Is she ready to harvest?

[Azimuth]

Otherwise why do we have to maintain temperatures of 170 to 200 F in the oven to not only decarb Cannabis for butters, etc but to also extract the THC and/or CBD from the flowers? Or leave the flowers and the butter or oil in a slow cooker at a low setting which is usually 170 to 225 instead of putting the oil & flowers in a bowl on the kitchen counter at room temperature for the same amount of time?

Well, decarb and extraction are two different things. The decarb happens to the cannabinoids as a function of temperature  and time. Given enough time, decarb will happen at room temps but no body wants to wait that long.

Whether infusion/extraction happens at room temps in oil is a totally different question. It does happen with both alcohol and vegetable glycerin so why would it not also in oil?

 

[lilnug420]

Even longer than that. Orchard owners, florists, landscapers, and tree specialists have been using dormant oil sprays since the mid to late 1800s.

Though, the problem they ran into was when they used the dormant oil sprays and then within a few weeks started spraying the same trees and shrubs with the sulfur sprays for molds, mildews and insects, especially if the plants had already started to bud out.


Bud washing is not a bad thing at all. Is your method similar to the one that comes up here?

I cropped the third photo in your first message and put in the arrows pointing to what looks like insects, insect eggs and possibly insect frass. Isn't that one of the photos of your plant in flower?

Yeah you're right, i actually noticed yesterday, first time i have this many pests in 4 years of growing in the same spot.


I ended up manually cleaning all the bugs off and spraying it with a Marseille water solution
20g/L


Luckily she's just a small autoflower so it was easy to clean her manually and remove all the bugs.


When it comes to my other 2 plants, which will flower in 2 months, I'm not too worried, im gonna keep spraying mineral oil as needed, when they start flowering the temperature's drop and i don't have to worry about spider mites and aphids, only caterpillars!


I'm in south europe, pests are everywhere here all of my garden plants are covered in some type of pest sadly, you just gotta learn to live with it if you dont have a lot of time to spray your plants with stuff

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

You need more flowers in your garden. Bugs get out of hand when the circle of life isn't complete. You need flowers to draw More bugs, predatory bugs, and with any luck - birds. Birds in the garden are a godsend (except to your berries, they'll wipe em out).

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

It looks like I won't be growing an AK Auto - I had a good buzz yesterday when they broke the surface and I ripped the AKs head off trying to remove a shell...
The Cherry Cola Lives though! Here she is with her vegetable sisters on the grow slab. First full day above ground and she's really getting at it!
I stuck another cherry Cola seed into the dirt, I want 2 of em to fill out the big (soon to be divided) SIP.

 

[SmokingWings]

Well, decarb and extraction are two different things. The decarb happens to the cannabinoids as a function of temperature  and time. Given enough time, decarb will happen at room temps but no body wants to wait that long.

I agree. Using heat to decarb instead of waiting weeks makes sense.

I see some people talking about decarbing as a separate step and then using the hot oils or butter to capture the THC or CBD and some putting the buds into the oil and starting the heat so they can decarb and extract at the same time.

Whether infusion/extraction happens at room temps in oil is a totally different question. It does happen with both alcohol and vegetable glycerin so why would it not also in oil?

Going to use Neem Oil as the example even though Mineral Oil came up earlier and started us off on this part of the discussion.

Why bother to heat the oil up to 170F, or more, if the oils or butters will do the job at room temperature?

If it is because it speeds the process up then I feel that it is very likely that at room temperatures the oils will not be on the plant long enough to have an effect on the trichomes. Another thing that comes to mind is that the Neem oil spray is diluted so I would think that it will react slower.

A mixing instructions on the back of the bottle call for 6 teaspoons per gallon of water. If I was to use the whole gallon on a plant only about 3 teaspoons of the oil would be on the flowers if the flowers were also sprayed.

Since the Neem oil is biodegradable it will not be active for any extended time.

Essentially the Neem oil spray is not a major detrimental thing to do to the trichomes and the tastes & smells of the flowers.

 

[SmokingWings]

I ended up manually cleaning all the bugs off and spraying it with a Marseille water solution
20g/L

Is the soap called "Savon de Marseille" mixed with water?

 

[Azimuth]

I see some people talking about decarbing as a separate step and then using the hot oils or butter to capture the THC or CBD and some putting the buds into the oil and starting the heat so they can decarb and extract at the same time.

That, I think, has more to do with efficient decarb than extraction. Oil covered trichomes seem harder to decarb, maybe because of an insulating effect of the oils, so decarbing them first as a separate step makes infusing more fully decarbed cannabinoids easier.

Why bother to heat the oil up to 170F, or more, if the oils or butters will do the job at room temperature?

If it is because it speeds the process up then I feel that it is very likely that at room temperatures the oils will not be on the plant long enough to have an effect on the trichomes. Another thing that comes to mind is that the Neem oil spray is diluted so I would think that it will react slower.

That a good point. But another aspect noted against spraying buds with neem is the smell and taste after harvest. I don't do that so have no experience.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

I posted in the wrong place, I was still fuzzy, ignore the auto update please.

 

[SmokingWings]

That a good point. But another aspect noted against spraying buds with neem is the smell and taste after harvest. I don't do that so have no experience.

There is that point but I also wonder just how true it really is.

Do smokers blame the harsh smoke on Neem oil in the final weeks when the coughing fit might be because of a quick dry and no cure?

I sprayed a plant with Neem oil two weeks before harvesting. After my normal dry stage and then a minimal cure I rolled up several. The one I tried did not smell or taste like the Neem oil in the bottle smelled. The rest I gave away and mentioned that the flowers had been sprayed. A week later I asked how the samples were. no one mentioned anything about an off taste or smell and when reminding them about the spraying they said they could not tell.

There have been prominent members here who have mentioned that they sprayed up till a week or so of harvest and never could taste or smell anything. Then once they started reading msgs here they found out the Neem oil makes the buds taste bad so they stopped spraying. They never knew that the taste was bad until someone said so.

 

[lilnug420]

Is the soap called "Savon de Marseille" mixed with water?

Just regular soap made from marsielle

 

[lilnug420]

There is that point but I also wonder just how true it really is.

Do smokers blame the harsh smoke on Neem oil in the final weeks when the coughing fit might be because of a quick dry and no cure?

I sprayed a plant with Neem oil two weeks before harvesting. After my normal dry stage and then a minimal cure I rolled up several. The one I tried did not smell or taste like the Neem oil in the bottle smelled. The rest I gave away and mentioned that the flowers had been sprayed. A week later I asked how the samples were. no one mentioned anything about an off taste or smell and when reminding them about the spraying they said they could not tell.

There have been prominent members here who have mentioned that they sprayed up till a week or so of harvest and never could taste or smell anything. Then once they started reading msgs here they found out the Neem oil makes the buds taste bad so they stopped spraying. They never knew that the taste was bad until someone said so.

I decided to use marsielle soap instead of mineral/ neem oil because in my head soap is easier to wash out when bud washing and has a more neutral taste?

 

[SmokingWings]

Mineral oil seems to be a popular insecticide in Italy and countries along the Mediterranean Sea. Using it for mites came up a couple of years ago and if you are interested the link below is to the thread.....

https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/big-spider-mites-issue-mineral-oil-during-flower.505509/