I found mold while trimming what to do next please help
- Thread starter Jongavin1
- Start date
break it all open as you trim and check everything. anything with mold is garbage. you don't want it mixing with the stuff you can save for curing, it will take the good bud out.
- Thread starter
- #3
The plant I found the mold on was drying with all my other plants. I need to check all of them or just the one with the mold?
check them all. it spreads form plant to plant pretty rapid. by the time you see it most of the damage is done.
I don't now what stage of the drying & curing process you are at but yes keep trimming and tossing infected buds. As @bluter says, you will have to go through all of them and check and include any that you might have already trimmed before noticing the bad one. The mold can jump from plant to plant and it can jump from one bud to the next if they are touching.
I just went though the same sort of thing when pulling a couple of smaller plants that I had outside until Thursday. While cutting the plants I tossed any buds that had very obvious signs of Bud Rot and then while trimming the rest of it I kept checking and doing any fine-tuned timming or removal of bad buds that had signs.
Then did a wash of all the buds and stems that were left over in a Hydrogen Peroxide and water solution. I followed that with a wash in Lemon Juice and Baking Soda and two aggressive fresh water rinses. The harvest is on screens right now so any water can be dried off with a gently air movement from a fan. Later today I will put the dry buds into a bag or two and then into the kitchen fridge for a low and slow drying the green material to pull out any moisture in the stems and buds. So in two or three weeks it will be dry and mostly cured. Then it can go into the jars for storage.
My opinion is that you are better off keeping your buds out of the jars until all signs of mold have been removed, the buds washed at least with the Hydrogen Peroxide and then dried. Even one bud with still living mold in a jar will ruin the rest of them in the same jar. To be on the safe side do not pack the jars until the dry and cure is finished. Even if everything is done to the best of our ability there is the chance that a jar can go bad so no point in loosing to much of the harvest by cramming the jars full. Spread the harvest over a couple of jars if at all possible.
Spot on - just done exactly that with my last Blue Dream after Mel spotted something and messaged me
Thankfully no white stems though
- Thread starter
- #7
What’s the ratio you use for those washes? I only found a few nugs with mold and got rid of them right away I already finished trimming the plant and threw it in a jar last night but I don’t think it would hurt to wash the other ones finishing up in a same dry tent thank you guys for the help
have a look here. i use h202 in my bud wash as well. it will help kill live mold spores but won't save any affected bud.
Bud Washing
First off, I did not come up with the idea of washing buds as part of harvest. I'm not sure where the idea originated, but I learned of it via Curso and DocBud. :Namaste: I've read with interest as several members have tried this technique. The idea already appealed to me on a logical level...
www.420magazine.com
My current basic method is for my average 'perpetual' harvest of 2 plants at a time with 3 1/2 to 4 ounces of trimmed bud after drying. No idea what the fresh weight is since I do not get out the scale just to know that. The method involves trimming the buds which might take me two or more days 'cause I hate trimming. Some of the stems still have the trimmed buds on them as a way to control moisture for a low and slow "dry & cure". What I do and some of what I see happening in each step is going to be mentioned along with the ratios.
For average everyday harvests of indoor plants that do not have any real problems visible I will use the ratios of 1 part H2O2 to 3 parts water. Because the plants I pulled this week were outdoor and had the very beginnings of the same sort of Bud Rot mold issue you have I used 1 part H2O2 to 2 parts water. Put and leave everything in the water for about 4-5 (4 to 5) minutes but swish around to be constantly moving everything. If the H2O2 is fresh it might start to foam after a minute or there-abouts. If it starts keep at it till it stops foaming.
Let the buds drain in a strainer while prepping for the Lemon Juice and Baking Soda wash. In this step I put about 1.5 gallons of water in the bucket, put the trimmed buds in, and then dump in about 3/4 (three fourths) cup to a whole cup of Baking Soda. Swish around like you mean it for a half minute. Then pour in about 1 cup of Lemon Juice and keep swishing. The juice will react with the baking soda and start to foam up. Keep swishing until the foaming slows down and almost stops. Pour in another half cup of juice and the foaming should start back up. Do this one or two more times. You will know that the baking soda has been used up when the water does not foam up when the juice is poured in. The water will probably look a bit of a dirty green which is from dust and dirt and I figure some of the chlorophyll from all the green plant material.
Swish around for a bit more since it is a good thing or it might bring good luck
but it has to be done. When good and tired of doing this put all the buds into the strainer and let the water dip off while dumping the bucket. Then a quick rinse of the bucket and fill up of plain regular ol' water, about a gallon and a half or more. The actual amount does not matter since it will be plain water just so as to rinse off the buds. Rinse and swish for several minutes. Then put the buds back in the strainer while dumping the dirty water and refilling the bucket.Do the rinsing stage again. By now the water should be a lot cleaner than before. Let the buds drip drain for awhile. Now they have to be dried. And this is just drying the water from the wash that is on the surface of the buds. That will have to happen before the buds can be dried of any moisture inside the plant material and it will take time to do a proper dry of the plant material.
In order to dry I spread the buds out on a couple window screens. There is an oscillating fan off to the side. This fan does not blow directly on the screens. The main air flow is just slightly over the buds and the air currents are enough to dry any of the washing water off. No fast drying...fast drying is bad...fast drying will pull moisture without removing the chlorophyll and people do not like the taste from smoking dried chlorophyll. So a slow drying is still needed.
I like to do all the washing with the water at room temperature. Cold or hot water can change the color of the plant material and make it look darker. Also, hot water can start to cook the plant material just like blanching vegetables does when getting ready to freeze or can. At times I will use warmer water when washing some of my Peanut Butter Cup buds which are a natural purplish color and it makes them a lot darker, almost black so I call it Black Gold.
There is the chance that there are the very beginnings of mold starting to grow on the remaining buds. So close to just starting that any problem will not be visible. And being in a jar the molds can still grow for awhile as long as there is plant sap or plant juice of whatever we want to call it still in the buds. In all seriousness, if it will not hurt to wash the buds still waiting to be processed then it will not hurt to take care of the ones already in the jar while you are at it.
This is all new to me. I have to ask, what would that do to the overall potency of the weed after all the baths? I understand its not going 'dissolve' the trichomes, but wouldn't the sheer physicality knock a ton of them off anyway?
The resin will not be knocked off at all, so no effect on potency
True you might smudge a few, but only by freezing do the trichomes become brittle enough to break off
Not a ton, maybe one out of a thousand might break off from the sugar leaf or whatever it formed on. And if I have to sacrifice that one out a thousand to keep mold or mildew away then it sounds like a good deal to me.
Some people have noticed a drop in the smell but with a decently proper cure the smell starts to come back fairly quickly.
