2 weeks darkness before harvest

I am going away on vacation for 2 weeks. Plant in coco and needs watering every 4 days. Plant will be ready for harvest when I leave but I want it to die and dry out slowly. Here is what I am going to do.

The day I leave, I lightly water her and turn the lights off. Leave the extraction fan on. I will be back 2 weeks later.

Who wants to guess what I will find? I am hoping she is alive for the first week then slowly drying for the next week then I start the cure when I get home.

Actually if anyone has any other ideas please let me know. My other plan was to harvest and leave bud stems in a vase of water like bouquets of flowers, sitting in the dark, to slow down the drying for 2 weeks.

Let dry on plant I did first harvest 5 plants. I trimmed a plant a day and left them in darkness still in medium til done. I believe they still mature while dark. Not sure but still works

I would expect to find mold.

f series said:

Let dry on plant I did first harvest 5 plants. I trimmed a plant a day and left them in darkness still in medium til done. I believe they still mature while dark. Not sure but still works

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Hey thanks for the comment great to hear. Any tips or advice on how to do this? There is no info online I can find on anyones experience with it. For instance, I would leave the fan running gently. Not sure how much water I should give her before I go, I would guess not much as she won't be transpiring much so on the dry side. How long do they take to die?

I did this once and ended up with mold all along the stems, getting into every bud. I managed to cut it all out but I had tiny popcorn nugs by the time I was done and probably lost 1/3 of my harvest.

I'm not saying it can't be done. If I were to try it again I would make sure I have a powerful dehumidifier draining to a hose, set to maintain 30% RH. I would strip every fan leave you can get your scissors on. You shouldn't need to extract air from the space, as this would only make the dehumidifier have a harder time removing moisture coming in. I would make sure the soil is already bone dry the day the lights turn off. Maintain a temperature below 70F. If you can do all that... then I would think it should work nicely, and in fact would continue to leave the plants there after I return home just to finish drying. Once the individual buds are crispy on the stem I would turn the RH back up to 50%, let it chill for another week and then I'd trim and jar it all.

Also I will add that the strain you are growing makes a difference. If you have the type of strain that forms "big bud" style clusters then I wouldn't try it. If you have something that branches out and keeps all the buds away from each other then it might work really well.

StealthAssassin said:

Hey thanks for the comment great to hear. Any tips or advice on how to do this? There is no info online I can find on anyones experience with it. For instance, I would leave the fan running gently. Not sure how much water I should give her before I go, I would guess not much as she won't be transpiring much so on the dry side. How long do they take to die?

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Leave everything the same, just lights off. Whether the plant dies or not isn't of concern. You want the plant to halt growing and not be bone dry.
Now when I did this, my humidity was 50-65 temps 69-75
Inline fan blowing upward. Tower fan blowing at plants gently. The plants were still alive even the first one I trimmed.

Sounds similar to the conditions I had when I got mold.
I would say go for it, but err on the cooler + drier side to play it safe
It really does depend on the size of the buds and how closely packed the branches of buds grow to each other with your strain.

I guess I had intake blowing on plants, not upwards

I don't know, as far as I know, mold depends and air movement. Humidity is a concern but air movement is of more importantance

“ I’ll be RIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHTTTT over “ ...... * Grabs fiskers , crowbar and truck with fake plates


Glad to help

f series said:

I guess I had intake blowing on plants, not upwardsView attachment 4407288View attachment 4407289View attachment 4407290

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Really great stuff mate, thanks so much for the advice I think I might try it. Was it okay to smoke after all that lol?

Thedillestpickle said:

Also I will add that the strain you are growing makes a difference. If you have the type of strain that forms "big bud" style clusters then I wouldn't try it. If you have something that branches out and keeps all the buds away from each other then it might work really well.

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Thanks mate for the advice, if I do this ill document and tag you in it also

StealthAssassin said:

Really great stuff mate, thanks so much for the advice I think I might try it. Was it okay to smoke after all that lol?

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I'd say 3/5 we're good.

I guess your project all depends on how much you value your bud..

Perhaps you can do a bit of an experiment...so you can salvage something at the very least..
Perhaps cut off the top with the intention of drying and curing like normal, throw one stem in a vase, and leave a bottom branch intact with the intent of whithering and dying..

If you have tight buds, perhaps cut the top a few days before you go on holiday so you can get some good air circulation started early and possibly finish drying in a brown paper bag with a few holes punched in depending on where it's at to avoid mold.

GL
Toad

you could cut before you leave..... try a wet cure? Cut your plant, submerge all the nugs in h20...ideally you would change the water out every couple or few days to keep it clean but i would just use a larger volume of water since you'll be away. This style cure will remove the smell at large, but after removing from the water, and drying normally, the buds are said to smoke incredibly smoothly, without the smell....it will buy you the two weeks you need

I have not tried this, and probably wont until...well maybe ill try it eventually, but just a thought

jamison333 said:

you could cut before you leave..... try a wet cure? Cut your plant, submerge all the nugs in h20...ideally you would change the water out every couple or few days to keep it clean but i would just use a larger volume of water since you'll be away. This style cure will remove the smell at large, but after removing from the water, and drying normally, the buds are said to smoke incredibly smoothly, without the smell....it will buy you the two weeks you need

I have not tried this, and probably wont until...well maybe ill try it eventually, but just a thought

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I've tried wet curing myself..I works well on questionable bud. That said, you need to change the water out regularly as it leaches nutrients and chlorophyll out of the buds..Water will get sky my otherwise.

Water curing maintains most of the cannabinoids as they are not water soluble, but unfortunately strips out the tasty terpenes as well which are part of the smoking experience.

cheers
Toad

Amazing replies, I love MrToad69's idea about experimenting with a few different methods. Then if one of them works well at least I haven't wasted the lot! Another thought I had was to use a humidity switch to turn on the fan when the buds get over 65% humidity. The air this time of year is usually well below that so the incoming air will drop it down nicely. So I could just set the humidity sensor among the drying buds and let the extraction fan take care of the humidity they experience. Then I could also put one bud in a vase, one in a giant bucket of water, and one in the fridge. Then I will see what I come home to 10 days later!

Another suggestion I had was to NOT harvest, and put the light cycle down to 10 hours per day to wayyy reduce transpiration and water loss. Also put plastic over the coco so there is no evaporative loss from the soil. Then that way I can give her a big water before I leave and even leave a water bottle dripping into her slowly. That way she may survive the whole 10 days!