I am more than happy to help you friend. How to properly pull down, Dry & cure is a hugely confused part of growing as so many people say this & say that about how it is done. So before I get into this, I will say I am talking from experience of slow dry / curing up to almost 400 pounds 3500 plants per crop at one of the most prestigious Legacy grows here in Canada. So I am going to tell you how it is done at the highest level & the process begins around half way through flower to ensure we are gonna get the biggest, Best flower possible with a very rich terpene profile. Check my profile, I have a diary of the 200 light 7,000 plant grow in question just so you know im not full of it.
During veg & early flower we want our temperature gap's nice and tight to avoid stretch. Why exactly our plants stretch in response to this is a genetic trigger being activated by the environmental stress essentially telling the plant the end of the season is closer than it really is. In veg & early flower the plant is still in its first stage of development which is to grow up wide and tall so when it produces seed, It can cast them out nicely. Remember, Whether we are growing our plants for seed or bud their genetic responses do not change as they do not know any different. Once the plant has finished that first stage of growth by weeks 4-6 of flower with most strains, It is by day 20 of flower. Autoflowers you have to watch for it, But once the plant has finished this goal its new mission is to focus 100% on producing nice big flower clusters & to get very sticky so it can attract pollen to it successfully.
So once that vertical growth is finished, We actually now want to begin to expose our plants to larger temperature swings between lights on and lights off. This will help activate that genetic response and allow us to draw out the most potential from the strain utilizing the plants genetic triggers to environmental stresses at the right times. When we are in flower temperature will really play a big role how our buds form up, If our rooms are too cold below 75 they will form very small buds but very very dense. If we grow our buds out at temperature over 80 degrees we get bigger buds, But they can develop airy and foxtail which we do not get much weight from. Also higher temps will defuse the resin glands over time destroying them. We can also take this a step further with doing light deprivation in the last 2 weeks using less light to simulate cloud cover. Very cold feed temps on the last flush is very good too. If you do not have them already, Get yourself a good PAR meter & thermal laser temp gun to monitor your plant top temperatures & optimize how much light your plants are getting.
When we do the pull down, We never want to trim the plant wet or break it down at all. We want to hang it whole in a environment set to 50-55 degrees at 60% humidity for up to 16 days. This allows the plant to break down any potential left over starches or sugars or nutrients within it during this time the plant will produce even more resin & terpenes, This is where you get the true craft cannabis finish. This is something you CANNOT rush, CANNOT do differently and have it come out as good. Sure there are various ways to do this, But there is 1 right way. This process ensures the complete breakdown of all THC-A into active THC. When we use small amounts of plants & there is not that much moisture release, We do not need a dehumidifier in the room with the plants. I would only suggest a dehu is needed for more than 2LB at a time & you only ever set it to 60-65% humidity so it just catches the big moisture releases the plant goes through as it dries, You never want it force pulling the moisture out. Dark, Cold & slow. We never want to get close to freezing, But with more practice we can draw this out longer which results in better product. Once this is finished, Since we perfected this method on such massive harvests we would skip using mason jars & the cannabis would come out of the slow-dry & be dry trimmed by trimming crews & then put into vac sealable freezer bags and sealed. The burping process was not needed. After 2 weeks it would be at its maximum potential. So around 12-16 days dry then 2 week cure and your set. On smaller crops, 10-12 days is average time. If you check out my greenhouse diary I did last summer, I showed everybody how to use a grow-tent to simulate what we would do in 2 8x40 sea cans. Also the tutorial series we are working on now, Will be showing this entire process when the time comes. I highly recommend hoping over to our youtube and subscribing! It is linked off of our grow diaries profile.
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