Fight Botrytis or Harvest early?

Hello guys, been reading lots of info all over the web about Bud Rot. I have a small outdoor medical garden in wine country CA. temps are low 50's to 80's not very humid here. lots of vineyards around though and probably spores in the air? Just had our first rain in months, and it rained hard for 45 minutes or so.
A few days later in my daily inspection, I found my Sours had quarter sized mold spots on just about all the main colas. They are 6-7 feet tall and in cages so cola's are thick and huge. Felt like I got punched in the gut.


My question is :

Is is better to fight Botrytis with sprays (serenade, etc..) and containment and sanitation or Just go ahead and harvest early? My Sour's are at about 55 days right now. Could certainly go a few weeks but hell not if I lose more than that weight in mold. I guess I'm not sure how much weight gain the SD's are going to experience in the last 2 weeks VS the damage the Botrytis can/will cause even if I fight it diligently.

here are a few other variables-

1. because of work schedules, was mostly watering (drip lines) around sun down. after reading I can see i should immediately swith to AM waterings (or maybe just let them dry out a few days with no water while i contain the situation?)

2. the girls are pretty big, from seed, and in 6'x6' raised beds with only 3 plants per bed. lots of room and they took most of the canopy space up.

3. the temps for the next week look to be low 50's to high 70's. humidity in the 30's generally with morning dew but this week also another chance of rain in 5 or 6 days.


OK, thanks for listening. My first grow, and I went all out with FF OF, organic nutes, cedar beds, molasses, etc.. Really babied these girls, hate to see the mold show up.
Any thoughts are appreciated.

Sorry to read of your bud rot.
My plants also have it, temps here are about 15c and humidity is 80%+ and more at times and I'm only 4 weeks in.I have to chop my AK47 x WW tomorrow and maybe I'll salvage a few grams of hash.
Personally at 55 days in I would chop and cut my losses.
I have seen how quickly it spreads and it is probably on multiple sites on your plants that you can't see.

fr3d12 said:

Sorry to read of your bud rot.
My plants also have it, temps here are about 15c and humidity is 80%+ and more at times and I'm only 4 weeks in.I have to chop my AK47 x WW tomorrow and maybe I'll salvage a few grams of hash.
Personally at 55 days in I would chop and cut my losses.
I have seen how quickly it spreads and it is probably on multiple sites on your plants that you can't see.

Click to expand...

I had bud rot once with 4 plants indoors.

Should have yielded around 18oz if allowed to finish.

Had to pull early and managed to salvage 13oz. Lost about 3oz to rot.

Unfortunately it generally starts with the biggest and heaviest colas.

I lost part of my biggest cola to rot.



J

I've cut the top few inches of all the biggest colas and it has started on some of the lighter stems so the plant is doomed.

If you live in a high botrytis area and you have access to serenade then it is best used about 2-4 weeks into flowering. Although, it is a naturally occurring bacteria and will eat itself to death on the botrytis leaving no visible residues. However it works best as a prevention rather than a cure.

Consider it from this point of view, you cant do much with the buds that have visible budrot on them, consider them fucked, but the rest of your plant that is not showing visible signs, probably has the beginnings of infection of bud rot but its just not visible to the naked eye.

You can at least save those by letting the bacillus subtilis (serenade) do its thing, remember you still have a drying period ahead of you as well and botrytis never sleeps. The 'serenade' bacterias will keep working until the botrytis is all eaten up and will prevent the proliferation of them throughout the rest of the grow and through the drying and curing period.

So spray them as soon as possible then let the plant bud to its full term (or not), then harvest and dry, and by the time the surviving buds are dried and cured, you would have significantly reduced the chances of any of the surviving buds also getting bud rot.