Ok so here's the deal. As many of you know, I've been fighting with mold appearing during the drying process over the last several harvests. I have good news and bad news.
First the bad news: this plant was also affected.
Now the good news: This plant was not affected as severely, and I did get some bud. More importantly though, I now know exactly what the problem has been all this time, and exactly how to correct it. But, I am taking a break from indoor for a while to focus on my outdoor plants. They require just as much maintenance, if not more, than indoor. When I return to indoor, I promise my first round will be a bountiful harvest of quality bud.
The problem has not been my drying or curing process at all. The problem has been the growing environment. The temperature and humidity are too high, and what I have been seeing is a form of "bud rot". "Bud rot" is a catch-all term for a lot of different fungi that destroy crops from the inside out. A lot of the time, this is the botrytis fungus, which spreads very rapidly. Botrytis usually starts out as specks of white dust deep inside the wettest corners between sugar leaves and bud, and when first colonizing, appears as a white or greyish fuzz, almost like silk nest webbing between foliage and or inflorescence. This white fuzz is barely ever noticed, because it occurs in hard to see places, and within 1 or 2 days, it spreads into a grey or brown infestation that completely takes over your bud from the inside out. You will usually first notice leaves turning yellow and decaying on a random bud, at which point it is already too late.
The problem I have been having is not this aggressive form of botrytis, but it is a more subtle form of bud rot. The fungus that I saw on my dried flower, was in very isolated corners on the inside of the flower, and it was all barely noticeable, and not grey in color...it was white or even clear and fluffy. This is very difficult to see but it is there in places here and there, and the mycelium network is always more advanced than it looks. This is not safe to consume.
After finding this fungus on my dried flower, I went back to the grow room and inspected the plant. I didn't see anything wrong under magnification. However, upon breaking open a live bud, I clearly saw the same thing: barely noticeable white fuzz on the inside.
Researching about different types of mold is not new to me. I have seen it in various forms before, and I am cautious whenever I am near a large spore colony. I didn't consider this to be a growing problem because it is just so hard to see until after drying. This is a clear or white mold. Botrytis, is a number of different species of what are usually classified into the grey and brown mold categories. This mold stays clear or white, and never progresses to the point where it causes necrosis. That makes it even more scary to me, because it is not easy to find. The type of fungus growing on my plants can be further classified into something in the Mucoraceae family, and most probably within the genus Mucor, a very common collection of mold species that are mostly in the allergenic category, the least of concerns. That said, there are pathogenic or toxigenic species in this family, or even genus, and I am not an expert to identify it further. Mucor is commonly found on vegetation in warm, humid conditions, and is often mistaken for Botrytis. If this was botrytis though, I would be lucky to see it in the early white fluffy stage, as it advances to grey and/or brown very quickly. The problem I have been having is always in very isolated places throughout the middle of the flower, and always clear or white, and very little of it ever in one area.
The whole plant was chopped down, its buds dissected and separated into a pile of perceptibly infected material, and the rest, which is probably infected material. The probably infected material may be used for extract, if I can brave myself enough to figure out what would be safe enough.
EDIT: After identifying the possible types of mold it can be, it is in a family of molds that are of the most common, and include many species that are mostly harmless. However, this family includes more than the Mucor genus, and Rhizopus is among the most feared molds. You don't want to be around that stuff, and it is common. This plant will be trashed.
I am a little upset, but I am also pretty happy that I now know there is nothing wrong with the dozen ways I've tried drying my flower. I was beginning to think it was just this humid time of year during the drying process, as I have only ever dried in the less humid October season with my outdoor harvests. The problem is instead the humidity and temperature in my grow tent. I need to correct that, and during my time off with indoor I will think of ways to do that effectively on essentially zero budget.
2 years ago
