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So about four weeks ago we had a harvest and I gave 2 of my friends a few wet trimmed branches of freshly harvested plants to dry and cure on their own. I'm at about two weeks since placing them into jars and burping twice a day. They are really smelling yummy and I will probably start smoking them soon. So we are at his house for a braai and he brings out his jar and its smells like shit. Like cheap outdoor. I realized after talking that he only dried it for a week before placing it into a jar. He said after he put it in the jar it got wet again and again so he would throw it onto a tray to dry for a few minutes every time. He also burped the jars twice every day. You're better of overdrying weed than jarring it with too much moisture in the bud. When you close that jar you lock in the moisture. Big companies freeze-dry cannabis and then jar them with 2-way humidity packs. Just trust me on this one. Dry the plants till you can easily snap the stems. Not kink, not click. Dry snap. You want to slowly dry the plant until it's ready to jar.

80 rand at hydroponics.co.za no guessing... between 60 and 64%, otherwise you have to do something. No need for a freeze dryer...

OSG Cheese JagerPunch Slurricane

Sugarpunch OSG Cheese PBB JagerPunch Slurricane

I say the same, and fully agree, you can mess up the whole grow, months worth of work, by drying it wrong. Slow and low, the best way, 2 weeks minimum at 18deg or lower

The Greenhouse Seed Company guys recommend drying very slowly in humidity controlled room for 2-3 weeks then packing into paper bags at 8-10 degrees celsius for 3-5 months to remove the chlorophyl and other particles for the best taste. I personally used the Aeradix humidity controlled bags for curing my last grow and it works perfectly for larger amounts. Paper bags was used with high success 10 years ago and can still be used but if temps are too high it will dry your buds like biltong.

What's up growmies. I purchased a scrog a while back and never ended up using it. One of my biggest concerns was that the squares between the strings were too big for my liking. They were roughly about 25cm to 30cm big and wanted something smaller. So I went and collected a few things around the house and bought a couple things here and there. So firstly I cut 4x pieces of 1.2m pvc conduit piping (25mm). 4x corners for those pipes too. I built a big square that would fit into my 1.2m tent. Please note all measurements are rough estimates as my tent wasn't exactly 1.2m. The inner sides of the tent poles is what I used as my size which was slightly smaller than 1.2m. I drilled holes along the conduit piping and drilled them straight through. I decided to tie each string individually about 11cm apart. The reason I went with the individual string instead of one long string that gets weaved is simply because if one of my strings break, the whole rig doesn't come down. If one breaks, just that line will be broken and can then be repaired seperately. I decided to use string I bought at a hardware shop. The string is used for shade cloth, gardens etc. One packet of 30m cost R30. So was pretty cheap. I had some steel ferrels that I had left over from another project. I cut them in half with a steel saw (super cramps in the hands trying to hold with a pliers and saw. Use vice grip if you have). I only used about 18x ferrels. Made my squares about 11cm apart. I made a little knot the one side and then took it through the other side (making sure there's not too much tension) which I then used the ferrels to keep them taut (by squishing them with a side-cutter. Just not too hard that you cut through). The pvc pipe bends easily so check your previous lines as you go, not to make them too tight. Once you have finished one side of, let's say the vertical side, when stringing towards the other sides horizontally, make sure to go over and under the vertical strings. I ended up using some cable ties just to tie down my DIY scrog to the tent poles. I'll be using this scrog to keep 4 plants down. This is from inspiration purely from this forum. Some of the guys that have made their own scrogs have done some nice ones. As I mentioned, there are plenty of different kinds of material, methods and ideas that can be used to do this. This is just one of them.

So got some older clones into my system, got sick of waiting just for the pancake stompers to root so decided to use these as a test run

Happy to announce that my plant has recovered but I do t know which of the following helped: dropped light to 20/4; gave a “deficiency dose” via autopots at 3g per 10litres, upped my EC on average by 0,5. I suspect it was me starving the plant during a stretch period from Veg to PreFlower.

What I do: (first it's important to know the difference between the fan leaves that drive the overall growth, and the leaves at bud/future bud sites. (Usually very small or non-existant at the time of defoliation) [I snip with scissors or just pluck with fingernails (smaller leaves), at the base-ish part of the stem] I usually gradually strip the majority of the big, fat, fan leaves before/during pre-flower (first to go are the ones at the top, I may leave lower ones if they're not in the way, or impeding airflow, but lately they eventually are all removed). As the branches stretch during pre-flower/early flower, I constantly remove any fan leaves that are shading lower areas in a meaningful way. I prioritise airflow/light. I continue this general practise until they have finished stretching. Even then I continue to defoliate, in an even/uniform manner. Each day I'm looking for leaves that are creating little pockets of moisture/dead airflow/significant shade.

Update, dqxslurri got a small Defol, the short pheno is standing out nicely. Smelling fine, quite similar to slurri, some sweet some gas.Will be flipping the bed Tuesday night.

Well said

End week update (no balls yet), sprayed down with last Sulphur treatment.

Flipped yesterday.

Did heavy trimming of the below and plan to flip tomorrow after work on power is completed.

Switched back to 3500K from heavy blue in order to get the plants to stretch a bit, half plants have been top dressed with the new antifragile soil for testing. Moved a smaller plant and the seedlings to a different tent and moved in a big plat punch into the flower, did a bit of topping on the right to keep it just above the net and to allow the left to catch up. So will most likely flip in a week or so, before flip I'll be adding the blue back to the spectrum for the first two weeks of stretch then to full reds with IR/UV.

Plants survived a 36 hour power outage.

Net will be going in this week and training will begin. My current regiment of feeding is : Cibusil / Anngrow / Biobizz Acti-vera / Plant Exlir fulvates. I alternate with GHE but they seem to freak out a bit in the freedom farm soil. Currently under roughly 400 watts per side with heavy blue spectrum. I plan to introduce environoc 401 on the next feeding. The marks on the leaves is Sulphur reside for PM prevention.

Howzit oaks. Just a short one again of a few little vacuum chambers I have made. There are bigger vacuums that you can make using perspex and pots but that I have not done yet. One day maybe. So this guide would just be for a little chamber and a hand pump. An extreme budget job. For the noob like myself. So a list of things: Jar and lid (preferrably small as possible (200ml)). WondaFix (pratley). 1/4 inch ball valve. Some 1/4 inch fittings and nozzles. Plumbing tape. Hand brake bleeder pump (tube included) So I also have one that uses an 1/8 inch valve which is awesome but fittings are quite tough to get hold of so just for the ease of it, we will refer to 1/4 inch in this quick guide. I managed to find all my fittings at a shop called Adendorff. What a shop. Lots of cheap tools and crap. I asked them if they do vacuum pumps and sounds like they have a huge request and might bring something in. Quite simple. Drill a hole into the lids of the jars. I used a 6mm drill bit. The 1/4 inch fitting fits nicely into it. I actually just screwed it into the hole using the thread on the fittings. Depending on your valve being a male to male or female to female, you will have to figure out the best fittings/adaptors for the job. I used female valves so I basically only needed a 1/4inch male to male adaptor and a 1/4inch male nozzle. Once screwed in I used the wondafix to seal it nicely. I used the steel pratley but doesn't work because the lid of the chamber flexes a little when you suck all the air out. Let the glue settle overnight and then make sure everything is screwed in tightly. You will notice in both photos that I am using different jars and lids but they are still small enough. The reason for the small jars is because you have to remove the air using a hand pump. It takes suuuuuuuuper long if you use a 1lt consol jar and pump it with a hand pump. Smaller jars are much easier. I am on the look out for second hand fridge compressors because the old school ones have an inlet and outlet. As far as I know you can get a really nice vacuum going with one of those. With the hand pump and small jar I can get about 24"hg. With a compressor pump/vacuum pump you can get very very close to a perfect vacuum (29.92"hg). Last two photos is from vacuum to no vacuum. When warming the extract with a mat or warm bath it helps get all the bubbles of gas out easier. The extract can also be directly blasted into the glass jar, then purged from the jar too, and utilized from the jar for consumption. Total estimated costs: M/M adaptor 1/4inch (R20) F/F ball valve 1/4inch (R40) M nozzle 1/4inch (20) Brake bleeder pump kit (R250) Small jar and lid (R25) Plumbing tape (R20) Pratley WondaFix (R80) TOTAL: R455 Hope this manages to help someone else that is also using chemical extraction methods and wants cleaner dabs. Thanks for watching.