I'm new to growing cannabis and gardening overall. I've never been able to grow plants bigger than seedlings so I'm feeling pretty bummed at my finding this morning. To me, this doesn't look like the typical mold that I have seen posted.

I try to dry my plant in the mornings because they can get quite damp overnight since I am growing outside. I love in NE Penn and we've had a lot of rain the last couple of days so this morning I noticed that I have a yellowish grainy patch on my stem. I grabbed a toothpick and napkin to clean it off and saw a hole in my stem. This is near the top of stalk on my plant.

I beheaded the plant and took off about 6 in and made sure the stalk where I cut looks healthy inside. I also checked the rest of the plant and did not see any other infected areas but I still continue to check it over.

What else can I do to make sure this doesn't spread? My plant has been flowering for a couple of weeks. I pruned the plant back a lot and cut off the inside branches to propagate. These are inside and my adult plant is outside.

Can I dry the buds and use them? I do not see this on the buds, just on the stem.