Top buds have very fine white growth that looks a little like spider webbing

I'm a newby. This is my first successful outdoor grow -- sativa bagseeds. Beginning to harvest, noticed white growth on a few top buds. Look like thick clusters of spider webs, only on buds, not surrounding leaves.

We had very heavy inland rains here earlier this month as result of recent hurricanes off mid-Atlantic east coast USA. Wondering if dense top buds weren't able to get dry after rains and have developed mold, fungus or some other form of bud rot.

Anyone know what this stuff is? And any advice on how to deal with it?

Still have one big, beautiful plant in the ground and would like to protect it from this gunk if at all possible. Plants are for my personal stash, so don't want to apply chemicals that will kill me when I smoke 'em. (Wouldn't want anyone else to either, of course... just sayin' )

sounds like spider mites. can you post a photo?

sounds like you have spider mites my friend. spider mites or spiderweb mould. i suspect its one of those, if not, it's some similar insect or fungal colony. treat plants with neem oil, tobacco juice or whatever organic pesticides you have around to control an insect infestation, but if it's mould or fungus, all you can do it control it spreading by treating with sulphur or something similar.
after treatment, try to remove as much shit from the buds as you can as well as doing your best to keep the plants and buds in a dry space with low humidity to prevent further bud rot.

sounds like spider mites so do a little bit of research before doing anything, but neem oil should do the trick. if the plants look gross and unsmokable in the end, salvage what you can to make hash oil or bubble hash.

hope that helps. good luck

any pictures? i had mites before and webs form too... neem oil fixed it pretty much but i caught it early in the race

Thank you all for your help. Sounds like the consensus answer is spider mites. I've read about them for years, but just had my first in-person encounter. So bummed I had to light up. Now it's a little easier to accept.

I religously bug-sprayed these ladies until about three weeks ago. I stopped so I could harvest some nice clean eco-friendly buds. Oooo-o-o-ps! Live and learn.

Scraped the stuff off the buds when I found it, so posting a pic after that probably doesn't make much sense. I'll just try the weem oil and assume that will fix things.

Thanks again, all.

just blast em with water, if ya use neem oil the buds will taste funny

water will make it mold

Spider mites. Screw Neem get some MIGHTY WASH. This stuff is non-toxic and I consider it to be the best spider mite treatment out there. Neem, Einstein, and Azatrol/max are nothing compared to this stuff.