Brown parts, fungus or mould?

[Nooby]

Hey all,

 

Attempting to dry my first grow. A bit of a botched job all round, but I think I've learned heaps. ;-)

 

Anywho, one of the plants I have hanging up for 2 weeks now , I was in the process of sticking it in jars and noticed that in places the leaves are dark brown and when i touch that part of the plant it releases a white powder. Other parts of the plant are fine. So what have I done? Should I just toss the brown bits and keep the green bits?

 

Cheers

[Al B. Fuct]

yep, the 'brown bits' are bud material rotted and paritally consumed by some kind of mould. The white powder is mould

spores. Any buds with mould should be composted.

 

If your buds developed the mould while the plants were still standing, you may have a high humidity or poor air circ problem in the grow op. If the mould developed while hanging, the humidity in the drying area was too high, or again, there was insufficient air circ.

 

See the link in my signature for a practical bud dryer that eliminates any chance of mould during drying yet can not damage potency due to controlled, low temperature operation.

[Nooby]

Thanks AL,

 

Yeah it's been pretty wet/humid up here the last few months and I think the problem was there while it was growing rather than developing when drying.

 

Cheers

[drought]

Thanks AL,

 

Yeah it's been pretty wet/humid up here the last few months and I think the problem was there while it was growing rather than developing when drying.

 

Cheers

 

mate do you have photos ive it.

 

i got some stuff that sounds the same.

 

looked all good from the out side.inside looks like dirt.

 

just curious to what this is??

[loylty gets u nothing]

look like this??

[gouger]

OK well commonly in outdoors growing the heliothis attack just as the buds are ripening. Yes they are those greenish caterpillars that are otherwise pests of corn and cotton. They bore right through your buds or parts of them. Subsequent rain or heavy dew will start off a fungus which will rot the heads on the plant, starting where the heliothis disconnected buds from their life source.

If you harvest any buds that have this they should be carefully cleaned before drying and checked immediately after boxing harvested heads up the first night as any heliothis will have not only made droppings in the bottom of the box but they will also be on the march looking for juicier buds.

 

The above is the primary source of the life of the fungus., which accelerates in the drying cabinet. This can be arrested by exposing the heads to air and light.

 

Heliothis can be manually checked for and removed by one dedicated pair of hands. However this means regular examination and search and destroy missions if the culprit is detected. They will attack when the heads should be ripening seed.

No already dead material should be locked in a drying box with fresh material. It absorbs the moisture and provides the perfect conditions for the mould spores which are present in the air. Same goes for heliothis droppings and coccoons.

Edited April 6, 2008 by gouger

[buggz]

I want to know - with these white mold spores coming off some leaf when shaken- is it safe to make cannabutter out of it or should it just be thrown away ?

[gouger]

I want to know - with these white mold spores coming off some leaf when shaken- is it safe to make cannabutter out of it or should it just be thrown away ?

 

Technically speaking this mould is considered relatively harmless to humans or we would by now have written several studies on the deadly white mould from cannabis. Many commercial growers and sellers would not allow this to happen unless there was a specific market for it. "Throw it away" is what they will say.. simply because buyers are reluctant to buy mouldy weed. At the same time, many would be buyers would prefer to see browned buds than lime green ones.

 

Being a self sufficient person I have always used any salvage from a mould attack and as far as medical science is concerned this has not yet harmed me any worse than my environment has. However, when bread goes mouldy I don't eat it but this is because it is live mould. If you cut the worst bits off and toast the bread all you will notice is a change in flavour of the bread.. mostly a disagreeable flavour but the mould was killed by the toaster and as such has had the harm it can cause you much lessened.

 

I remind myself of the time a friend brought some mouldy weed around. Since it was all we had and the smokeability was poor, he put it in a saucepan on the stove and lightly toasted it to the point of going brown and crispy. Then he tossed it in a bowl of strawberry jam stirred it up and said "ok spread it on bread and go for it".. We didn't come down all night.

 

Getting back to canna-butter. I doubt that the temperatures in the cooking pot would kill fungus spores as such temperatures will spoil the butter. However as I did point out, that air and light are sufficient to stop this particular mould and no reports of severe problems other than some amount of throat irritation in smokers, it would seem apparent that a small test should prove to you whether it will kill you make your bowels gripe or whatever effects it has upon your organism. Further testing will show as to whether it keeps as well as non-mouldy canna-butter and whether the cannabinoids have been damaged or reduced by the mould attack. Toasting the weed before making the butter should help.. but remember there is a fine line not to cross when toasting weed to crispy.

 

Briefly put.. mouldy weed has not killed me yet and I have been playing with it for more than four decades.

The worst kind is when they somehow manage to turn the weed to ammonia.. even crisping it in the frying pan cannot help. It still smells and tastes like horse pee.