Lambs Bread- 73 days in and I'm looking for help + opinions!

Here are my 6 Lambs Bread after 73 days of flowering. I just noticed some male flowers today so I feel like I absolutely need to chop now. What do the experts think, are they ready to go?

Also, I'm looking for tips/advice on my set-up. I feel like my plants are stretched and there should be more flowers? I never adjusted the height of the lights (currently they're about 18 inches from one 1000W bulb) so maybe that's a problem? The last two grows I've really had to use a lot of ties (the green twist-tie material) to keep my plants from literally breaking off from the weight of the flowers. Is that normal or are my stems not strong/healthy enough? Last question, maybe my plants are too big for their pots?

This is like my 6th or 7th grow in this set up and I'm just not getting the results I want. No matter how I try to dry and cure the flowers, inevitably I get left with grassy, bad tasting (though potent) buds. I feel like I get the whole drying and curing process and so I'm thinking the bad taste and smell comes from something I'm doing wrong during flowering?

If you have any questions, or if you see something I'm doing wrong, don't be afraid to shout it out! This is a medical grow and I'm really just looking for quality!

Thanks in advance.

Dude I have the same problem with drying/curing. I'd love to hear some advise on that. Your plants are stretched. The light needs to be 18 inches from the plants constantly as its vegging out and flowering. Also make sure throughout the veg and flower stage they have a nice soft gust from a fan blowing on the plants 24/7.

looks good to go to me, be proud of those buds, i dont see anything wrong. and isnt lamsbread sativa dom? those sativas will stretch on you no matter what

those look perfectly ripened to me so i say go ahead and chop.

about the questions on your setup, it's not uncommon for buds to weigh down branches. in the future you could try some extra wind in the grow room and a silica supplement during veg, and that will strengthen the stems up. also a longer veg would help but that's not always in the cards.

when you say you always get the grassy taste, have you been growing the same strain all along? if you grow multiple strains and they all taste like grass i would lean toward the dry/cure as the culprit since different strains all respond differently to your grow methods.

about your pot size, i really couldn't get a feel for the scale of plant and pot size, but they look to have done pretty well.
about the color of the leaves, is that genetic or did you have a feeding snafu? i do see a few yellow leaves but nothing major. in general you get better results the longer you can keep the leaves green.

wow amazing lambs bread looks tastyy man how do those smell?

there for sure done those wil taste very good n the high will be crazy

got 3 lambs bread in veg right now almost 3 ft with healthy huge fan leaves

This may seem a silly question, are you topping those?

also u say u get that grassy taste how do u dry/cure ur bud

right after u chop them what do u do?:

Wow, thanks for the quick responses! That's why this forum rules...

Dr Lg- Yeah, I think next time I'll keep that 18 inches between tops and light at all times. I actually have a A/C unit that I'm standing over that constantly blows air.

dam 612- Thanks man! I hope they taste good too... thanks for the tip on the Sativa stretch.

Total Head- Thanks for the info. I've been growing different strains and they all end up smelling and tasting like crap. The flowers smell good for about 2-3 days after getting chopped but they go downhill from there and don't recover. So I guess I really do need to take a look at the curing process again? My last grow I tried to cure some of the buds extra slow in order to keep them from getting that green taste, and they ended up molding so obviously I went too far. Like I said, guess I need to do some more reading! As for the leaves, I honestly don't know whether the color change is genetic or not but they just started changing last week so hopefully it's genetic and I didn't do something wrong? Out of curiosity, what type of feeding snafu are you referring to?

also u say u get that grassy taste how do u dry/cure ur bud

right after u chop them what do u do?:



wow amazing lambs bread looks tastyy man how do those smell?

there for sure done those wil taste very good n the high will be crazy

got 3 lambs bread in veg right now almost 3 ft with healthy huge fan leaves

?

ClaytonBigsby- These are untopped. I pruned off several lower branches when I switched to flowering

KUShSOurSMOKEr- Thanks, I hope those ladies go well for you! After chopping, here's what I do

1. cut the fan leaves off, then go in for a finer trim.
2. I hang them in a dark closet that has a fan blowing indirect air. I've tried no fan, with a humidifier, and still don't get good results.
3. before the flowers become brittle, I take the branches, cut off individual flowers, and stick them in glass jars.
4. Usually by the next day the flowers are somewhat wet to the touch, so I move the flowers from jars to paper bags in order to help get some of the moisture out.
5. I repeat step 4 until the buds are dry enough to be ground up and smoked (I prefer using a vape)

What do you think, am I overlooking something?

thanks tapick!
those lambs breads look hella tasty do they have a cheesy almost buttery dank smell to them???

also is this ur first time growing LAMBS BREAD ?

the way those buds look u should get a good tasting bud no matter what '

u get those cuts from cali ?

I hope they taste good! I've just been here before where I thought I had some good looking flowers that ended up tasting bad in the end.

What did you think of my drying and curing process, sound good to you? From what I saw here at this site, "green taste" comes from flowers that are cut too early, dried too quickly, or not properly flushed (though I guess there's some difference of opinion on the importance of flushing). I should have those three bases covered though.

It's my first time growing lambs bread, so hopefully this is what they should look like!

tapick said:

ClaytonBigsby- These are untopped. I pruned off several lower branches when I switched to flowering

KUShSOurSMOKEr- Thanks, I hope those ladies go well for you! After chopping, here's what I do

1. cut the fan leaves off, then go in for a finer trim.
2. I hang them in a dark closet that has a fan blowing indirect air. I've tried no fan, with a humidifier, and still don't get good results.
3. before the flowers become brittle, I take the branches, cut off individual flowers, and stick them in glass jars.
4. Usually by the next day the flowers are somewhat wet to the touch, so I move the flowers from jars to paper bags in order to help get some of the moisture out.
5. I repeat step 4 until the buds are dry enough to be ground up and smoked (I prefer using a vape)

What do you think, am I overlooking something?

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on step 3, when you say "before they become brittle" can you elaborate on this? do the stems still "peel" when you try to rip a bud off? how many days from chop does it take to get to this point? less than 5 days?
also, after the first day in the jar, when they become a little moist again, have you tried just airing them in the open air, either with the lid off or dumped and spread out? when your bud rehydrates in the jar, a lot can be learned from how long they take do dry back up again in the open air.

and when i say feeding snafu i just mean any sort of "oops" along the way regarding under/overferting. honestly though your plants look fine besides a little yellowing, which is understandable for a 10+week strain. the purple leaves look to be genetic rather than a fert issue and they're beautiful. i was just wondering if there were any feeding issues but since you say this happens with multiple strains it's more likely the dry/cure process.

Total Head said:

on step 3, when you say "before they become brittle" can you elaborate on this? do the stems still "peel" when you try to rip a bud off? how many days from chop does it take to get to this point? less than 5 days?
also, after the first day in the jar, when they become a little moist again, have you tried just airing them in the open air, either with the lid off or dumped and spread out? when your bud rehydrates in the jar, a lot can be learned from how long they take do dry back up again in the open air.

and when i say feeding snafu i just mean any sort of "oops" along the way regarding under/overferting. honestly though your plants look fine besides a little yellowing, which is understandable for a 10+week strain. the purple leaves look to be genetic rather than a fert issue and they're beautiful. i was just wondering if there were any feeding issues but since you say this happens with multiple strains it's more likely the dry/cure process.

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Yes, the stems do still peel when I try to rip off a bud, but the edges of the bud have started to get crisp. In recent grows I'd say that maybe it takes 3-5 days to reach this point? I've tried using a humidifier to make sure the buds don't dry out too quickly, but the end result is the same- grassy smelling and grassy tasting buds. To be honest, I feel like I've tried just about every degree of brittleness/bend not break before jarring up the buds, and I still get poor results. That's why I can't sop thinking that something has been wrong with the plants/flowers prior to chopping. For the lambs bread, I feel like the buds don't smell as strong as they should?? But maybe I'm just used to it by now?

The only time I've had reasonable success was with a purple strain (maybe gdp?) but of course, I was overly worried about having the buds dry too quickly and most of it ended up molding. But what could be salvaged smelled and taste great, so I'm hoping to get my hands on some more purple strains for future grows. Not sure if I did something different or what, but I enjoyed the results.

Either way, I'd still like to figure out what I'm doing wrong right now so that I can be a better grower, so your input is definitely appreciated! What do you think, am I having a problem in the harvesting, drying, and curing stages? Or is something not right with the buds prior to chopping?

1st tell us what is the humidity is like where you live > 50% most of the time, > 70% ?? or arid < 35% most of the time. It easier to dry and cure in an arid region.

I would never use a humidifier, the object is to remove moisture.

There are 2 things I've noticed that will cause the grassy taste, 1st as you mentioned is cutting a plant down to early. The other is not giving the bud time for all the chlorophyll to be released. If you are a fast dryer, (there are many who build dryers) like in 4 to 5 days to stem snap. It will still take 2 wks in a zip lock or jar to let the chlorophyll to fully release. If using a jar cure it will take at least 4 wks after chopping to fully release. And chlorophyll can't escape if the buds aren't losing moisture. I live in an arid region so this is fairly easy for me, if you live in a hi humidity region this can be more difficult. When I was in Hawaii, we'd hang the buds in a box with good air flow thru it and it could take up to a month if it was rainy. One other thing about stored chlorophyll is that most of it is stored in the green leafy material, so trim your buds as tight as you can.

WattSaver said:

1st tell us what is the humidity is like where you live > 50% most of the time, > 70% ?? or arid < 35% most of the time. It easier to dry and cure in an arid region.

I would never use a humidifier, the object is to remove moisture.

There are 2 things I've noticed that will cause the grassy taste, 1st as you mentioned is cutting a plant down to early. The other is not giving the bud time for all the chlorophyll to be released. If you are a fast dryer, (there are many who build dryers) like in 4 to 5 days to stem snap. It will still take 2 wks in a zip lock or jar to let the chlorophyll to fully release. If using a jar cure it will take at least 4 wks after chopping to fully release. And chlorophyll can't escape if the buds aren't losing moisture. I live in an arid region so this is fairly easy for me, if you live in a hi humidity region this can be more difficult. When I was in Hawaii, we'd hang the buds in a box with good air flow thru it and it could take up to a month if it was rainy. One other thing about stored chlorophyll is that most of it is stored in the green leafy material, so trim your buds as tight as you can.

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Thanks for the info. It's pretty dry here most of the time, between 30-50% humidity. In the tent the humidity levels are usually between 60% and 70%, but in the closet where I dry it's more like 30-50%. Temps in the tent are ~74 daytime, ~70 nighttime, temps in the closet are a little cooler.

Would taking different pictures of my current grow or my set up help ID my grassy-tasting bud problems?

tapick said:

Thanks for the info. It's pretty dry here most of the time, between 30-50% humidity. In the tent the humidity levels are usually between 60% and 70%, but in the closet where I dry it's more like 30-50%. Temps in the tent are ~74 daytime, ~70 nighttime, temps in the closet are a little cooler.

Would taking different pictures of my current grow or my set up help ID my grassy-tasting bud problems?

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You did bring out a clue. Your tent is running 20 to 30% higher humidity than your outside air.
Now during flowering it is best to keep your humidity down, 35 - 40% is really great but anything under 50% is okay. So I'm thinking that you need more ventilation through your tent. Your plants degas all the time (hence bi-product of O2) and if the humidity is building up then so are these gases, I can't see any benefit to this. This could actually inhibit the release of chlorophyll, an area I've never had to explore.

Hopefully you have the time to bump up the ventilation and bring down the humidity to ambient for a wk or so to see if this makes a difference in taste, I'd really like to know.

WattSaver said:

You did bring out a clue. Your tent is running 20 to 30% higher humidity than your outside air.
Now during flowering it is best to keep your humidity down, 35 - 40% is really great but anything under 50% is okay. So I'm thinking that you need more ventilation through your tent. Your plants degas all the time (hence bi-product of O2) and if the humidity is building up then so are these gases, I can't see any benefit to this. This could actually inhibit the release of chlorophyll, an area I've never had to explore.

Hopefully you have the time to bump up the ventilation and bring down the humidity to ambient for a wk or so to see if this makes a difference in taste, I'd really like to know.

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Very interesting, high humidity during flowering could be the issue! I've never really tried to keep it down that low, but my A/C has a dehumidify setting so I'll run that for a couple days to see if that helps.

Question for you: as I mentioned in my original post, I am starting to see male flowers on the bottom of a couple plants. They have not opened yet but either way I obviously need to cut sooner rather than later so as to avoid having my flowers pollinated. Could high humidity during the flowering cycle cause enough stress in the plant so as to create these hermies/male flowers? My tent is light proof, and runs during the day, so light leakage probably didn't cause the plants to grow male flowers?

Either way, I do think you're onto something because the smell in there is good, but definitely very "green" smelling and not as good as I would expect. Also, my plants always seem to smell better in weeks 4-6 than they do later on, and the Lambs Bread is no exception.

Thanks for your input!

Any other suggestions out there as to why I just got male flowers in week 11? Do the flowers seem fluffy to anyone else, maybe I need to supplement the 1000w light with some fluorescents? Here's a pic of under the canopy:


Thanks again for all the help! It's been several years and several grows and I'm still trying to get this right!

tapick said:

Any other suggestions out there as to why I just got male flowers in week 11? Do the flowers seem fluffy to anyone else, maybe I need to supplement the 1000w light with some fluorescents? Here's a pic of under the canopy:
View attachment 1957432

Thanks again for all the help! It's been several years and several grows and I'm still trying to get this right!

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a lot of strains naturally throw out nanners toward the end in a last minute effort to reproduce, it's not always user error. since your stuff is ready for chop, i wouldn't even worry about it. it's hard to tell based on a pic, but those do not look fluffy at all. they look pretty dense to me.

back to your drying issue. the first thing is 3-5 days is what i would consider too quick for drying, so i understand why you were messing with a humidifier, but i just don't like the idea of adding more moisture to the air, particularly since you say the air where you dry is around 50%.

are you leaving the buds on the main stems? this can make it take longer and result in more even drying. if the colas were really fat and dense i would probably reccomend cutting them into smaller buds and drying them flat, but since your issue is drying too quickly, definately leave the stems on. sometimes you have to tailor the dry process to suit the strain (fluffy, dense, etc.)

also, when you say you dry them in a closet, is this a closet with a door that you close or is it left open?
i dry mine in a cardboard box with a coat hanger stuck through it. the humidity in the room is about 50%, and i don't use any fans or anything. the temps in the winter where i dry are between 50-65 degrees.

i dug out some pics of a couple plants i harvested in around the end of october. the pic with more buds was a bagseed and the one with just the 4 colas was a pineapple chunk pheno that i'm in love with and have been growing for over a year. yields like shit though. i leave a bit of extra leaf on mine when i hang them so that might help drag it out a bit. i trim the little bits before they go into the jars, though.

the pineapple chunk took 2 more days to dry to where i like than the bagseed did, due to the colas being a bit more girthy and dense, and even the stems were fatter, so this made it take a bit longer also. i try to chop them a day or so after i water, before they dry out. i find that waiting for your soil to be bone dry before chopping results in a faster dry with a shittier taste (just my opinion).

so if you are closing the door and putting a fan in there, try leaving the door open with no fan and just wait it out.
also, skip the brown bag step after the buds rehydrate and just dump 'em out and check them every 15-30 minutes. when they feel dry again stick them right back in the jar. sometimes you have to really be on top of it with the curing.

how i decide when to burp the jars is i'll turn the jar upside down and look at the bud. if it sticks to the bottom of the jar and does not fall, they are too wet, and need to be removed from the jar until they dry out. if it sticks for a second and then drops, i'm on the right track and i'll just shake them to separate the buds and take the lid off for about 10 minutes and put it back on. if the buds do not stick to the bottom at all they are too dry and i don't open the jar at all.

lol this thread is making it seem like rocket science but it's really just a feel you get for it. this is just how i do it and get good results. as long as you are carefully monitoring the buds after chop/cure starts and know what to look for or avoid you should make out fine.

sorry for the book