Harvest & Curing A very sad question regarding this subforum topic.

[phaze]

Hi there guys,

as my DP PL#3 grow was nearing it's end (one plant on water diet, 2 plants received their final feeding), some issues occured and I had no other option but to chop them down few days early... It was that or risk an encounter with the Law, which in my country is pretty rigid on growers (yes you are fined for some ammount of weed, but you go to jail for growing even one plant). So my balcony pets, my beautifull pets, had to go down very fast, and had to be transported to a secure location, ASAP.

I have chopped down that night, after a showerstorm, and you have seen the weather in Europe lately, pouring - not raining, its more autumn than summer. They were dried as much as possible with paper towels and what not, but still pretty wet, and put in an cardboard box that could hold all 3 of them, on 3 floors lol. The box (roughly 70x40x40) cm was fitted with flaps on the sides (bottom and top), to incude some sort of airflow, but that was about all I could do for them up to that point. They were moved to a secure location the following dawn, with little to no sleep that night...

And finaly today, after 5 days, I went to see them - and after I have opened the box there is fine, brown mold all over the place. On all of those beautifull hazy buds, all my weed is browinsh and ... (crying) ... and gone.

So my question is, is there a way this weed can be usable? Has anyone beaten the mold in the drying state of the plant? What can be done? Or has it just turned to waste? Do I throw it away? Does anyone know any good tricks how to stop the progress of the mold of to kill it? Is there a way to sort it out after it appeared?

Good people of the AFN, give me something to work with. This is my favourite strain, and I will probably have no 3 month gap in the near future (years) to grow me some of the good stuff.

Thank you for your feedback. Best regards, peope.

ps. I did not even took picures of it, it was way to painfull... :/

NOTE: Please, athough I very much appreciate the knowlege on this forum and have been abusing it for years now, pretty please do not suggest what I should have done. I know the way this should be done, how and when it should be harvested, what are the optimum conditions and all (def not after HEAVY rainfall prior to harvest, etc.) - this was not my first grow, and I never had mold problems before. But this was the only thing to be done to evade serious issues with the Law, and save the weed - except for freezing fresh and wet bud, and that is the opposite of "good bud caring". From todays perspective, I would have frozen it in a blink of an eye.

 

[faded187]

AH man that really sucks bro,i feel for you.im not real sure but I think you can make edibles or maybe tinctures.again im sorry for ur loss.i sure hope someone chimes in with a solution bro.best of luck

 

[phaze]

The thing I read in this "solution finding frenzy" is that the mold spores are way less dangerous to your health if you smoke them, than if you eat them. IDK... but thanks for your support, I appreciate it.

 

[yodabuds]

Oh no my friend! :karma Cloud: lol you story had my heart racing as i am sure yours was.... What awful circumstances to have to harvest as such sorry for your "loss"
i for one WOULD NOT smoke or eat those buds, I would maybe suggest a peroxide dip and dry or than try to make bubble hash if you have the bags... The few battles I've had with mold I did peroxide wash and than processed as hash.... Even that hash gave me a cough here and there... For health safety though I would not smoke or do anything with that bud as is. Wishing you the best of luck and that you come up with a plan, maybe a qwiso run (I'd guess though don't know for sure i would think the alcohol would kill the mold making the hash safe)... Just a couple of ideas....
:Sharing One:

 

[Grey Bear]

I agree.
you should be able to make a decent hash out it.
I would cut off all the obviosly nasty stuff.
freeze the rest and make acetone or alcohol hash out.of it.
Give the bud two separate washes. No longer than 30 seconds immersed and shaken.
when those two washes have dried you can conbine them and give them one more wash.
this should give you a very clean hash/oil.

 

[Mr Piggy]

Nope, it's all done. Moldy bud is a health hazard if smoked or consumed. Time to be responsible, chalk it up to the risk of the game, and throw all the moldy bud out. It cannot be saved, please do not try.

do not listen to people who tell you to save it, it's bad. Please throw it out.

 

[phaze]

Thank you for your tips guys. It seems that I will do a QWISO run, after some dehydration and freezing of the bud, to save at least some of the precious THC.

I have read a metric tonne of articles since the shit has hit the fan, about how good or bad for you the molded bud is, so here are some of the conclusions i managed to develop from them:
- One should not use molded bud. Depending on the type of mold on the bud, one may use it - but there is a slight possibility to get some of the spores into the lungs of THE BAD TYPE of mold, that can seriously harm your health. The chances for this are very slim, but better safe than sorry.
- Also, depending on the mold type, one could quite easily make butter or some other type of edibles, but as stated above, there are some types of mold spores that are heat resistant, and you could also harm your health.
- Alcohol, as in 99,9% Isopropyl kills the mold, basicaly desintegrates its outer layer and cell membranes, but there is a possiblity that some of the spores get by unharmed while making QWISO. This ammount is not significant enough to be considered as a health hazard (by me).
- Accurate determination of mold type is not possible without a microscope.
- All of us constantly breath in mold spores bc they are arround us, all of the time in different concetrations. Considerng all the shit I used to smoke, inhale, and sometimes even snort back in the day, I will consider that a QWISO run of the beautyfull and yet so molded Polar Light #3, poses no threat to me.

Hope this helps someone.

If you have additional tips regarding the treatment of molded drying bud, they are wellcome.

 

[imdbowlgod]

You should get rid of that bud as painful as it may be. I can only grow outside and every year now I've had to throw away a few ounces due to budrot. After my first harvest a few years ago I looked up what could be done with moldy bud. I decided the easiest thing to do was throw it out. What happened to your bud is a little different though. Too much humidity while drying.

 

[Mr Piggy]

I cannot stress how much this is a bad idea. I really hope it's only for your own consumption and not other peoples. What you are doing is extremely irresponsible.

It's not about the spores, spores are just reproductive cells. The problem is the by-products of the mold, that's what's toxic. i would like to know where you got this information as it is inaccurate. The internet is full of lies, especially when it comes to both pot and science. DO NOT DO THIS, THROW IT OUT! You should be learning a valuable lesson about how to dry pot and throw out the pot, not make it worse. For the love of growing, just throw it out!

 

[phaze]

As you said, spores will be disolved or burn out, but this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16078698

...is way more important for my point.

...determined that AFB1 was transferred only slightly from the burning cigarette to the sidestream smoke. The mean percent transfer was 0.087%.