Bubbler DWC Tutorial - PART 15

lamsbread · September 28, 2011

Bubbler DWC Tutorial - Part 15

This tutorial has been copied and pasted from 420magazine.com

FLUSHING AT HARVEST?
MANICURING CLOSE?

I was reading my biggest grow book, getting ready for my harvest. It said there is a two sided arguement to trimming the buds close and not trimming close (manicuring) and the book discussed pros and cons over 4 pages.
Basically it said
Leaving some trim leaves also leaves trichomes, which help protect the bud from insects and fungus. But leaving leaves is where the bad taste of nutrients remain too. You also risk bud mold by leaving larger trim leaves and drying and curing takes longer too. Drying and curing is more risky with many leaves still on the buds.

Closely manicuring will leave tasier buds, or sweeter tasting buds, since nutes were storred in the leaves, especially if you do not flush for two weeks before the harvest. But close manicuring is less weight and those trim leaves do contain a high percent of THC if covered in trichomes. And Trimming Close gives better looking buds, and less drying and curing time too. Trimming close is less risky.

I trim very very close because I love to make hash, and I need the trim leaves to make hash. Maybe that is why they still taste so sweet without flushing.

There's two sides to everything I guess.

Nitrogen in Flowering

I flowered for a few weeks on high phosperous Bloom Nutes only, and everyday, I came home and picked up 3 or 5 leaves from each plant, that had yellowed and fell off. All of them came from the lower 1/3 of the plant. I had a large shoe box and a half full of dried dead leaves from 9 plants, although two plants were seriously small runts. All growers will tell you that the large fan leaves naturally fall off in Flowering.

After a few weeks, I started adding a very fractional part of VEG nutes high in nitrogen to my Flowering Nutes. I started as an experiment on one of three reservoirs, and after 4 or 5 days, I add Nitrogen to the other two tanks. Since the 2nd day of adding the very slightest amount of Nitrogen, NOT ONE leaf yellowed and died off. I also saw extra growth on my buds too. The plants seemed healthier and happier and more green and lush, they had a bigger thirst or appetite for water too, and I will always add a very slight amount of extra Nitrogen to my Flowering Cycle in every grow I do in the future.

BUT to be 100% honest and tell you everything I have observed,

on the other side of the coin,

I am contemplating and thinking that it might be natural, or normal, or even beneficial for the lower third of the plant to lose those leaves so that LIGHT can penetrate deeper into the plant. My plants are so thick in leaves, well, I've never seen anything like it on my previous grows. A half inch from the bottom of each plant's stump or trunk are buds and leaves galore, thicker than I could imagine. The foilage is much much thicker than on any plant I have ever seen.

Flushing?

Flushing is using straight water with no nutrients for a period of time, before harvesting. Most growers do it 48 hours to a week before harvesting.

In the book GROW GREAT Marijuana by Logan Edward, he says if you manicure the buds very closely, and remove every leaf, then there is no need to Flush, because the mineral-fertilizer-nutrient taste is not stored in the pistils, or calyxes or buds or flowers, but only in the leaves.

He says
Preharvest flushing puts the plant(s) under serious stress. The plant has to deal with nutrient deficiencies in a very important part of its cycle. Strong changes in the amount of dissolved substances in the root-zone stress the roots, possibly to the point of direct physical damage to them. Many immobile elements are no more available for further metabolic processes. We are loosing the fan leaves and damage will show likely on new growth as well.

The grower should react in an educated way to the plant needs. Excessive, deficient or unbalanced levels should be avoided regardless the nutrient source. Nutrient levels should be gradually adjusted to the lesser needs in later flowering. Stress factors should be limited as far as possible. If that is accomplished throughout the entire life cycle, there shouldn’t be any excessive nutrient compounds in the plants tissue. It doesn’t sound likely to the author that you can correct growing errors (significant lower mobile nutrient compound levels) with preharvest flushing.

Drying and curing (when done right) on the other hand have proved (In many studies) to have a major impact on taste and flavour, by breaking down chlorophylls and converting starches into sugars. Most attributes blamed on unflushed buds may be the result of unbalanced nutrition and/or overfert and unproper drying/curing.

I stand by I did flush my first grow and not flush the next 6 grows and I can not tell any difference. I now do not ever flush and never will, I do and will continue to manicure very close and I never get or got any mineral-fertilizer taste in my buds.

NO WATER 24 Hours before Harvest

Many books suggest a 24 hour DRY period of no water in the tank to speed up the drying process, BUT they also say it makes manicuring much more difficult. Manicuring green fresh leaves is much easier than manicuing dried wilted sticky leaves that cling to the buds. Try it both ways and you will NEVER manicure later after drying.

I 've been on Grow Forums for over 3 years and seen at least 5 or 6 threads, if not a dozen, from new first time growers that say they messed up big time NOT manicuring before Drying.
1, it makes manicuring much more difficult when you wait, and 2, not manicuring can cause bud mold and delay drying.

Let me repeat, if you use and follow the procedure of NO WATER 24 to 48 hours before harvest, it makes manicuring much more difficult. Manicuring green fresh leaves is much easier than manicuing dried wilted sticky leaves that cling to the buds. AND if you dried it long enough to have CRISPY leaves, you over dried it. Try it both ways and you will NEVER manicure later after drying AND you will always cut off all the leaves to start with at harvest time. .

Let me start with a Synopsis of what I will be doing here.

HARVESTING AND CURING

I start by finding two boxes, one to put the large fan leaves in, to make oil later, and one box for the trim leaves, the leaves that grow out of the buds with trichiomes on them. The trim leaves with trichomes are for making Hash later.

I bring branches to the kitchen table and trim (also called manicure) them, by cutting off the leaves that are growing out of the buds. I trim them very very closely for several reasons.
1, they dry faster.
2, if there is any clorophyll taste or chemical taste to be found, it will be in the leaves and not in the pistals, caylxes or flowers.
3, I am not trying to achieve the most WEIGHT or Quanity, I am trying to achieve QUALITY!
4, I can worry less about bud mold. If I leave large leaves on the buds, the leaves could possibly hold moisture in the buds and then mold on me.
5, Well manicured buds are more attractive to look at.

You will need very sharp scissors. Some growers wear rubber gloves, and after completing the trimming, they freeze the gloves, and the trichomes that stuck to the gloves will peel off in a thin sheet of plastic like HASH. YUM -YUM. You will also want to have a straight razor blade to scrape the scissor blades. What you scrape off you will want to smoke in a pipe, two hits will blow your mind.

After I trim them, I sort them by size. Very small popcorn buds and fluff buds with no significant stem on them, go onto box lids to dry.
Buds with stems get hung up, according to size, separating very large ones from the smaller ones. I want the least amount of stem left on them. They need to be in low humidity, in complete darkness or at least in very low light and not in direct light, they need to be in air that is well circulated and moving, but not blowing directly on them. The enemies of the THC and buds are strong light, heat, dampness, mold, and animals and insects.
I hang them to dry and be sure they do not touch each other to hold any moisture.
I do blow a circulating fan OVER them, but not on them. The sides of the boxes prevent the fan's air from blowing directly on them.

The popcorn buds and fluff buds that are laying on box lids, and not touching each other get stirred and turned over daily. They take at least 3 and no more than 4 days to dry. These are not what we call the nugs or nuggets, or very tight dense buds. They never had a stem.

My smaller buds, on skinny stems dry for more than 4 days and less than 6 days.
My larger buds dry for 6 or 7 or 8 days, depending on the thickness of the stem, the bud and the stem lenght.

You will read in many places to dry them until the stem will easily "snap" and be very dry. If you do that, the buds will need re-moistioning again later.
I dry mine the number of days I mentioned above and disregard the stem easily snapping. I have completed 8 grows total, and each grow taught me to not be as concerned with how dry the stem got, but how dry the bud got.

AFTER I dry them the prescribed time, I remove them from the boxes, and cut as much STEM off as I possibly can. I then put my nugs in air tight containers, I use large mouth mason glass jars, same as most other growers use. Every day for 30 days, I burp them, or open the jar, shake and stir it a couple seconds, smell it, and reseal it. IF it stinks, IF it smells funny, like moldy, IF the jar sweats, I dry the contents a complete day again. They have to be burped 30 days in a row. That 30 days in a jar is called CURING.

We DRY pot, so we can CURE it.
We CURE pot, to make it taste sweeter, smell sweeter, to avoid bud-mold, to make it more Smokable or burnable, to get the chemical and clorophyll taste out, and to increase the potency. A GOOD cure takes 4 weeks, and some conisours (mispelled) cure it up to 6 to 8 weeks.

The idea behind curing was learned from tobacco growers. Curing is a biological process of allowing the SUGARS and STARCHES to change into something MORE pleasant to the taste and smell. Normally the SUGARS and STARCHES taste HARSH and not so pleasant. To grow, Plants need SUGARS that convert into starches from Fertilizers and sunlight. Curing also removes alot of clorophyll or the clorophyll taste that is sort of a grassy leafy medicine chemical taste and leaves a sweet tastey pleasant taste.
Also, we cure pot to avoid MOLD that can come within 30 days AFTER Drying.

We cure pot in jars, in darkness, in a cool place. After being placed in the jar, we store them in a dark cool place, then we re-open the jar once a day, smell it, inspect it, let it breathe for a few seconds and then re-seal it. IF we smell an unpleasant "nose pinching" smell, or see white growth, we need to immedialtey remove it from
the jar and DRY it some more for a few more days.

When you first harvest the buds, save some moist large stems in the refrigarator, in a baggie. If you dry it too much, you can add a small piece of stem back, to remoisten it some.

I have CURED pot one week in jars, and tasted it, and then Cured it 4 weeks and tasted it. If you will try the same experiment, or ask any experienced grower, you'll learn (taste) the difference. It is much more potent, and much sweeter tasting, and smells much better too.

This is the first cutting from my harvest.

I am taking cuttings from the closet, bringing them to the Harvest Table on a tray lined with Non-stick tin foil. I have two friends helping. I am harvesting from the five gallon bucket, two plants. A very large 48 inch tall plant and a runt that I should of tossed a long time ago.
The runt is not in these pics.

Indica-Sativa Blends are normally a darker green color.

This is the top largest cola from the Skunk from the 5 gallon bucket.That is some non-stick tin foil, and I will scrape some trichomes off of it at the end of the day.

After the Harvest, Manicuring and Drying of the one SKUNK, it gave me 5 and half ounces of dried manicured buds, and three shoes boxes half full of trim leaves to make hash with. PLUS a giant mess of Fan leaves for making OIL.