends in well and desintigrates easily.

Allow to dry for 2 weeks. Depending on the weather an additional week of drying may be needed.

Stems near the flower should break, but this isnt always the case. If they are close to being at the breaking poing of moisture content, sometimes they just need to be jarred to accomodate for the next round of harvest. It seems like leaving some moisture in them works well to preserve the flavor and aroma of the trichome resin. But be careful here, more moisture creates a bigger risk for molds developing.

Trim into individual flower clusters and seal in jars. Burp jars every day or 2 for a week, smelling them each time to check for mold/ammonia smell. If the jar is too moist, leave the lid off for a couple hours and let it air out.

The crop can be stored in a number of environments. An attic, a closet, a chest of drawers, barns, cellers, in trees, in the ground..... How do you store your crop?

Buried mason jars have been a tradition since the days of alcohol prohibition, why quit now... I've found 5 gallon buckets with rubber o-ring lids work well to seal out the elements from our sacred crop.

I hang it outside when I can, but most often the end of the season comes via fog and rain and not necessarily cold. Inside I stick it in a room with a space heater set to about 90 degrees for the first day and turning it off once they start to dry out so I always try to leave a bit of moisture in them as I think that's one key to the cure. I think the water helps break it down and age it while bringing out/preserving flavor.

I've thought about the rural bank way of cashing pot but I have never done it with more than one jar and never for long. A 5 gallon with bags would be a nice way to keep your in house stash low but still have plenty.

Thats some frosty outdoor. I miss those days........ Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Thanks for your input, Deft and opm45! Rain and fog definately put a damper on things. Mold watch is a constant thing.... Weather watching is equally as important in making quick decisions in harvest timing.

Maintaining moisture through the cure is for sure important. I think the moisture keeps the resin from getting too much air to it, so that it cures in an anaerobic environment and maintains terpenes and flavinoids better than quickly dried or overly dry resins.

Another part of cure beside the resin is the breakdown of chlorophyll and other leaf materials. An adequate cure will reduce the harshness found in freshly harvested inflourescences.

Hi pipeline

My methods arent much different than yours. I even bury my jars in 5 gallon buckets.

I do want to mention a word about cure. I have a barn which certainly makes it easier for me, but its what happens in the barn that is important.

I live in tobacco country pipeline. Tobacco has to be dried and cured just as cannabis does. They have a great deal in common, the 2 plants do.
In the curing of tobacco, there are 2 steps. The first is to allow the tobacco to dry and the second is to allow the tobacco to come into and out of a condition called "case". Case is the condition that occurs when dried leaf matter takes on and mimics the natural humidity and natural drying, in a daily cycle.

Once the cannabis is quite dry, the doors are opened on the barn and the humidity is allowed to permeat the interior. In the mornings withe the high humidity overnight, the cannabis leaf material absorbs the moisture in the air and becomes flacid and moist. By afternoon, with the heating of the day, the cannabis dries out again.

The act of drying the plant each day and re moisturizing the plant each night over an extended period of several weeks has the effect of a water cure without the water. Most of the chlorophyll has left, the harshness has left and the smoke burns even and consistent, just as the finsest tobacco's in the world behave.
I would strongly recommend this process if a grower has the capacity to do it.

Hey pipeline.

The things i do are similar to yours. I even bury my jars in 5 gallon buckets.

There is a difference in the way I cure however.
I live in tobaccon country pipeline. Tobacco and cannabis are very similar plants in many ways and one of the ways they are similar is that the curing process has a significant impact on the nature of the plant material. Fine tobaccos must be cured slowly and properly, just as cannabis does so that the taste and texture are at a premium.

In the curing of tobacco, a process known as "casing" is used. Casing is the act of drieng the cannabis well and then allowing the humidity in the air to be reabsorbed each night when humidity is high, and then redried each day when the afternoon temps rise.

This daily continuous cycle of drying, re moisturizing, drying, remoisturizing day after day for about 3 weeks seems to have the same effect as water curing without the water. Harshness, expansion and burn is removed and the sugars and true flavors of the cannabis, (or tobacco) is allowed to come through.

Keeping harsh chemicals out of the dirt for the last 3o days of growth, curing, casing, curing, casing = tasty smooth smoke.

After that, your jar process.

I would highly recommend it.

i will be doing some outdoor drying this year. ill be harvesting the bulk of it at end of august, so when there is a week or so of sun forecast, ill be cutting and drying outdoors.. im really lookin forward to having much better security this year. will be nice

Thanks silverback, I have barns, but not the security to cure cannabis in them, or I would do the same! Pretty cool stuff!

Last year I had left a couple plots that were close together go until Jan 16 because I thought I had seen 2 flashlights moving around the area 2 nights in a row on nights I went to harvest before a big rain... May have been dusk to dawn lights though, because the plants were still there! They were without mold except for a very small wet part of one plant! The color was brown as they had ben drying in the wind, no chlorophyll and a very smooth texture. Taste was very pronounced too! This is another great way to cure if the weather will allow.... I've read about ancient mountain growers that just girdle their plants and let them die naturally standing up, but I wouldn't want to push it though.

Anyone use a dehydrator? I have used one to dry a few buds once or twice a long while ago and was disappointed in the flavor loss and over crispness of the flowers....

How about a mircrowave?

Anyone ever used a pine tree to dry in?

what strains will you be putting out mr. stinky? When is their expected ripening date at your latitude? You'll need some early genetics to make that work like you want.... Yield will be sacrificed if not.....

Drying can be done outdoors even if it rains. You just need something to shed the water, for example a trailer, a car/truck, a tarp tent, barn, piece of plywood.... Use yer imagination....

Flexibility is always a good thing...

guerilla gold #3 is going to be the basis of that plan. i have these monster KCBrains DD that will get put in other spots and dried indoors late october, but for the august crop, GG#3. im at 41N in the greatlakes region. we have alot of cloudy days, but end of august is usually pretty clear.

Pipe

Nice thread I have dried outdoors many times but usually dry on a tarp or this season found an old fence.

(well I dont have the new post pics figured out it says drag and drop but didnt work)

My only input is that this year I buried some 5 gal buckets with the gasketed lids and they worked well through the fall stayed dry during rains and so easy to find a nice spot to bury them.

When I went out this month to check on some seed stock I had buried in one of the buckets, chipping away the frozen earth and pulling the lid open, I was so surprised to see 2 inches of water not ice but water (below the freeze line I guess, well not for my area 40 inches). This very same 5 gal bucket held bud all fall the only thing I can figure out is the freeze/thaw cycle must have worked the lid loose enough to allow melting snow in.

Has this ever happened to you? First time using this method and a little gun shy from this experience.
PEACE

Guerilla Gold is on my wish list actually! That would be a good strain to use!Best of luck to ya! I'm just south of ya a little below 40 N.

Hey hamstring thanks for your input! The photo bbc code have to be copied and pasted onto the text part of your post. I haven't got the drag and drop to work either.

I don't bury the buckets all the way. Leave the buckets about an inch out of the ground, and cover with leaves /debris. Seems to work well. Plus you don't have to go digging every time you want to refill the stash...

Views from this season....

ive wanted to try it for a while, but didnt know where to get it...didnt bother lookin too hard because i figured it would be pretty pricey... when i found where to get it, i was really surprised im wishin i had gotten the manitoba meds as well...oh well

ill have lots of pics this fall... thanks for the kind words :smile:

Pipe
Nice pics looking good fresh buds in the outdoor refer (Pun unintended but has a nice ring to it.). I really like the 5 gal bucket idea and keeping them above ground an inch or so should make the difference. The weed really stays fresh in the ground and temps don’t varry as much underground. And hell yeah!!! No chipping frozen earth away to get some nice winter buds.

I will make adjustments for next season and really appreciate the advice
.

Thanks hamstring! No problem man, glad to help! The secret was getting the soil out of there without making an obvious mess... A fallen tree provides the perfect place to dump the soil. It only has to be done once as well.... Best of luck this year! Hope you get to fill em up!

Burping jars

cool guerilla style Pipeline

Thanks zielonylasss! So what techniques do you use for cropping, drying, and curing the fruits of the gardens. I know you pulled in some fruits this year!

That is such a great leaf!

The leaf there isn't growing the stamen (male flowers), the stamen are from one of 3 Deep Chunk plants. It was put in between the leaflets to ensure pollination.

What is the deal with burying the weed in the ground? This is intriguing. I am hoping to have about 2lbs a plant, granting me around 12lbs and did not really want to keep it in the house. Does it cure the stash better? Or is it simply to keep your large amounts out of the house for security? Thanks in advance. To the original poster; wouldnt animals get after the weed you have hanging there? I have dear and turkeys and hogs in my forest behind me, where I will be growing and I am worried to death that the critters will have their way with me ladies! Cheers!

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