We are actually going to try some freezer curing just to see how we like it since I have not tried it before. I am very happy to report we have not had a single failed lab test but we dry trim by hand and of course try to keep everything as clean and sanitized as possible so that is not really a surprise. So far this run with only 10 strains tested from our outdoor we have had 2 strains test out at 25% THC, our Girl Scout Cookie and one batch of our Berkeley Blues, and everything else in the high teens for the most part or low 20's except for the Chocolope at 13.9% which still is not shabby by any means. Outdoor rocks when you can do it in the strong sun that our summers provide us in our lovely little location:-)))

fishwhistle said:

Thats pretty groundbreaking news,it makes sense if you think about it though with the cuts being vectors for contamination.I have a whole room of wet trimmed hanging right now,ill have to rethink the way ive been doing it for a LONG time.The thing i find weird is most production facilities machine trim wet and not one person/lab has ever come up with this conclusion before,definitely think this needs more research,i dont trust MJ labs at all myself,seems like they try to make themselves relevant and results are all over the place,id be interested to hear @texaskid's thoughts and experience on this and colorado lab results.Thanks for posting up ITG,we missed you.

Click to expand...

I will be interested as well in TK's take on this. We just had the lecture from the lab over the weekend and it was so eye opening to us. It took them a few weeks to come up with this "theory" working with some of the larger growers to try to figure out why their labs were failing so it remains to be seen if there is arguments against this line of thought and it should be very interesting when all the facts and theories are gathered together.

did i miss the outdoor pics somewhere :D
def some interesting info on trimming and i to would like to hear tk's thoughts on it.to me it seemed frustrating to trim dry,buds just seemed to crumble too much in my clumsy hands but maybe i waited too long.do you have a prefered dry time befor you guys start trimming or a r/h % you look for?good to see ya back itg

and jacks does rock:cool:

inthegorge said:

I will be interested as well in TK's take on this. We just had the lecture from the lab over the weekend and it was so eye opening to us. It took them a few weeks to come up with this "theory" working with some of the larger growers to try to figure out why their labs were failing so it remains to be seen if there is arguments against this line of thought and it should be very interesting when all the facts and theories are gathered together.

Click to expand...

What lab are you guys using @inthegorge ? Props on your success! I like your Mom n Pop Style! Keep up the good work!!!

sixstring said:

did i miss the outdoor pics somewhere :D
def some interesting info on trimming and i to would like to hear tk's thoughts on it.to me it seemed frustrating to trim dry,buds just seemed to crumble too much in my clumsy hands but maybe i waited too long.do you have a prefered dry time befor you guys start trimming or a r/h % you look for?good to see ya back itg

Click to expand...

We wait until the plant is clearly dry, stem snaps when it is broken, 5-6 days at 50-60 degrees with right at 50% humidity. Then we have so many plants to trim (1700 right now) so we put the dry plants in big garbage bags to stay fresh and not dry out too much. Check them everyday twice, opening the bag so basically curing in the bag and get to them for trimming as soon as we possibly can. Need more trimmers of course but then you run out of places to have people trim...:-) What a problem to have!

I think they were looking at our facebook page but I will post some as soon as my partner is done with my laptop because that is where I store all our photos...and boy do I have a lot!

inthegorge said:

I will be interested as well in TK's take on this. We just had the lecture from the lab over the weekend and it was so eye opening to us. It took them a few weeks to come up with this "theory" working with some of the larger growers to try to figure out why their labs were failing so it remains to be seen if there is arguments against this line of thought and it should be very interesting when all the facts and theories are gathered together.

Click to expand...

@inthegorge thanks for the knowledge and updates.....sounds like plenty of us are excited for lab follow up on the trimming issue.

Garden of Dreams said:

What lab are you guys using @inthegorge ? Props on your success! I like your Mom n Pop Style! Keep up the good work!!!

Click to expand...

We are using Confidence Analytic's mainly because of their lower prices ($50 per strain) and with 80 strains that does come into play. They have been great actually to work with.

Ok...here are some photos of our outdoor plants:-)

Just a generic shot of some of the plants that are in containers.



The plants in the garden about 2 weeks before harvest

Another of some of the plants in containers:-)

Grand Daddy Purp

The gorgeous Pitbull...really one of the showiest in our garden with the fall foliage:-)

White Rhino

Burmese Kush

Kitana...almost culled this one after it was so hard to deal with indoors but oh how she loves it outside!

Blue Cheese

Another of the Pitbull because she is so danged pretty!

I will upload more later because my partner needs the computer again!

:woot: Very Nice!
Thanks for sharing!

inthegorge said:

We wait until the plant is clearly dry, stem snaps when it is broken, 5-6 days at 50-60 degrees with right at 50% humidity. Then we have so many plants to trim (1700 right now) so we put the dry plants in big garbage bags to stay fresh and not dry out too much. Check them everyday twice, opening the bag so basically curing in the bag and get to them for trimming as soon as we possibly can. Need more trimmers of course but then you run out of places to have people trim...:) What a problem to have!

I think they were looking at our facebook page but I will post some as soon as my partner is done with my laptop because that is where I store all our photos...and boy do I have a lot!

Click to expand...

You're ready for that walk-in humidor. You're handling your plants much as I do except I prefer to keep them hanging in the low temps, with an RH between 60%-65%. At those low temps and at that RH, you can literally leave the plants hanging until you're ready to handle them.

Walk-in cannabis humidor!

And if things continue as they are, you may be able to do a good sized GH for year-round almost-OD growing. Fan-fuckin-tastic if you ask me!

that second panoramic pic is flippin awesome,everything looks great and im jelly itg,peace

We do a whole plant hang at around 72-74 degrees but we play with the humidity a little..first 2 days we are at 45% and then 3-7 we are at 50%-55%, we dry trim and bag on day 8, leave bag open another day and then weigh and manifest for storage or transfer to the stores. With a whole plant hang, you can go low humidity the first couple days to insure no onset of mold or bud rot in the giant colas and then ease the humidity back up to finish..whole plants act alot different that seperated limbs do and way different that green trimmed nugs on screens..we have had to test every batch since recreational took effect and have had no pesticide or mycotoxins detected at all..all zeros

Have you heard of any issues in CO with rec growers that wet trim not passing microbial testing? That is what they are seeing here and of course that is more prevalent with the larger growers here because they are the ones that have the greatest need to process as quickly as possible. It was a big surprise for the labs that is for sure. It was also pretty interesting to find that the primary contamination occurs after harvest and does not seem to be nearly such an issue on the growing plants, just in the processes that happen after it has been cut down.

ITG,was thinking about this yesterday and remembered seeing this dry trim machine,1 person 3-4 lbs an hour,worth a look for your situation.
http://trim-pal.com/

I wouldn't be surprised if local conditions play a role in how much contamination is observed when wet vs dry trimming.

Well spores are every where and competing for environment so the living plant fights it off and dead plant material host it whether or not it grows depends on host environment......just thinking out loud but sounds like a great learning opportunity hear

caveman4.20 said:

Well spores are every where and competing for environment so the living plant fights it off and dead plant material host it whether or not it grows depends on host environment......just thinking out loud but sounds like a great learning opportunity hear

Click to expand...

Yes, this is true. But my thinking is that because WA tends to be so much wetter than CO, and tends to be so throughout the year, that may play a role in what inthegorge is observing.

Seamaiden said:

Yes, this is true. But my thinking is that because WA tends to be so much wetter than CO, and tends to be so throughout the year, that may play a role in what inthegorge is observing.

Click to expand...

I agree sea but where ITG is is more like high desert i think,much more arid and lower humidity.Im definitely rethinking the wet trim now,it just makes sense that all those little cuts could be pathways for pathogens to enter.

Seamaiden said:

Yes, this is true. But my thinking is that because WA tends to be so much wetter than CO, and tends to be so throughout the year, that may play a role in what inthegorge is observing.

Click to expand...

It is actually not me that is observing this....it is the I502 certified labs and they are in the wetter west side of the state as well as in the arid dry part of the state. It does not seem to be an issue of moisture at all for this specific issue but I did hear yesterday that 3 of the largest operations here had whole crops that failed lab testing to mold or mildew and their entire crop will be put into concentrates to be tested again and hopefully pass that way. The issues the lab spoke towards seemed to be totally reflective of wet trimming regardless of the dry vs damp areas of our state. fishwhistle is correct and we have no moisture issues at all in our little micro climate that we are in.

I still have 5 plants in the garden and it has been raining off and on for a day or two but even when it rains it is dry for part of the day, usually with a little wind and so far they have no issues....knock on wood! We have a pretty spectacular Pineapple Express finishing out there, a silly Tangerine Dream that is finally putting out some pretty nice bud sets, a couple of Landrace Afghani's that are just slow going and my eternal Maui Wowie that will probably never finish outside at the rate she is going but she does finally have buds showing. Tomorrow is supposed to be 70 and sunny so I am going to give the Pineapple Express one more day before she is chopped and the others we will build little clear plastic shelters over maybe. We have 13 other Maui Wowies in containers that are moved inside to finish under lights. I doubt we will run with her any more....all of them are pretty small but at least they look super healthy this run. All our plants really look pretty darned wonderful. We went with a company called "Natural Enemies Biocontrol" for our predatory mites supplier because the guy comes here and deals with it for us which is so great and we don't have any indoor issues with mites at all anymore. So far indoor crop is looking pretty danged fantastic but I am now forever spoiled by growing outdoors. Indoors, even with 55 1000W HPS lights burning it will just be, for me, a way to keep going until the weather is warm enough again to use that wonderful sun:-)

Here is a link to a video I took a month ago yesterday before we harvested a single plant. It is long and boring but shows just how many plants we had outside. We started harvest 2 weeks after this video was shot. It was still hot here then so not many of the unique colors showing but still shows just how wonderful it is to walk around in so many happy plants.


I have at least one or two more from before harvest or during that I will post later.