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First grow and water cure


highchome
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Hi all,

This is my first ever grow and so far I'm pretty happy with the results. I started with some Cali Orange bag seeds in early Jan. I could probably have done things a little faster but there was a fair amount to learn along the way 🙂

 

By Feb the seedlings had started growing well

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Mid-Feb I had started some training and trimming (fimming)

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I then planted them outside (Western Cape) using scrog. I started with five plants

scrot_2019-04-22_11-08_721x891.png.de1a29663701a513eb5bab6360a793dd.png

 

Early March (as I remember..) I was covering the plants every night and uncovering in the morning to ensure a 12/12 cycle. Two of the plants were male and were destroyed

scrot_2019-04-22_11-08_1021x650.png.6660bd048fd25d514e851cda8b7390aa.png

 

Mid-April the hairs on most of the flowers had started browning and the trichomes looked milky under a USB scope

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Which meant I could harvest for the first time 🕺

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I was quite surprised by the amount of flower that I got from the scrog. It was flower practically all the way to the base of the stem. I've left some green on two of the plants to see if perhaps they'll keep growing as I did not take enough clones or start a bonsai mother.

 

After trimming I had around 450g of wet flower. Which is way more than I expected.

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I decided to water cure the entire batch as it sounded like something interesting to try

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I'm on day five of the water cure now. I think I'll leave it another two days and then if the water is clear I'll dry them for ~24 hours. I've not worked out how I'll do the drying though... Luckily I have a couple of days 😛 

The water is already reasonably clear, though I am changing it twice a day and using tap water. Perhaps I'll find some R/O water and see how that looks before I'm done. The flowers still smell really strong, and there is *no* shortage of trichomes, so I'm not worried about the outcome at all. 

 

 

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I dried a single bud today to see what it would look like

 

In the water they greener than this, though duller than when then first went in. The dried bud looks very dark as expected. Even at this magnification the trichomes are visible

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Under the USB scope. No shortage of them here 🙂 

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For comparison this is what the curing flower looks like now. Quite a bit darker & duller and a fairly large reduction in volume from the original (see pic above).

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Edited by highchome
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After seven days curing, the water was almost entirely clear at change time. So it was time to dry

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After drying for 24 hours

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I perhaps had the fan too close, so possibly dried them a bit too much...? But I'm assuming that is less important with water cured weed than with air dried, since the curing is already done and its just a dry.

The original wet weight was ~450g, the final dry weight is ~75g so ~17% of the original weight. Which is pretty much what I was told to expect using a water cure. 
 

It looks good under the scope too

   2019-04-25_21-07.png.f1a181c41fae2ca83cdd829873870c71.png

 

Overall I really happy with the harvest from my first ever grow. :-bongit

 

Edited by highchome
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  • 3 weeks later...

Quick update on the water cure.

I made cannabutter from it the other day. I usually mix water + coconut oil 1:1 so that the water will wash out the minerals, chlorophyll etc. In the past that water has always ended up quite green. With the water cured buds it was almost entirely clear even after 8 hours in the slow cooker. 

The final cannabutter has almost no taste at all. So if the taste bugs you in any way this is a great option IMO. (And there is barely any smell when smoked either, even less when vaped. Stealth weed! :classic_ninja:)

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  • 1 month later...
28 minutes ago, Green Leaf Organics said:

If you look properly at the close up pic if the trichomes it looks to me you only have trichome stalks left and the water curing process knocked most of the glands off.... just my 2 cents 

Agreed, watering curing is such a waste of bud.

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2 hours ago, Green Leaf Organics said:

If you look properly at the close up pic if the trichomes it looks to me you only have trichome stalks left and the water curing process knocked most of the glands off.... just my 2 cents 

Interesting. (I'm always open to people's 2c BTW, that's what the forum is for 🙂). I'll take another look under the microscope and see what they look like now.

I think I'd having done the water cure I'd say this: Odds are I screwed it up, so the issues are possibly me being too rough rather than a flaw with water curing itself. I chose to water cure mainly because it was my first time and I did not have a reasonable space to dry without worrying about mold.

However I don't think I'd want to water cure again, even if I could get all the water cure issues resolved. For vaping / smoking it seems clear that a dry cure is clearly the best option. For cannabutter I could probably skip the curing phase altogether if I really wanted to.

And thanks for the feedback :-thumbsup

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I have a whole plant that I need tasteless and odorless... It's sies... So I experimented a bit with water curing, but it still left a smell. 

I looked under my hand held microscope and found more balls on my stalks than you did... Must admit... I only changed water once a day. 

All in all... I tried it and am now in the know... And know not to do it again... 

Just be patient... And be like me... Hang my fresh buds in the pantry 😜

 

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