[Gurtgurt]

My plants dried very fast due to high heat. I'm thinking I can extend the finishing time by leaving more plant matter attached. And I'm also reminded how much I hate trimming.

Is there any detriment to curing un-manicured buds cut right from the stem?

Will an extended cure time counteract a fast initial dry? What do YOU think

 

[BB22]

My vote is Smoke that stuff !

Manicured, commercial bud is nice to look at and commands a premium price.

Give me some wild assed homegrown

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

Is there any detriment to curing un-manicured buds cut right from the stem?

We cut buds from the stem before drying.

Will an extended cure time counteract a fast initial dry? What do YOU think

The only problem I recall about fast drying is it can be uneven drying, because the inside of buds dries slower than the outside.

 

[Gurtgurt]

So if I don't manicure the buds and leave all the sugar and small fan leaves intact (i.e. straight off the stem ), and place into jars to cure, will this negatively affect the final product after 4 weeks?

 

[Eledin]

External bud leaves wrap around the bud protecting trichomes from degradation due to oxididation and protects the terpenes from volatizing as theyre very prone to that. It shouldn be a major difference anyway because if you have them in the dark, sealed, and youre done burping is not like they need that protection but is not harmful at all.

 

[Eledin]

Sometimes I have to dry in my living room and I have cardboard boxes with threads but this grow was so meh that I didnt even bother with the carboards. I have a 10W LED in there so is not like theyre getting blasted with light but I did leave the outter leaves on purpose.
A longer cure will not counteract a weed that dried too quickly but it will certainly improve it. Not every time I grow everything is good, when I have a sick plant and I taste after drying and it doesnt have much taste 1-2 months of cure (not counting drying) can help a lot.

 

[Eledin]

External bud leaves wrap around the bud protecting trichomes from degradation due to oxididation and protects the terpenes from volatizing as theyre very prone to that. It shouldn be a major difference anyway because if you have them in the dark, sealed, and youre done burping is not like they need that protection but is not harmful at all.

If anything, dry trimming is more of a pain in the ass because the leaves are stuck to the trichomes. When I leave the outter leaves I clean the buds as I smoke them and keep piling leaves until I have enough to extract some keif.

 

[mancorn]

All buds must be the size of a quarter w/no leaves

 

[Eledin]

A little trick for those who dont like to waste the tricomes in their sticky fingers after cleaning bud:
Grab a rolling paper an use it as a napkin for your fingertips, the paper will catch all the oils and it will taste better and burn slower. (Unless your hands are nasty or full of sweat, wash your hands people! xD)
No but seriously, if youre gonna manipulate buds at least clean the grease of your fingetips with a napkin first so this trick is much better.

 

[Eledin]

All buds must be the size of a quarter w/no leaves

View attachment 2481771

They look appealing! Are they tight or a bit airy?

 

[mancorn]

They look appealing! Are they tight or a bit airy?

PRGs are illegal in my neck of the woods.

 

[Eledin]

PRGs are illegal in my neck of the woods.

Huh? What does have to do with what I asked? Hahaha synthetic PRGs make your buds spongy not airy, but more tight yes, even though is not firm, its spongy as I said. Phytohormnes are totally fine, its just kelp (usually) concentrated hormones, you mean illegal because you dont wanna use them or because theyre trully illegal? I dont see why would they ban phytohormones. Synthetic hormones on the other hand, are awful.

 

[Eledin]

In fact if youre using anything with kelp youre adding phytohormones. Or any kind of fermented plant juice, theyre naturally present.
But anyway, you dont need to use any hormones to get tight buds. When I was growing with bio-minerals only instead of organic I was getting tight buds every time unless something went wrong. It can also be because of the phenotype, but thats more common on low quality seeds.

 

[Eledin]

Now I feel bad, dont missunderstand me, I said they look very appealing, I would 100% smoke that Im just saying that you dont need PGRs to get tight nugs.

 

[mancorn]

Now I feel bad, dont missunderstand me, I said they look very appealing, I would 100% smoke that Im just saying that you dont need PGRs to get tight nugs.

Don’t feel bad, my original post was a satirical U.S. dispensary joke. If you grow for dispensary in the States you need to trim to a standard, as customers are paying ridiculous prices and growers trim away most of the bud to make sellable “tight nuggets”. The 70s style cola buds become undesirable (no matter how good it was). This in turn made synthetic PRG’s a thing as they can produce the super tight buds that dispensaries wanted. So in California they had to ban the use of some PGRs due to the health risk due to the shit some growers were using. But of course this is just B.S., it has nothing to do with quality, it’s all about selling product.

 

[Eledin]

Indeed, synthetic PGRs is something no smoker wants in their weed, Im totally with you. Here in Spain I think I only came across synthetic PGR weed once and it was awful to smoke and unhealthy of course. I think they just separate the buds from the colas nowadays. I have very big colas many times but its nothing but a bunch of buds together in the same stem. Part of the reason that is done is because it greatly decreases the risk of botrytis during curing for commercial operations (the inside of the bud is always wet for longer, the bigger the bud, the higher the risk) but I also think its because of what you said, they can make them look prettier if they go 1 by 1. If you get the entire cola youre gonna be removing some leaves.