Crop Died / Mold

I think things are too far gone but I'll toss this out here.

While I was gone my caretakers did something - I don't know what - and my crop died. But they didn't even notice that it had died for a week or more. I came back to a mostly dead or dying crop. The crop was about a week from harvest so the buds were really far along.

Since the crop died and they just left it there, a lot of it is getting moldy. I assume it's mold at least. Some was starting to rot but those parts are pretty small thankfully. Common sense took over and I cut the whole crop down, threw out what was clearly bad and divided the rest up. Some is largely intact - some smell of mold or whatever but not trashed. Other pieces had some bad parts that I pruned off and threw out.

Right now I have the parts that look worth saving curing like a regular crop - that is, cut up into branches of about 18" and hanging in a cool, dark room. I think there's a smell of mold or something but my roommate tells me that it's not so bad.

What more can be done? Can something be done about the moldy smell that (to me at least) is over the whole crop?

Would turning it all to hash or some other processed product be an option?

first of all, some pictures would help a lot

seccondly, next time, don't let that/them Ppl. look after your crop, find somebody who cares

if it is mold or Bud rot its hard to do anything really, some H2O2 can be used in some cases (mildew aso)

[video=youtube;S7jE7qzfgQs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7jE7qzfgQs[/video]



If it was me I would probably make oil of it all, that way you will end up with as little mold as possible in your end product

Yeah, making it in to hash is an option.

I always felt good about dry ice hash with slightly molded crops. The cold temps make me feel like it kills most of the mold. Actually they use co2 to kill mold so maybe if you left it in there with some dry ice it would help kill it haha. cold temps and lack of o2

Thanks. I tried the hydrogen peroxide trick and the buds smell a lot better. Not perfect but better. They look a whole lot better too. Time will tell. The next option would be hash or oil or whatever.

I don't think that this washes away the THC. I understand that its not water soluble.

Any recommendations on a good site / thread for how to make oil or hash?

I think it was bud rot, whatever that is. That's probably a form of mold but that was the problem. The humidity was very high in the room and there was mold growing on the walls at one point before I knocked it back.

edibles is safest imo

It would be best to make Oil from this if it does have mold as the alcohol will kill the spores. Cold will not be detrimental to the spores, extreme heat or sterilization is all that will help.

I can leave my op for up to three weeks before corruption begins to happen. I use timers and stuff that way I don't have to rely on other people.

you can dry/cure the rest and mb be ok or you can separate the triches from the plant w/ a silkscreen and smoke the kief or make hash or since its the holidays make edibles and spread the love around. if it were me I would make some nice caramels then eat every one myself then buy gift cards.

When in doubt, throw it out. No smoke, no hash, no food. Molds can be very dangerous, and can cause serious health effects. It sucks to lose a crop that far along due to negligence, but it would suck even more getting deathly ill or needing to be hospitalized (yes molds do this, seen it first hand).

CaretakerDad said:

It would be best to make Oil from this if it does have mold as the alcohol will kill the spores. Cold will not be detrimental to the spores, extreme heat or sterilization is all that will help.

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Extreme cold helps too. They blast co2 out of pressure washer looking guns to get rid of severe mold infestations. So in theory it should work as well as alcohol.

budbro18 said:

Extreme cold helps too. They blast co2 out of pressure washer looking guns to get rid of severe mold infestations. So in theory it should work as well as alcohol.

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Sorry to disagree but getting rid of an infestation and killing the spores are two completely different issues: An excerpt from a paper on pathogenic fungi

"For survival strategy, Fungi produce almost indestructible spore that survive a long time. Spore have very thick walls with dark pigmentation that defy ultraviolet light. In addition, many pathogenic spore have spiny cell walls that cause them to cling together as clumps when borne aloft. Fungi spore are capable of surviving both high and low temperatures. Many fungus colonies literally propel spore into the air by ejecting spore when water pressure builds up in the hypha stalk"

This same shit happened to me when I had some one watch after my fish tank. Came home they where all corpses floating at the top of the water. Apparently "feeding them while we are gone" meant feeding them 1 time.

I have had a plant with powdery mildew before. Shit spreads pretty fast. I did like the video Slipon showed, and the pm just floats to the top. Then rinse the bud off really good and put them in front of a fan. Not sure if it completely kills mold, but all the visible PM was gone and nothing came back during curing.

Sorry about your loss! It depresses me to even lose a seedling, you must be very fuckin mad! Fuck I am mad just reading about your situation.

budbro18 said:

Extreme cold helps too. They blast co2 out of pressure washer looking guns to get rid of severe mold infestations. So in theory it should work as well as alcohol.

Click to expand...

Sorry to disagree but getting rid of an infestation and killing the spores are two completely different issues: An excerpt from a paper on pathogenic fungi

"For survival strategy, Fungi produce almost indestructible spore that survive a long time. Spore have very thick walls with dark pigmentation that defy ultraviolet light. In addition, many pathogenic spore have spiny cell walls that cause them to cling together as clumps when borne aloft. Fungi spore are capable of surviving both high and low temperatures. Many fungus colonies literally propel spore into the air by ejecting spore when water pressure builds up in the hypha stalk"

190 Proof Grain alcohol on the other hand which is 95% ethanol will sterilize almost everything it contacts. Science is a wonderful thing.

CaretakerDad said:

Sorry to disagree but getting rid of an infestation and killing the spores are two completely different issues: An excerpt from a paper on pathogenic fungi

"For survival strategy, Fungi produce almost indestructible spore that survive a long time. Spore have very thick walls with dark pigmentation that defy ultraviolet light. In addition, many pathogenic spore have spiny cell walls that cause them to cling together as clumps when borne aloft. Fungi spore are capable of surviving both high and low temperatures. Many fungus colonies literally propel spore into the air by ejecting spore when water pressure builds up in the hypha stalk"

190 Proof Grain alcohol on the other hand which is 95% ethanol will sterilize almost everything it contacts. Science is a wonderful thing.

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Not saying that alcohol wont, but only the spores survive. The actual mold/fungi die. The spores have an outer coating that help them survive those higher/lower temps, not the actual mold/fungus. Ive grown many batches of shrooms, and thats why you need to pressure cook. Not to kill the mold/fungi, because you can boil/sterilize to get rid of them, but to get to such a high temp/pressure to kill off the spores with those tough shells. I forget the technical definition of the shell but it can be broken its just harder.

MFB said:

This same shit happened to me when I had some one watch after my fish tank. Came home they where all corpses floating at the top of the water. Apparently "feeding them while we are gone" meant feeding them 1 time.

I have had a plant with powdery mildew before. Shit spreads pretty fast. I did like the video Slipon showed, and the pm just floats to the top. Then rinse the bud off really good and put them in front of a fan. Not sure if it completely kills mold, but all the visible PM was gone and nothing came back during curing.

Sorry about your loss! It depresses me to even lose a seedling, you must be very fuckin mad! Fuck I am mad just reading about your situation.

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A funny story.... I was a single parent stationed with the Army in Germany in the late 80's and was making frequent "trips" to Cyprus occasionally for long periods. During one of those trips which lasted for 3 months I asked my neighbor Pablo to water my plants ( about 40 ) and feed my fish. I had the usual 2" tank with about 30 of these red tailed somethings that had started as a male and female and were now at tank capacity. I only had 2 keys and needed to leave one with the babysitter in case of emergency during my absence so I told Pablo that I would drop the key in his mailbox when I left in the morning. I returned late at night and knocked on their door wanting to get my key and get settled before picking up my then 2 year old daughter. When Pablo and his wife answered their door they were happy to see me although somewhat confused as to why I was visiting them at that hour. When I asked Pablo if he had my key he gave me the "deer caught in the headlights" look. At that time his wife spoke up and said "you know I found a key in the mailbox about the same time that you left". After finding the key I went to my apartment and of course all of my houseplants had turned to dust but in the aquarium there was about 2" of dingy green water and 3 survivors who had managed to make it through the apocalypse. Sometimes Shit just happens

i dont see any harm to eating something moldy as far as lungs go, if your stomach can take it i guess is all that matters..
don't they make penicillin out of mold?

Yes, but there are far more dangerous types of mold, just cause its white and fuzzy doesn't mean one can tell what kind of fungi it is

Well thanks for all of the ideas. After an H2Os wash and a night under the fan, my bud does smell a lot better and I think are worth saving in some form.

While I understand how strong spores are, my belief is that we're always smoking and eating spores. You can't be free of them in any crop or bud. The question is then, what levels are acceptable? My gut feeling would be to just watch it and smell it. I wouldn't smoke something that clearly smelled of mold, especially wouldn't smoke something like that regularly. But if the bud doesn't smell like mold after curing and an H2O2 rinse, I'd think that it's about the same as other bud.

I'm going to wash the room down thoroughly with Chlorox, Physan and an anti-mold bomb of some sort. I'm going to clean the carpet in the house as well. I assume the spores are everywhere and I've got a crop of clones ready to go. I don't need this problem again.

I'll probably split the crop up: water cure some, regular cure the others and make hash out of the other buds.