Quest for mold-resistant strains, Hawaii outdoor greenhouse grow

[cbdhemp808]

Greetings Growmies,

The sunlight has returned , and with it, growth! I took some pics today in the veg house. All is well, but I'm behind on cloning... maybe tomorrow morning. Also, the HI-BISCUS has a bit of stem funk and seems stunted.

In other news, I recently replaced the plastic film on this greenhouse, since the old one was super dirty and had ripped in two placed due to high winds. The new film is letting in much more sunlight.

Foreground, clockwise from smallest plant in 1 gal in front: all clones... White Widow, legacy CBG, Humboldt Dream, CBD #18 pheno, Sweet Critical CBD, CBD #9 pheno, HI-BISCUS. Way in the back, left: Blueberry and CBD #1 pheno, stressed in 1 gal... I missed the window on these... will clone then chop.

On the left, my legacy CBG pheno. I'll probably grow her only as a mom, in 3 gal, then take clones and chop. On the right, the amazing little White Widow clone that didn't die. I think the sparse leaflets are a sign she has been wanting more light – maybe a peculiarity of this pheno or WW in general. The 10 gal pot on the right is HI-BISCUS, showing a main stem and two branches at the base.

The aphid-like flea hopper on the CBG. White specs are damage. I think this is a female. Her offspring hang out on the underside of the leaf and look like pale green aphids. The are fairly solitary, not like the grouping habit of aphids. These buggers don't do that much damage, actually, and are easy to off with thumb and finger. If they persist, I'll use a spray of neem and Bronner's soap. (Can you spot this flea hopper in the above photo?)

Humboldt Dream clone doing very well in 10 gal.

My only remaining HI-BISCUS clone. She's perked up a lot with the return of the sun, but she's still very small. I've noticed some funk on the stem (light brown areas at the nodes). Also the leaves are a little distorted. Time to take some clone cuttings and make sure they root.

A magnificent CBD #9 clone, 5'4" tall in 10 gal. I have lost track of how many times I've cloned this pheno. She's still going strong, and the interveinal chlorosis I used to see has disappeared, making me think it was a nutrient problem all along.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Greetings Growmies!

Here's some pics from today in the veg house...

Here's all the plants I am growing right now (all veg, no flower)... 9 different phenos, all clones. Humboldt Dream, HI-BISCUS, Seedsman White Widow & Blueberry, Sweet Critical CBD, my legacy CBDs #1 #9 #18, and my legacy CBG. The next photo shows newly started clones of all these except for White Widow which isn't big enough yet to take cuttings.

Possible breakthrough in cloning here! These were started only 4-5 days ago. This time I used a new technique. I harvested a leaf from a little aloe plant that we have, split the leaf open lengthwise, and then coated the stem ends with aloe by rubbing them on the exposed gel. After that I dipped them in rooting powder (dip/sprinkle). I gotta say, so far these are the most perky I've seen at this stage – they never drooped at all. I doubt I'll be buying Clonex again. The powder I used is Bonide Bontone II Rooting Powder, less than $8.00 for 35 grams. I'm keeping it in the fridge.

 

[Madmickmac]

Sorry , but have you had any success finding mould resistance?

 

[Vegan4life]

Your plants look great! What humidity levels are you flowering in? I grow indoors right on the coast of Southern California (stones throw from the ocean). I am constantly fighting the humidity with a dehumidifier and AC to combat the heat from the dehumidifier. I try to keep the humidity below 60% in flower.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Your plants look great! What humidity levels are you flowering in? I grow indoors right on the coast of Southern California (stones throw from the ocean). I am constantly fighting the humidity with a dehumidifier and AC to combat the heat from the dehumidifier. I try to keep the humidity below 60% in flower.

Thanks!

Veg and flower both in ambient humidity level here, outdoor greenhouse. Greenhouses have open or screen walls. I am in the tropical zone in Hawaii, about 2 miles from the ocean. It's warm, wet, humid, and sunny. Sometimes breezy, sometimes still. Occasionally windy. I would say humidity is usually above 70%, frequently above 80%, and gets to 99% quite often.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Sorry , but have you had any success finding mould resistance?

Yes, I'm growing two strains from Humboldt Seed Company that are both very resistant to bud rot and leaf mold: Humboldt Dream and HI-BISCUS. My environment here is the ultimate test for fungus/mold resistance, since I'm in a warm, wet climate, surrounded by jungle. Everything molds here very quickly. I was blown away by HI-BISCUS because it had zero bud rot. I've only flowered it once, but have another clone in veg now. My last harvest of Humboldt Dream was excellent – almost zero bud rot. But I'm continuing the quest...

You can scroll through this thread to see pics of the Humboldt Dream and HI-BISCUS.

Starting on page 24 is where I begin an analysis of terpenes as they relate to bud rot resistance, using HI-BISCUS as a baseline, and focusing on terpinolene-dominant strains. I make a distinction between "pine terpenes" and "non-pine terpenes". Toward the bottom of page 26 I come up with my "Lucky 13" strains... potentials for high bud rot resistance, and also "Holy Grails"... both bud rot and leaf mold resistance. It's all educated guesswork at this point. I narrowed them down to 7, HERE, and those are my picks next time I look to buy some seed... hopefully within a couple months.

 

[cbdhemp808]

NEWS FLASH!

I pulled a little jar out of my fridge last night, which I had stuffed some wet-trimmed bud into, with a couple moisture packets, and forgot about. I need to figure out when I put it in there, but I'm pretty sure it was from the last Humboldt Dream that I harvested. Probably it was the bud cluster I clipped to bring in and magnify to check the trichomes.

I would have pulled it from the fridge sooner, but I couldn't get the lid off! Last night I really wanted to get the lid off... couldn't get the lid off. Finally busted out my huge channel locks... still couldn't open it! Then I put a yoga mat on the floor, put the jar on the yoga mat up against a chair leg, put my foot on the jar, and... finally got the bugger off. WTF?!

To my surprise, the buds inside were in great shape and dry to a crisp. Not a huge amount of terp odor, but that's probably because they weren't super ripe to begin with.

This is a huge breakthrough for me, because this is pretty much ideal in terms of retaining terpenes, avoiding mold, and producing crispy buds, which is exactly what I want for my grinder and vape. Now I just need to scale up using quart jars and bigger moisture packets, which by the way are rechargeable in the microwave. In this experiment, I had put one bud in a folded piece of white paper – that one came out different than the others, I guess because the paper provided a buffer for the drying, and perhaps allowed it to dry more slowly. So, I can experiment with paper vs. no paper. Exciting development!

Any guesses as to why the jar was so hard to open?

The bud on the left was wrapped in white paper and stuffed in the jar, and had a more pale green hue. Pictured also are the two 5g moisture packets. All but the last photo below are of the buds on the left.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Does anyone have any thoughts about the above fridge/jar/silica-gel method? Anybody else tried this?

Thinking about this again... it seems the terpenes were zapped, which I'm guessing is because the drying occurred too quickly, and the air inside the jar was too dry. I think the buds were in there for 8 weeks, without opening the jar.

My fridge temp is probably around 45°F. The idea is to use my existing mini-fridge which also has food in it.

I'm thinking of 2 improvements:

1) Use small paper bags inside the jars, to keep RH next to buds higher, and slow the drying.​

​

2) Reduce total time to maybe 3 weeks.​

Plan B would be to get another, smaller mini-fridge specifically for this purpose. In that case, I could just put the buds in paper bags directly in the fridge, not in jars. Which would lead me to @Trala's method HERE and HERE. However, with that method, the mini-fridge is running at 38°F and moisture gets frozen in the upper, exposed freezer section of the fridge. I don't think I have enough solar power to run two mini-fridges at low temps like this.

How about a hybrid method? I.e. Plan B, except run the fridge at 55 or 60°F, thus conserving power, and use jars and moisture packets. The idea is that this would allow me to run both fridges on my minimal solar power, and still be successful at drying the buds, in jars, and retaining terpenes. I could also put the buds in small bags inside the jars. Would 55 or 60°F, in addition to the low RH, be enough to inhibit mold growth?

thanks for reading

 

[Azimuth]

I've never cured that way but I assume that's based on @MrSauga 's Low and Slow Fridge Drying Method ?

 

[cbdhemp808]

I've never cured that way but I assume that's based on @MrSauga 's Low and Slow Fridge Drying Method ?

No, I don't even know about that (took a quick glance). What I'm suggesting may be new territory, or a dead end! But it seems promising given the test results.

I'm not going for the ultimate ultimate. Just... no mold, reasonably high retention of terpenes, and reasonable potency. I'm vaping, not smoking, so I don't think I'll need the usual high level of drying/curing finesse. I think it's safe to say the terps are not going to evaporate much, even at 60°F, let alone 45°F. The unknowns for me are speed of drying and RH, as I understand those affect terpenes, and I think also potency.

I'm also going for near-zero maintenance. I.e. just put the buds in the jars, plus simple "one-way" moisture packets, and maybe contain the buds in little paper bags, and let them sit in there for X weeks.

The buds looked very good coming out of that little test. It seems the only point of improvement would be terpenes, and possibly also potency. 8 weeks was obviously too long to be in such low humidity, in the jars.

I've got several plants heading to flower soon, so that will give me plenty of buds to test with. With the one fridge at 45°F, the only things I can really modify are: adding paper bags in the jars, adding more or fewer moisture packets, and reducing the total time in the fridge. I think I'm going for a slower dry.

Assuming dry buds are 20% the weight of wet buds, that means they must lose 80% weight in moisture. In my little jar in the test, I used 2 x 5g moisture packets. A 5g moisture packet starts out with a weight of about 5.3g and ends up with a weight of about 6.8g. I need to weigh the dried buds that came out of the jar, to go further in this calculation, but suffice to say I will be able to estimate how many moisture packets are needed to arrive at the 20% of the wet weight. To slow down the drying time, I should use no more than the number of moisture packets to hit 20%, or slightly less than that, to help preserve terpenes.

Figuring this out will likely take some trial and error, and probably pulling buds out during the process to check them out and check their weight.

 

[WillCall]

First, could the vacuum seal be due to the water taken from the (probably) water-saturated air of the buds in the sealed jar?

I didn't comment back a while about your difficulties drying in Hawaii humidity because I wasn't sure if you were off-grid and power limited, but if you are running fridges that wouldn't be the case. And I didn't know the quantity of your material. But, if a fridge size cabinet will work and you have power then you have possibilities. If you want to dry slowly as is normally recommended, you can hang your buds in a moisture tight cabinet and use a tray with a shallow layer of silica gel (you can get a jar of "floral preservative" from Michael's or elsewhere for not too much. Close the cabinet, the silica gel sucks moisture; you can monitor the drying - and the color of the silica gel (turns from blue to white/clear) and regenerate the silica gel (microwave or just low (250F) oven heat until blue again) and replace to keep the RH low. Just keep up with the silica gel to keep the RH where you want it and the buds will slowly cure and dry. The "cabinet" can be a fridge (dead or not running) since they are pretty tightly sealed. Putting a small computer fan in the cabinet to stir the air a little helps.

The other way to dry is to keep the RH low via a dehumidifier or air conditioner. A dehumidifier will also warm the room which may not be good. An AC splits at the wall so the heat of the unit goes outside and the cooled coils condense room humidity and the drips also make their way to the outside; the moisture used to drip but modern ACs have a slinger that dissipates the condensate without dripping. With this you can dry a whole room.

More efficent than a window AC would be a mini-split since only a few small insulated tubes penetrate the wall.

And I don't think that silica gel has a big affinity for terpenes. But terpene odor even clings to glass jars so I guess any surface will hold some. If you go to regenerate the silica gel and get a massive burst of terps out of the microwave, then you know.

And for anyone who doesn't know, when you regenerate in a microwave, microwave silica gel in small bursts of time with it spread in a shallow dish to let moisture escape. If you do it in a dish you can remove between 15-30s bursts and stir. Initially you will see moisture droplets around the dish because so much comes out of the silica gel and it condenses on the dish. You may see steam, or get a blast of very hot and humid air when you open the microwave. Eventually the moisture is gone, the silica gel will turn blue (if you have the kind with indicating granules included) and the silica gel is dry. I pour it into a large glass canning jar and seal with aluminum foil under the band (no lid with rubber) until it is cool; this is so it doesn't pick up moisture from the air as it cools. When it is cool you can store it in a canning jar (etc.) with a sealed lid - if you are storing - or pour back into your tray for you dehumidification cabinet.

I dry in non-ideal conditions - the attic of my garage - that might get to 90F during the day even in the fall (at 42North, with pretty high new england humidity) but hung stems dry in a week. I know I lose some terps because my garage smells so good, but the dry buds are still pretty amazing and terps are pretty high and almost no decarboxylation in stuff I have had tested..

 

[gwhunran]

I've never used the frig for curing flower. I do keep my rosin in the fridg and freezer.
I have mostly used jars with the rh packs but have recently started using Grove bags too. So far the Grove bags have been excellent. It's hard keeping the buds from drying out too much, in our very dry winter climate, and the Grove bags seem to do a better job of keeping my buds moist than the jars.

If I had to make a wager, I would say the cooler temps caused shrinkage of the metal lid, that was already screwed on tight.

 

[bluter]

you discovered fridge drying. it's a very popular if you have the space in your fridge to do it or an entire spare fridge.
easiest way is start them in paper bags then transfer to jars once they are stable at 62% rh.

If I had to make a wager, I would say the cooler temps caused shrinkage of the metal lid, that was already screwed on tight.

that will do it. temp difference between the air outside to inside was enough to pressurize the jar.

 

[cbdhemp808]

you discovered fridge drying. it's a very popular if you have the space in your fridge to do it or an entire spare fridge.
easiest way is start them in paper bags then transfer to jars once they are stable at 62% rh.

Thanks. I was actually aware of fridge drying, and it was on my radar as a possible way to address my high ambient humidity and mold situation here, and also my limited solar electric power. In order to use the bags-in-fridge method, I need an exposed freezer section to freeze the moisture that's released while drying. I have that with the one mini fridge I have, but that's my fridge for food, and if I get another mini fridge, I would not have enough power to run it at the temps necessary to keep the freezer section cold enough.

So, this is why I like the idea of using jars in my one mini fridge, plus moisture packets, which did work very well to dry the buds, however it looks like it happened too quickly.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Hey WillCall, thanks for the reply.

First, could the vacuum seal be due to the water taken from the (probably) water-saturated air of the buds in the sealed jar?

That's my theory. I think the humidity originally in the jar contributed to the air pressure inside the jar. When all that humidity got absorbed into the moisture packets, it created a serious vacuum. I mean, the lid was ridiculously hard to open!

I didn't comment back a while about your difficulties drying in Hawaii humidity because I wasn't sure if you were off-grid and power limited, but if you are running fridges that wouldn't be the case.

We are off grid on solar, and power limited. We can run one fridge at fridge temps.

And I didn't know the quantity of your material. But, if a fridge size cabinet will work and you have power then you have possibilities. If you want to dry slowly as is normally recommended, you can hang your buds in a moisture tight cabinet and use a tray with a shallow layer of silica gel (you can get a jar of "floral preservative" from Michael's or elsewhere for not too much. Close the cabinet, the silica gel sucks moisture; you can monitor the drying - and the color of the silica gel (turns from blue to white/clear) and regenerate the silica gel (microwave or just low (250F) oven heat until blue again) and replace to keep the RH low. Just keep up with the silica gel to keep the RH where you want it and the buds will slowly cure and dry. The "cabinet" can be a fridge (dead or not running) since they are pretty tightly sealed. Putting a small computer fan in the cabinet to stir the air a little helps.

That wouldn't work in my case, because I only have enough power to run one mini-fridge, and it has food in it.

The other way to dry is to keep the RH low via a dehumidifier or air conditioner. A dehumidifier will also warm the room which may not be good. An AC splits at the wall so the heat of the unit goes outside and the cooled coils condense room humidity and the drips also make their way to the outside; the moisture used to drip but modern ACs have a slinger that dissipates the condensate without dripping. With this you can dry a whole room.

More efficent than a window AC would be a mini-split since only a few small insulated tubes penetrate the wall.

I have a nice stand-alone, dry-type AC. I also have a mini dehum. My original plan – and I might still do it someday – is to build a closet-size drying room with the AC and the dehum in there, controlled by InkBird devices. In addition, I was going to program a Raspberry Pi to monitor the solar power VDC and only energize the drying room when there is enough power. I figure that's the only way I can optimize preventing mold and retaining terpenes given my power restrictions, if I want to dry larger quantities at a time, including hanging buds and doing dry trimming instead of wet trimming.

And I don't think that silica gel has a big affinity for terpenes. But terpene odor even clings to glass jars so I guess any surface will hold some. If you go to regenerate the silica gel and get a massive burst of terps out of the microwave, then you know.

Yeah, I don't think the buds were off-gassing much at all at 45°F in the fridge, so there wasn't anything there for the silica gel to absorb. The loss of terps apparently is due to the drying occurring too fast, and the RH being too low. I don't understand the physics of that yet, but I think it might be because the trichomes rupture.

And for anyone who doesn't know, when you regenerate in a microwave, microwave silica gel in small bursts of time with it spread in a shallow dish to let moisture escape. If you do it in a dish you can remove between 15-30s bursts and stir. Initially you will see moisture droplets around the dish because so much comes out of the silica gel and it condenses on the dish. You may see steam, or get a blast of very hot and humid air when you open the microwave. Eventually the moisture is gone, the silica gel will turn blue (if you have the kind with indicating granules included) and the silica gel is dry. I pour it into a large glass canning jar and seal with aluminum foil under the band (no lid with rubber) until it is cool; this is so it doesn't pick up moisture from the air as it cools. When it is cool you can store it in a canning jar (etc.) with a sealed lid - if you are storing - or pour back into your tray for you dehumidification cabinet.

I'm using INTERTECK 5g silica gel packets from Amazon. I'm using the non-indicating type. I recharge them in my microwave, 12 at a time on a paper towel, using power level 3 for 20 min. Works like a charm. I test their weight using my Triton T3R scale. It seems they absorb about 1.5g of moisture each. When they are done cooking in the microwave, I just leave them in there for a bit to cool down, then stuff into quart canning jar.

I dry in non-ideal conditions - the attic of my garage - that might get to 90F during the day even in the fall (at 42North, with pretty high new england humidity) but hung stems dry in a week. I know I lose some terps because my garage smells so good, but the dry buds are still pretty amazing and terps are pretty high and almost no decarboxylation in stuff I have had tested..

I have been drying using a food dehydrator at a friend's house on the grid, at 95°F. They definitely lose a lot of terps, but the effects are still very good.

 

[WillCall]

Yeah, I wondered if you might be off-grid, or power limited. Kudos to you! What island are you on?

To be clear, my first suggestion was to use an old/dead fridge just as an airtight cabinet with a renewable tray of desiccant, not to run it as a fridge; so power wouldn't be much of an issue. Using an old fridge would just save you from building a cabinet with moisture-tight seals.

It seems one needs a sufficient standing on this forum in order to message on the sidelines. I don't have enough. You probably do. If you want to have a conversation on the side - I leave it to you. I have some seeds I have made that I could share a few - they might be interesting to you - seems very clean in all seasons so far. It is a cross, now in 3rd gen of backcrossing, between a mystery "sativa" male (freebie seeds with an order, un-labeled) and an Amnesia Haze. The sativa line is a very tropical tree with wispy buds that just go on and on until the season runs out; I can't grow past late October or Nov1. But the cross with Amnesia Haze made the buds fatter and flowers are a bit earlier (but still kind of indeterminate); I've seen this described as a Thai feature, called "running buds"; "Alligator tails" leaves; high flower to leaf ratio on the colas. Maybe you have the climate to see it to some full maturity. These are "regular + photoperiod" seeds so you would be able to find a male and make more seeds. I call it Ditchweed. I'm aiming for something old school and robust, stable inbred, not necessarily a knockout punch. You could see how it grows in a longer season. This line wouldn't win any awards for massive frosty trichomes or aroma. I hope I haven't broken some rule with a seed sharing offer.

This is a picture of Ditchweed 22A2 in mid-October last year. Planted a 6" clone on the Solstice. Very wet summer. I use no chems, not even fertilizer.

 

[cbdhemp808]

Yeah, I don't think the buds were off-gassing much at all at 45°F in the fridge, so there wasn't anything there for the silica gel to absorb. The loss of terps apparently is due to the drying occurring too fast, and the RH being too low. I don't understand the physics of that yet, but I think it might be because the trichomes rupture.

I think I may understand the physics now. The jar was of course airtight. The silica gel packets were taking both moisture and oxygen out of the air inside the jar. Over time (8 weeks) this created a vacuum, as was confirmed by how ridiculously tight the lid was.

The terps were lost because of the vacuum. Here's the physics behind that... Monoterpenes are very volatile and start to evaporate significantly at 68°F, at normal atmospheric pressure (1 atmosphere of pressure = 760 torr). The volatility of the terpenes is measure by vapor pressure. You can think of this as the tiny amounts of pressure exerted when the terpene molecules are off-gassing into the air. For example, alpha-Pinene has a vapor pressure of 3.570 torr at 1 atmosphere.

The air inside the enclosed jar developed a pressure of some fraction of 1 atmosphere; i.e. it became a vacuum. At reduced atmospheric pressure, terpenes evaporate more readily (less pressure to push back on them). The greater the vacuum, the more significant is the increase in the evaporative pressure of the terpenes. Left long enough in this state, the terpenes would go completely bye bye.

So, in order to be successful at preserving terpenes using silica gel to dry buds in an airtight container, a way must be found to eliminate the vacuum. I've been scheming on some ideas.

 

[Azimuth]

But why isn't this a much more common occurrence for those who cure in jars for many months/years?

 

[cbdhemp808]

Yeah, I wondered if you might be off-grid, or power limited. Kudos to you! What island are you on?

ain't sayin.

To be clear, my first suggestion was to use an old/dead fridge just as an airtight cabinet with a renewable tray of desiccant, not to run it as a fridge; so power wouldn't be much of an issue. Using an old fridge would just save you from building a cabinet with moisture-tight seals.

I got you. But I couldn't use a dead fridge, because I need to bring down the temperature to inhibit mold and reduce terpene loss. The thing is, I don't want to deal with what I have discovered with my recent test, which is that desiccant creates a vacuum, and terps will evaporate more quickly in a vacuum. One might suggest, just "open the door", but that will let in a spike of moisture (my ambient RH is very high). So, I don't want to deal with the opposing forces of vacuum and moisture spikes – I would like to control both of those.

It's complicated. Another big factor for me is my limited solar power. I can't run two fridges at normal fridge temperatures. I do happen to have a small chest freezer, and I'm thinking of using an external thermostat control to run it at 55-60°F. That would be my cooling, and very energy efficient. And then I would use an airtight container inside of that to do the drying. I'm presently scheming on the details of that. It's tricky.

It seems one needs a sufficient standing on this forum in order to message on the sidelines. I don't have enough. You probably do. If you want to have a conversation on the side - I leave it to you. I have some seeds I have made that I could share a few - they might be interesting to you - seems very clean in all seasons so far. It is a cross, now in 3rd gen of backcrossing, between a mystery "sativa" male (freebie seeds with an order, un-labeled) and an Amnesia Haze. The sativa line is a very tropical tree with wispy buds that just go on and on until the season runs out; I can't grow past late October or Nov1. But the cross with Amnesia Haze made the buds fatter and flowers are a bit earlier (but still kind of indeterminate); I've seen this described as a Thai feature, called "running buds"; "Alligator tails" leaves; high flower to leaf ratio on the colas. Maybe you have the climate to see it to some full maturity. These are "regular + photoperiod" seeds so you would be able to find a male and make more seeds. I call it Ditchweed. I'm aiming for something old school and robust, stable inbred, not necessarily a knockout punch. You could see how it grows in a longer season. This line wouldn't win any awards for massive frosty trichomes or aroma. I hope I haven't broken some rule with a seed sharing offer.

This is a picture of Ditchweed 22A2 in mid-October last year. Planted a 6" clone on the Solstice. Very wet summer. I use no chems, not even fertilizer.

Beautiful plant my friend! That's great you bred it yourself, and are stabilizing it. I haven't done any breeding yet, but I'd love to some day. I'm thinking about crossing a 15% CBD that I have with a tropical sativa hemp, to arrive at a more fungus/mold resistant CBD.

Does your Ditchweed produce predictable phenos? Have you had any terpene testing done? I'd love to know the terp profiles of the phenos. I've been doing a lot of research on terps, as relates to fungus/mold resistance.

 

[cbdhemp808]

But why isn't this a much more common occurrence for those who cure in jars for many months/years?

Good question. There are two distinctions here: 1) my jar was very small, and had two 5g moisture packets in it, 2) I put wet buds in the jar.

So, for the volume of the jar, that was a lot of silica gel, therefore a lot of moisture absorbing power. Too much. I also found out today that silica gel absorbs both moisture and oxygen – dunno in what ratio. Well, H2O contains oxygen, but I took that to mean O2, not just H2O.

I'm saying "a lot of silica gel" for the volume, but to be fair, it needed to absorb all the moisture emitted by the buds, because they were totally crispy in the end. And it did that. But it also created a vacuum. Kinda mysterious.

So...

What percent of people who store/cure pre-dried bud in jars are also putting silica gel packets in the jars? How much silica gel per 1 quart?

What percent of those people are also not opening the jars to "burp" them?

Fyi, I do put some 5g moisture packets in my quart jars, when the buds aren't as crispy as I'd like them. I do notice a vacuum, which is easy to deal with, because these are mason jars with the rings.

I think there is some dynamic going on with the drying of the wet buds, which are releasing moisture into the sealed jar as they dry, over time, which is then taken up by the moisture packets. At this point, I'm going on the evidence that terpenes were zapped, even thought the temperature was around 45°F, and there was evidence of a strong vacuum. Combine this with the fact that terpenes evaporate more quickly in a vacuum. It just all fits. The jar sat in there unopened for 8 weeks.