Harvest/curing method

Hi im a first time grower of blueberry and harlequin from ilgm. And im near a cut down date.

What is your way of flushing/trimming/curing your buds?

I would like to produce the best product possible.


I know it can be controversial but id like YOUR opinion, blind. Fight if you have too....

Best,

feed straight water for the final 2 weeks cut and whole plant hang at 60%/60f for 10-14days. Trim and put into jars, buckets etc.
Cure for 3 weeks minimum, burping the jars less and less often.

The biggest screw up people make is over drying or flash drying. dry that shit slow and cold.

You want it to be spongy not dry/crumbly

cheers

As they say flushing is for toilets lol. Many dont believe in it tho some do still hang on to idea of it. Bro science they call it.

First thing first is dont cut it down too early. Post a pic and ask if it is done. Newbies tend to take down their plants far too early sometimes a month or a month a half too soon.

After that what was mentioned above is good advice. Slow dry...make sure the stems crack. Buy a cheap hygrometer and make sure the rh in the jars are between 62 and 55. Any higher and you will have to let the buds air out more. Any less and you will have some dry crumbly buds.

After yrs of growing some of the rock stars in this forum turned me on to dry trimming. Nice thing about that is when you do dry trim it really re releases all that danky smell all over again.

Yes its interesting to see the different arguments for and against. "flushing"

I think many people say flushing is for toilets and claim bro science but cant tell the difference between a blog and a peer reviewed article. As of right now I would tell anyone that technically, insignificant evidence exists to make a conclusive decision for or against "flushing". Anyone who tells you otherwise, or mentions toilets, likely does not have much experience designing, processing, analyzing and disseminating qualitative and quantitative research and may not always provide the most statistically sound advice.

This is one of the few articles actually based around flushing specifically and it is very interesting and definitely leads into potential research topics for the future. I would say after looking over the study it appears fairly weak in its design in some aspects but is a good start for the industry.

Personally, every large scale facility I have ever toured or worked at have some form of "flush" even if its just cutting down on feed ppm. Find me someone with 50+ lights who says flushing is for toilets because I haven't met one yet.

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kingkush4200 said:

Yes its interesting to see the different arguments for and against. "flushing"

I think many people say flushing is for toilets and claim bro science but cant tell the difference between a blog and a peer reviewed article. As of right now I would tell anyone that technically, insignificant evidence exists to make a conclusive decision for or against "flushing". Anyone who tells you otherwise, or mentions toilets, likely does not have much experience designing, processing, analyzing and disseminating qualitative and quantitative research and may not always provide the most statistically sound advice.

This is one of the few articles actually based around flushing specifically and it is very interesting and definitely leads into potential research topics for the future. I would say after looking over the study it appears fairly weak in its design in some aspects but is a good start for the industry.

Cannabis Flushing Research Study

In our research study, RX Green Technologies evaluated the effects of different flushing times on chemical profile, flavor, and smoke of cannabis flower.

www.rxgreentechnologies.com

Personally, every large scale facility I have ever toured or worked at have some form of "flush" even if its just cutting down on feed ppm. Find me someone with 50+ lights who says flushing is for toilets because I haven't met one yet.

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Cutting Down on feed ppm and actual true flushing is two different things all together. True flushing is using water (some use at a large amount) to rid the soil of all the excess salts and nutrients built up. That is completely different then just stopping feeding or lessening the feed.

Also it depends on if you use synthetics or are like me who is an organic grower. You cant flush my soil. Its impossible.

Organic here also...no specific flush. I Harvest according to the niche in my meds I wish to fill. Some to help push through the day, some to couch lock the evenings...regardless, a slow dry of 7-10 days gets ya to the next stage of cure... personally, I trim fan leaves, dry a few days, trim smaller leaves, dry more, trim any leaves left...put in brown paper bags. Jar when nuggs hit 62% on hydrometer. My peeps always smoke my stuff immediately but is usually improved with a couple weeks cured.

Oldreefer said:

Organic here also...no specific flush. I Harvest according to the niche in my meds I wish to fill. Some to help push through the day, some to couch lock the evenings...regardless, a slow dry of 7-10 days gets ya to the next stage of cure... personally, I trim fan leaves, dry a few days, trim smaller leaves, dry more, trim any leaves left...put in brown paper bags. Jar when nuggs hit 62% on hydrometer. My peeps always smoke my stuff immediately but is usually improved with a couple weeks cured.

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I personally shoot for a 10 to 14 day dry. Sometimes that means leaving more stem on. Leaving the sugar leaves on help as well. At that point they are just about perfect for jar and does not have any form of hay smell.

The reasons I leave the sugar leaves on is because I harvest A LOT at a time so the buds get knocked around a bit. The sugar leaves help protect the trichs on the buds. Works as a cushion so to speak. Then if I want to gift some or take some with me its just a quick trim and like I said it re releases some dank ass Terps.
Also it would take every second of every day to trim the buds before jarring.

I let my last plant go until I knew it was ready. It was a painstaking 3 weeks or so but I just let it keep going until there were basically no more white hairs. The difference between a really swollen mature calyx and an immature one is pretty immense, and you can DEFINITELY see it when you trim and accident cut into a few lol. Don’t chop too early!!

What they said and get better genetics

What REALLY matters is your own personal drying environment. On the internet people can be from anywhere in the world. When some one says ‘I just hang for X days it’s simple’ , that persons environment is much different than yours. Where is your drying room, what is the humidity and what is the temperature, then you can start to think about how long it will take using different methods. I finished my last grow in the dead of winter, the humidity was 30% in my house so it was easy to dry quickly. It was too quickly. Anyways,

Hang branch’s my a string and depending on your environment, leave some fan leafs on or off to keep more moisture in the buds. Put a humidity gauge in your drying tent, have a fan blowing air a little, watch the humidity gauge change as time goes on. It was so dry in my environment I could turn the extraction fan off and watch the humidity in the tent go up to 80%, but after turning it on the rH would go down to 30. Turn the fan off and watch the rh then slowly creep up. You can use this creeping upwards as a way to gauge how much humidity the stems are putting out.

My mistake was to put the buds in jars too early, even though I specifically waited extra time to be sure to not put them too early but I still did, so it is important to know how to gauge when they are DRY. If you bust up a big fat mug and it is moist in there but dry crispy on the outside, you have to do everything perfectly.

My method is a bit different. I cut plant and remove large fam leaves. Cut and hang branches for 7-10 days. Then cut branches to about one foot pieces and place in brown paper bag for 1-2 weeks. When the buds snap off the branch without cutting, trim and jar. Biggest mistake is jarring too soon imo.

growsince79 said:

My method is a bit different. I cut plant and remove large fam leaves. Cut and hang branches for 7-10 days. Then cut branches to about one foot pieces and place in brown paper bag for 1-2 weeks. When the buds snap off the branch without cutting, trim and jar. Biggest mistake is jarring too soon imo.

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I see the paper bag method and the jarring too soon the same. It's basically the same principle... drawing the moisture from the inside to outside. Only difference is the bag continues to dry where the jar does not, but the bag does it too fast for my taste. However when I used to use the bag method it would sometimes leave the hay smell too. To each their own tho... but I do know that I always hit my target rh when I do jar straight out the gate and the buds snap right off as well. Took yrs to perfect this in my high humidity area.