Powdery Mildew & Hydrogen Peroxide: Late Flower

[Nicotin]

Hello!

My grow this season consist in one small autoflower outdoor that is 2 weeks away from harvest, and about 10 days ago I noticed small signs of PM on about 5 young leaves. They only had one small spot with PM (it's not like they were covered in it) yet I removed them inmediatly.

Then 5 days ago I sprayed all of the fan leaves with a mixture of 1 part 3% hydrogen peroxide and 3 parts bottled water as recommended on other posts to hopefully prevent the spread, which wasn't very successful since today I removed another 7 leaves that had small spots of PM. There are no visible signs of PM in any of the buds but one sugar leaf had PM far away from the bud. Since PM cannot be eliminated my strategy is to basically survive the last 2 weeks, so my questions are:

a) Is it OK to spray the entire plant with the mixture above, including the buds? Won't the trichomes and terpenes lose quality and taste/smell be affected from blasting them with it?
b) Is there a point to bud washing after harvest if there are no visible buds affected and all affected leaves were removed at once? (As of now there is no manifestation of PM after removing the affected leaves) I would like to avoid it if possible because I'm positive it will affect taste/smell. My concern is that I've read in some places that PM can manifest and infest jars during the curing process but it seems that would apply to heavily infested plants?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Sueet]

Idk about peroxide used that way, I use citric acid (vitamin C) powder in water to kill pm (about 1 tbsp in a hand sprayer bottle). You can also use milk mixed in water.

I would save the peroxide for the bud wash stage, which you should definitely do since you have mold. Spores can exist and be on your plant for a long time even tho you cannot see them, and pm is growing for some time, even weeks ... before it shows up visibly on the leaves.

Yes there is definitely a point to bud washing .... tbh even when you didn't have mold it is helpful .... You won't believe how much dirt can be on/in your flowers. You are correct that it will affect the taste and smell if you wash the buds, but almost certainly for the better.

 

[HashGirl]

Here's a recipe using citric acid for PM that you may find useful. You need to spray your entire plant, buds and all. And, here is the method I use when bud washing. I hope these are of help to you.

 

[Nicotin]

Thanks for the replies, I will definetly bud wash using the method above and will try to get my hands on some citric acid.

Any recommendations as to how long I should put a fan on the buds after the wash? This is my second grow, and during the first one everything went well until the drying process that happened too quick and really ruined the flavour and taste of the buds, so I don't want to mess it up again. The plan is to bud wash, put a fan directly into them for about 2 hours until visible water is gone (maybe longer?), and then let them to slowly dry. Trimming will be done after the drying process since I think wet trimming caused the problem in my first grow.

 

[SmokingWings]

Any recommendations as to how long I should put a fan on the buds after the wash? This is my second grow, and during the first one everything went well until the drying process that happened too quick and really ruined the flavour and taste of the buds, so I don't want to mess it up again. The plan is to bud wash, put a fan directly into them for about 2 hours until visible water is gone (maybe longer?), and then let them to slowly dry.

I do not recommend setting up the fan so it is blowing directly on the washed buds. The air currents can be so intense that it will dry to harvest faster than we are intending and if the buds become too dry there is no way to go back and start over.

What I do is put a couple of small window screens on a cardboard box or several empty plastic pots so that there is air space underneath. Then I spread the washed buds over the screens. The fan is placed a foot or two away and aimed so that the force of the air is blowing above the buds and not directly on them. This creates air currents that are a lot gentler. If the fan is the kind that swings back and forth then I let it do that so it creates more of those gentle air currents.

Then I leave it and come back 12 hours later and turn the buds and flowers so different ones are now exposed to the air currents. 20 to 24 hours like this and the buds are back to what feels like the same dampness or moister level as before I did the wash and got them all wet. Then they are put in brown paper bags and into the fridge to start the low and slow drying method. Once the fridge dry is over they go into jars.

I started doing that routine with the fan with the first time I did a bud wash. Only one time did I think something went wrong during the cure but it could have been that the jar picked up a chemical smell while it was being stored in a drawer along with one of those air fresheners.

As to the Powdery Mildew starting to show up. You can try getting a clean cloth wet and using that to wipe the mildew spots off. Fresh and living mildew should rub off. If they do not wipe off then a good chance it is a spot of dead mildew. I have not tried any kind of Hydrogen Peroxide mix but a buddy does for his outdoor grow and swears by it.