The color of your ash is indicative of the mineral content of your medium/soil at harvest. Contrary to what stoners think, white ash doesn't mean 'more pure'.
According to your own cited quote it doesn't mean 'more pure' but lighter/white ash is "of better quality." In this case purity is associated with quality, contrary to what a stoner thinks. (you)
The soil in different regions is distinguished by its own characteristics: different minerals predominate in different places. Hence the same plant will have essentially different chemical and mineral contents in different areas.
True. Firstly, this applies only to TOBACCO and several layers of TOBACCO rolled into a dense cigar as compared to marijuana, which is the topic. Secondly, this only applies to growers who are solely using native soil. The majority of high-grade marijuana is grown indoors, hydroponically; therefore the content of the nutrient solution is controlled by the grower(s). It seems many people are wondering if there is a relation between the quality of the herb and the ash. Because if we are paying $15-20 for an herb it should be damn near perfect.
Ash is the leftover mineral content of an incinerated substance. Assuming you are using a bong/bowl with a screen and a normal cigarette lighter. If you burn the bud to the point of no longer receiving smoke the lighter the remains are, then usually, the more 'pure' the bud is. I'd say chemical-free, but nutrient-free or fertilizer-free would be more accurate b/c there of course are naturally occurring chemicals/nutrients in the plant matter and medium.
It's improper/under-flushing, that will leave you with weed that 'sparks' when the lighter hits and a black soot when finished rather than a fine, white-gray powder. Improper flushing is a good way of putting it b/c, conversely to under-flushing, over-flushing can cause a similar appearance; the plant begins to consume itself and the altered ratio of compounds created as it depletes its resources will burn and combust less evenly, also leaving you with slightly darker ash. When a plant is grown just right and when it's harvested just after the remaining nutrients leave the plant, and soil, the resulting herb burns almost as though it was meant to be smoked.
On a more serious note, who smokes their bowls down to the ash?
On a more serious note, your cited resource had a few spelling and grammatical errors. Therefore their reliability is questionable although they had many good points/tidbits. On an even more serious note to call into question is the correlation and validity you perceived this info to have to marijuana which is a bud not a cigar.
As for many other peoples comments about how their blunt or joint ashes vary, etc. Of course they do because you are using a secondary plant material(esp. blunts which aren't very consistent in quality)which compromises the marijuana ashes sole properties. In this case we are referring solely to marijuana ash in and of itself, no blunt or joint/ rolled cigar(ette).
According to someone else: If the final product lacks any moisture, during burning, it will produce a black ash. Balanced moisture will produce light gray-white ash. The taste may be slightly affected by the lack of moisture but it is definitely the smoothness of the smoke that suffers due to no h2o to buffer the other chemicals burning, not the potency. < This would be caused mostly by a lack of proper post-harvest processing, i.e. drying, curing.
I had several other things written but due to a shitty browser, computer and luck; it was lost while I was searching for factual data, etc. to support my claim(s). The browser froze, I waited several minutes for it to recover but unfortunately I was forced to end task through task manger. Some of it was saved by the auto-save feature, yet it was less than I expected. Now, I don't have the time to remember, re-search and re-type it all, so if you have a bone to pick I will have to crush it individually.
It popped up in the bottom left-hand corner and said auto-saved. However, when I clicked restore auto-saved data it didn't restore to the most recent point, it restored quite a way back. I was livid, I had spent a while compiling the data for this reply and lost over half of it. Any thoughts from mods?