Anyone out there familiar with this problem besides me? Some sort of dry mold

[Weaselcracker]

This is what caught my eye this morning on the thread you linked to.

“Contrary to other moulds, mildew flourishes well at a low relative humidity. Mildew can be more easily fought with chemicals, and fortunately, is not often found with cannabis. Rotting tops occurs mainly at the end of the flowering phase. The more compact the plant, the bigger the chance for tops to rot. You can identify “toprot” by the sudden yellowing of the top leaves. These yellow leaves are fairly loose on the plant, and can be easily removed. To prevent the whole plant from being affected and infected, you must remove the whole top. The appearance of toprot can be prevented in some cases, by lowering the relative humidity during the dark period.”

Hmmm... doesn’t really sound quite right, except for the low humidity part. The dead tip leaves don’t pull off particularly easily. They’re just the same as any regular leaves that have dried on the bud.
I’m searching mildew problems but not finding anything that looks like what I have, so far.

 

[GrizzWald]

Top rot just sounds like bud rot, im not sure why they are making a distinction, are you?
Outter air humidity is really of no relevance to inner dense bud humidity, why indoors fans needed with some in the best of conditions..

 

[Michael Stark]

Hmm. Never heard of porketta before but I looked it up and it sounds very tasty. . Not sure I’d want my bud to taste like whatever it tastes like though...
Thanks for the company though. I’m pretty sure I can’t be the only one in the world with this problem (?).
I’ll consult my pet botanist, though I don’t necessarily expect all that much in the way of specifics, since he doesn’t deal with cannabis much. Still, he usually has something interesting to say.



I’m totally normal.



Thanks Bilbo. I’m heading back to that disease thread now. There was one there when I skimmed it this morning that maybe sounded right, called something like top rot, if I remember right, which I probably don’t.
I’ll check out powdery mildew again as well. As far as I know I’ve never had that, but from what i think I’ve seen online, it’s white and powdery?

No, you certainly dont haha, and thanks for the welcome.. I'm new and just looking around an come across this thread.. very interesting, and I will certainly reach out and see what my friend did regarding his "porketta special" haha to be honest, I've gotten worse..

 

[AngryBird]

I actually just recently had something that sounds very similar to what your describing.. although it wasn't mine, I got some of the final results and it tasted spicy, almost like the seasoning used to make "porketta" not sure if your familiar with that taste.. it was not unpleasant to smoke but it wasn't exactly pleasant either..

I was just going to ask that. We had a bud from bought weed, looking like that, and I thought it was burned by light. Tasted

 

[Bilbobudkin420]

This is what caught my eye this morning on the thread you linked to.

“Contrary to other moulds, mildew flourishes well at a low relative humidity. Mildew can be more easily fought with chemicals, and fortunately, is not often found with cannabis. Rotting tops occurs mainly at the end of the flowering phase. The more compact the plant, the bigger the chance for tops to rot. You can identify “toprot” by the sudden yellowing of the top leaves. These yellow leaves are fairly loose on the plant, and can be easily removed. To prevent the whole plant from being affected and infected, you must remove the whole top. The appearance of toprot can be prevented in some cases, by lowering the relative humidity during the dark period.”

Hmmm... doesn’t really sound quite right, except for the low humidity part. The dead tip leaves don’t pull off particularly easily. They’re just the same as any regular leaves that have dried on the bud.
I’m searching mildew problems but not finding anything that looks like what I have, so far.

That sounds like what happened to mine pretty much.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks guys. Past midnight now so I texted my friend about my now legal (sort of) plant - maybe I’ll hear back on that someday soon.

Yer right Grizz their description sounds like the regular kind of budrot, and it seems they would have mentioned if the end result was crispy instead of damp.
I have to argue the point about humidity. I definitely know from experience that higher Rh in the grow means increased budrot. You must be right about the internal bud moisture though. Maybe the spores are just a lot more prevelant in humid air. This place is a mold wonderland in winter.

 

[AngryBird]

Congrats on legalisation

 

[GrizzWald]

Sorry mate, yes high is bad, really bad, don't go high. I meant within range to low can still mean high within flowers..lazy Aussie..

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks Birdy. I’d prefer if it was actually fully legal, same as lettuce, and they just butted out of our business re a natural plant. But I have to admit it seems like a much better situation than we had before. Let’s see what happens when we’re dealing with breathalyzer roadblocks and some of the silly new laws- like supposedly only being allowed to buy seeds from the government sponsored sources, and the fact that you can now get more jail time for providing weed to a minor than you’d get for actually killing one

 

[GrizzWald]

That's because your doing more damage to the government, awakening a growing brain.. killing it is shutting it off, almost doing their work for them...

 

[Weaselcracker]

 

[GrizzWald]

I'm not really that cynical I don't think not sure

 

[Virgin Ground]

I keep seeing mention of genetic disease, but no real info about it. We're all the plants you had trouble with clones of the same plant?

Barney's website says that your PC is fungus and disease resistant.

 

[Tead]

Ya know... living organisms do some basic things. They eat, they poo, and they spew their genetics.
The "eating" portion of the equation would be the rot signs you're seeing. Unfortunately, we see no sign of the other two traits.... both would be visible.
I can only conclude that it's not a fugus, mildew, or mold.
I'll be curious to see what your botanist has to say.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I keep seeing mention of genetic disease, but no real info about it. We're all the plants you had trouble with clones of the same plant?

Barney's website says that your PC is fungus and disease resistant.

Yeah it’s all the same cut. I sprouted three in the beginning and flowered them each for several rounds but they seemed identical so I just chose one.
Perhaps time for a new one. Though I’m not sure it’s necessarily any bigger pain in the ass than it was when I first got it. It’s always been annoying.

Yeh -someone once pointed out that quote from Barney’s to me. I laughed and laughed

Ya know... living organisms do some basic things. They eat, they poo, and they spew their genetics.
The "eating" portion of the equation would be the rot signs you're seeing. Unfortunately, we see no sign of the other two traits.... both would be visible.
I can only conclude that it's not a fugus, mildew, or mold.
I'll be curious to see what your botanist has to say.

Good points. I fed him your take on it but haven’t heard back. Sometimes he gets too stoned to text but I expect to hear back someday.

He did say this:

It looks more like a mold/mildew kind of thing to me but I'm not sure.


I'm personally most familiar with viruses in bulbs...a lot of commercial stock of tulips and daffodils carry viruses. It tends to show up as indistinct variegation on the new leaves. Some strong growing plants grow in spite of it but most of the ones afflicted will fade away over a couple years. I generally associate it with distortion of the regular shape and colour of the leaves and stems, often stems are flattened or shortened and leaves have missing or extra lobes and specks or blotches of black mixed with the normal green.


Most viruses aren't transferred to the seed so that can be a good way to clean up a plant, though they tend to be less likely to produce seed.


Does seem strange that it's only on the one kind. Viruses are easily spread by sucking insects and pruning tools.

 

[GrizzWald]

Worth getting it tested to find out exactly what's going on, guessing fun but Im guessing it has its limits.. interesting to be able to get your shit Lab tested. Id like to know ℅'s of what I find a strong high etc.. also be good to know how much mould I'm growing and smoking...

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeh it would be very cool to get some tested.
I wandered around a bunch after I read your post, all through a couple test lab websites I googled up. Couldn’t find any prices listed, or any specifics (what size sample they preferred getting, etc). Lots of ‘Coming soon’ disclaimers next to a lot of their alleged testing abilities, including the ability to test terpenes. Was going to email them re prices and stuff but eventually said screw it, after wasting so much of my time trying to find out that info.

However- I did eventually stumble on a lengthy list of of test labs on a Canadian government site. So that’s a new find for me. I’ll dig through it sometime. Kinda burnt out from searching the last couple sites.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I see now it’s starting to spread to my other flowering PC plant. This one is about a month earlier in flowering tha the other one was. I’ll see if I can get some pics tonight.

The more I think about it the more I come back to thinking it’s some sort of fungi. The way it spreads along the surface of the flowers first, shrivelling the sugar leaves slightly before it settles in deeper and crawls along killing and drying out the bud.
I haven’t had much luck locating a similar example, but in some aspects cannabis is much less studied than many other plant varieties, and I might have to delve deep to connect the dots. There are a zillion types of fungi out there.

In past years my general feeling on the problem was that it was some variation of gray mold. Maybe just a variation in it’s growth cycle when operating in drier conditions. It does seem to be a precursor to gray mold, or at least goes hand in hand with it. The bud affected with this dry rot problem wil mold easily if the Rh of the drying box is too high.
I also realize that this ‘general feeling’ of mine is basically meaningless, because the PC strain is very prone to mold anyway, and it makes sense that the dead areas would be more vulnerable to the wetter types of mold if conditions became right.

However- this bit of info I found sounds totally in line with what I was originally thinking over the last few years.

Botrytis tends to set it at the base of the stem, making it often hard to detect. Usually, the first signs seen by the grower are when the small leaves of the kolas begin to wither, discolour, and dry out. Upon closer inspection, you may notice fluff growing amongst buds and bud sites, usually grey, blue-green, or white in colour. Depending on conditions, this will either cause the bud to dry out completely and crumble when touched (in low humidity), or turn into a decomposing sludge (in high humidity)

Got this back from my friend.

'It's probably a virus' is generally what we end up saying when we don't know what it is.

Maybe spores would be produced later, after the dead part was wetted. I know that the fungus that causes apple scab releases spores in spring from the fallen leaves of the previous year, which are then spread by water droplets to the newly emerging leaves.

The province has a plant health lab in the lower mainland that will test diseased plants and give a report on the cause. I can't remember the cost exactly but it's in the 20-40 dollar range. They have fairly specific instructions for how they want it delivered and ask to include roots and some of the soil.

Might be worth checking out. I've got a Japanese maple here I've been meaning to send them

Plant Health Laboratory - Province of British Columbia

I emailed the place re whether they can take cannabis plants. It presents a handling problem since they prefer to have fresh material, and even entire plants if possible. The end result will be a parcel of mold if I don’t send it dried.

 

[AngryBird]

So the test with the peroxide thing? Can you get your hands on that?

 

[Tead]

The end result will be a parcel of mold if I don’t send it dried.

Ha!!! Indeed.
I know the cause. I'm sure of it.
It's bear slobber. A bear has been sneaking in at night and drooling over the PCs. Dunno why bears like PC so much, but I would normally see it as a sign of good taste.
Seen any cultured bears in your area lately hangin out sipping champagne at the local watering hole?