Black Market vs Homegrown

[Sticks]

Most of us have purchased weed on the streets before. Here in Cape Town Cheese was rampant on the streets at R120/gram give or take. We all know what it looked like what it smelled like. It would be light green, very dry a lot of the time, and would reek to the high heavens. Since I've been growing, I could never dry my crop to come out the same way this "street weed" would come out. And it seems that is what the people want. I always dry trim, slow dry, and my buds come out really nice, but nothing like "street weed."

 

What is the secret? 

 

Is this the way that people want their weed or is it just what they are familiar with and don't know better? 

 

[Prom]

If you keep weed in the right curing humidity range AND you let the plant ripen till finished, you should get that light green, is very much strain depending. Once it cures for a longer time, it starts to become darker again. All my three years cured weed jars are rather on the dark side ^^ but they smell incredibly sexy hehehe is like inhaling tasty air, there is nothing scratching your throat anymore.

[Sticks]

9 hours ago, Prom said:

If you keep weed in the right curing humidity range AND you let the plant ripen till finished, you should get that light green, is very much strain depending. Once it cures for a longer time, it starts to become darker again. All my three years cured weed jars are rather on the dark side ^^ but they smell incredibly sexy hehehe is like inhaling tasty air, there is nothing scratching your throat anymore.

This has been my experience too. And it's ridiculously smooth compared to street weed. 

The terps are there, the bag appeal is there (IMO), but it seems people who are not growers seem to believe that the look and harshness of "street weed" means higher quality. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I remember when this forum was lighting up over the prices of the weed, some people singing songs about they get the best of the best for R50/60 and no one should pay more than that I stood firm that most people still paying the old prices of R120-R150, still got retaliated cause people got butthurt about the truth. I hope those 'some' people have taken this time to come to realisation, it seems that way cause instead of giving you the what what on how much you paying you just got a straight answer, has happened so many times on this forum  

@Sticks

I would say it's a mix of all those things.

The secret is definitly genetics, though. No two ways about it. I've had genetics push buds that look like black market stuff without me trying, just growing amongst my other plants. It's just genetics. I can link you to one of my very very first grows, I grew a Elvis cut I got from a black market connection, came out like black market looking weed. The photos are on here. One of my earliest threads. Infact, here you go 

Curing and drying could be a little bit of a factor, only when the genetics are what they should be. Obviously as clear as day if you got airy dark green buds on harvest day the absolute best dry and cure in the world will not make your buds dense and light green.  that's just not a thing at all. not in a million years.

Genetics - next time you go to the blackmarket dude, try go as high up as you possibly can and talk directly to the bulk buyer, ask for a clone of the stuff you buying you gona get a big fat resounding no. Well, that's if he's worth his weight as a blackmarket business man. 

Most black market suppliers will be part of a circle or "collective" of friends that share a couple of clones between them. I know a black market supplier, chat with him on a weekly basis, he lives here in my town couple streets away, got a whole house as a grow op, I'm talking 100's of plants on a perpetual cycle, full power all the way no hickups. He's pumping a cheese cut since 2012 that's been kept between the bunch of them and with my close connection he just simply sais No when I ask for a cut. That's what the black market does. Someone gets their hands on a keeper pheno and they see it sells well so they keep it away from the public in order to keep the value and price of that weed higher than the generic stuff. Setting the value margins for the black market. Like, who set that price of R120? What is it based on? If you work out what it cost to grow indoor it comes down to around R30/g. So the mark up could be because of the risk factor, but there's just a big a risk to growing outy. Probably even higher risk, cause it's harder to hide and all that. Indoor is the price it is on the street, cause they protect genetics. 

Now that's just talking about one cheese pheno, there are literally billions of cheese phenos out there if you account for all pheno variations and all... if you buy a 20 or even a 50 pack of cheese seeds you still wouldn't get the same winner of a unicorn cheese pheno as the one you get by the black market? Cause you're not a black market supplier so you not "in the clique" you not "part of the gang". Don't know it you aware of the "Elvis" and the "Hitler" strains, there's a couple of them, "clone only" strains, cause they don't wana take to STS to be reversed for seeds, cause they been hybridized into oblivion. it's basically just a production plant then, can't reproduce or anything. Elvis you can get the clone of these days, but there's about 10 to 15 different ones out here and literally only 1 winner. to find that 1 is like finding a unicorn. for real. and a couple years back of you asked for a Elvis cut people would just laugh at you, cause they protected it to keep the price high. The same way it is with the Hitler cut today. 

Saying "black market" is still quite vague, cause the black market produces 90% poopweed and then there's a 10% that will rival any home grower.

I don't think any black market supplier would take the time to cure the stuff they sell, they hang to dry, trim and moer in a bag and there you go. Most of the time you get dry weed, but there's a good 30 to 40% of the time you buy weed from the black market you get it still moist as fuck. They're just sloppy. They know it's not all going to sell on the street on day one, still has to trickle down to the singles, so it gives the middle man time to bag the stuff and sit with it for up to a month before selling out, in that time the buds spent in a bag, and we all know a weed in a bag dries out. even in a ziplock. That's basically the burping/curing process. Just unlucky if you get it fresh and still moist, then again like you said, people just don't know better cause I am thinking about 2 different guys I know that refuses to smoke weed that's dried properly they prefer the moist stuff.... I've smoked with them and I give my properly dried and cured weed that smokes like a terp loaded breath of fresh air and they don't like it at all  I'm sure I also wanted the "harder hitting" stuff when I first started smoking. 

[Bos]

Peoples' perceptions....

As a home grower you are on the journey down the rabbithole and will learn to know better. 

There are better "guys" out there that produce decent stuff and then you get the rest. Genetics as mentioned will play a big role as it usually does.

The "throatcut" or burn from improperly/badly cured cannabis is usually mistaken for "potency". Many blackmarket guys don't have time to fiddle with curing, burping etc... the dry it fast to get the product to market asap.

Teary eyes and hectic coughing equals "good stuff" .....or is it the mould growth from improper storage etc.

Once you've grown decent genetics and properly processed your own cannabis, its difficult to go back to streetweed. 

Ignorance is not always bliss.

[Sticks]

On 9/12/2023 at 7:26 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

I remember when this forum was lighting up over the prices of the weed, some people singing songs about they get the best of the best for R50/60 and no one should pay more than that I stood firm that most people still paying the old prices of R120-R150, still got retaliated cause people got butthurt about the truth. I hope those 'some' people have taken this time to come to realisation, it seems that way cause instead of giving you the what what on how much you paying you just got a straight answer, has happened so many times on this forum  

@Sticks

I would say it's a mix of all those things.

The secret is definitly genetics, though. No two ways about it. I've had genetics push buds that look like black market stuff without me trying, just growing amongst my other plants. It's just genetics. I can link you to one of my very very first grows, I grew a Elvis cut I got from a black market connection, came out like black market looking weed. The photos are on here. One of my earliest threads. Infact, here you go 

Curing and drying could be a little bit of a factor, only when the genetics are what they should be. Obviously as clear as day if you got airy dark green buds on harvest day the absolute best dry and cure in the world will not make your buds dense and light green.  that's just not a thing at all. not in a million years.

Genetics - next time you go to the blackmarket dude, try go as high up as you possibly can and talk directly to the bulk buyer, ask for a clone of the stuff you buying you gona get a big fat resounding no. Well, that's if he's worth his weight as a blackmarket business man. 

Most black market suppliers will be part of a circle or "collective" of friends that share a couple of clones between them. I know a black market supplier, chat with him on a weekly basis, he lives here in my town couple streets away, got a whole house as a grow op, I'm talking 100's of plants on a perpetual cycle, full power all the way no hickups. He's pumping a cheese cut since 2012 that's been kept between the bunch of them and with my close connection he just simply sais No when I ask for a cut. That's what the black market does. Someone gets their hands on a keeper pheno and they see it sells well so they keep it away from the public in order to keep the value and price of that weed higher than the generic stuff. Setting the value margins for the black market. Like, who set that price of R120? What is it based on? If you work out what it cost to grow indoor it comes down to around R30/g. So the mark up could be because of the risk factor, but there's just a big a risk to growing outy. Probably even higher risk, cause it's harder to hide and all that. Indoor is the price it is on the street, cause they protect genetics. 

Now that's just talking about one cheese pheno, there are literally billions of cheese phenos out there if you account for all pheno variations and all... if you buy a 20 or even a 50 pack of cheese seeds you still wouldn't get the same winner of a unicorn cheese pheno as the one you get by the black market? Cause you're not a black market supplier so you not "in the clique" you not "part of the gang". Don't know it you aware of the "Elvis" and the "Hitler" strains, there's a couple of them, "clone only" strains, cause they don't wana take to STS to be reversed for seeds, cause they been hybridized into oblivion. it's basically just a production plant then, can't reproduce or anything. Elvis you can get the clone of these days, but there's about 10 to 15 different ones out here and literally only 1 winner. to find that 1 is like finding a unicorn. for real. and a couple years back of you asked for a Elvis cut people would just laugh at you, cause they protected it to keep the price high. The same way it is with the Hitler cut today. 

Saying "black market" is still quite vague, cause the black market produces 90% poopweed and then there's a 10% that will rival any home grower.

I don't think any black market supplier would take the time to cure the stuff they sell, they hang to dry, trim and moer in a bag and there you go. Most of the time you get dry weed, but there's a good 30 to 40% of the time you buy weed from the black market you get it still moist as fuck. They're just sloppy. They know it's not all going to sell on the street on day one, still has to trickle down to the singles, so it gives the middle man time to bag the stuff and sit with it for up to a month before selling out, in that time the buds spent in a bag, and we all know a weed in a bag dries out. even in a ziplock. That's basically the burping/curing process. Just unlucky if you get it fresh and still moist, then again like you said, people just don't know better cause I am thinking about 2 different guys I know that refuses to smoke weed that's dried properly they prefer the moist stuff.... I've smoked with them and I give my properly dried and cured weed that smokes like a terp loaded breath of fresh air and they don't like it at all  I'm sure I also wanted the "harder hitting" stuff when I first started smoking. 

Wow, so much to unpack here and so hard to do on mobile! 

 

Thank you, I agree wholeheartedly. I too used to like the "harder hitting" stuff back in the day that would make me cough uncontrollably, thinking it meant potency. Back then, all indoor looked and smelled the same to me, I couldn't distinguish the difference between any strains I bought, but didn't care because it would just be sold as indoor. Now I can taste and smell differences in all the strains I grow. I've spoken to some dudes who sell, and they told me that people want what they are used to, and if the weed is smooth and the high is long lasting, they won't be convinced because the look of the buds and feel of the smoke is not what they are used to. 

I would, though, like to test out their drying methods just to see how it's done and if I can replicate their results for nostalgia's sake. 

[Sticks]

On 9/12/2023 at 10:00 AM, Bos said:

Peoples' perceptions....

As a home grower you are on the journey down the rabbithole and will learn to know better. 

There are better "guys" out there that produce decent stuff and then you get the rest. Genetics as mentioned will play a big role as it usually does.

The "throatcut" or burn from improperly/badly cured cannabis is usually mistaken for "potency". Many blackmarket guys don't have time to fiddle with curing, burping etc... the dry it fast to get the product to market asap.

Teary eyes and hectic coughing equals "good stuff" .....or is it the mould growth from improper storage etc.

Once you've grown decent genetics and properly processed your own cannabis, its difficult to go back to streetweed. 

Ignorance is not always bliss.

Yip. Also once you've got your grow dialed in then it works out much cheaper to grow your own anyways. I've smoked with people and I'll throw a joint halfway through and they'd be screaming at me. I have more weed than what I could ever smoke. 

 

I know that the black market weed is probably not optimally dried and cured, but I'd like to sacrifice some buds to see if I can replicate it. 

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

On 9/11/2023 at 4:49 PM, Prom said:

If you keep weed in the right curing humidity range AND you let the plant ripen till finished, you should get that light green, is very much strain depending. Once it cures for a longer time, it starts to become darker again. All my three years cured weed jars are rather on the dark side ^^ but they smell incredibly sexy hehehe is like inhaling tasty air, there is nothing scratching your throat anymore.

I know there won't be much of a visual difference, but I'm super curious to see weed that you've been curing for 3 fucking years  Care to share some photos?

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I'd like to see that too I know old weed just goes darker in colour, the green goes darker and the trichomes all go amber so you get brown weed. Curing weed is quite specific. To cure something doesn't mean long term storage. You can see it with all things that need a cure. Types of alcohol, types of cheese... basically, saying "cure" means you didn't just store it long term. As with everything else, if the cure isn't done right instead of increasing quality it just degrades quality. and then there's the life of the cure, as with everything, it's like riding the rollercoaster to the tippy top and then a sudden dramatic plunge - anything you cure you do "low and slow" like they say "any good cure will take time" BUT as with the rollercoaster, it's a slow climb and the time spent being at the peak of it's quality is just a small window it leaves to consume, if you leave it for any longer even if cure conditions are perfect, the quality will fall dramatically. It'll just go bad and all the time spent on the cure will be lost. I feel, through my experience with it, the difference in 1 year cured weed and 1 month cured weed, the 1month stuff always wins. Tested it at least a hand full of times. Loose terps every single time, but the smoke is smoother. makes sense though, cause terps are locked in the essential oils and lipids in the plant. Less oils and fats = smoothe smoke but that comes with less flavour. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

15 hours ago, Sticks said:

I would, though, like to test out their drying methods just to see how it's done and if I can replicate their results for nostalgia's sake. 

if you got a fresh harvest, trim the weed before you get stem snap, (semi dry semi moist) then take a big plastic tote bin, put a black bag in it, moer all the stuff in there. some dudes do this pre trim aswell, so the whole plant basically stem sugarleaves and all go in the bin. then forget about it for a month, make sure to kick it around a couple times. turn the pile, tops to bottom and vice versa. now, most important, once you start trimming, buds don't go in a jar, they go in a bag once the bag is full you push it down to give that brick weed look let it sit compressed like that for another month. you'll have some black market looking weed. that's basically what happens to the indoor you buy before it gets to you. 

[Sticks]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

I'd like to see that too I know old weed just goes darker in colour, the green goes darker and the trichomes all go amber so you get brown weed. Curing weed is quite specific. To cure something doesn't mean long term storage. You can see it with all things that need a cure. Types of alcohol, types of cheese... basically, saying "cure" means you didn't just store it long term. As with everything else, if the cure isn't done right instead of increasing quality it just degrades quality. and then there's the life of the cure, as with everything, it's like riding the rollercoaster to the tippy top and then a sudden dramatic plunge - anything you cure you do "low and slow" like they say "any good cure will take time" BUT as with the rollercoaster, it's a slow climb and the time spent being at the peak of it's quality is just a small window it leaves to consume, if you leave it for any longer even if cure conditions are perfect, the quality will fall dramatically. It'll just go bad and all the time spent on the cure will be lost. I feel, through my experience with it, the difference in 1 year cured weed and 1 month cured weed, the 1month stuff always wins. Tested it at least a hand full of times. Loose terps every single time, but the smoke is smoother. makes sense though, cause terps are locked in the essential oils and lipids in the plant. Less oils and fats = smoothe smoke but that comes with less flavour. 

I thought it was just me! I've always found that the fresher my weed, the more potent it is. That fist J after a month or 2 cure just hits the right spot. I'm not sure if it's perhaps the differenct cannabanoid content in the flower that hits differently, or if it's the freshness of the flower, but I personally prefer smoking mine fresh for this reason. 

[Sticks]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

if you got a fresh harvest, trim the weed before you get stem snap, (semi dry semi moist) then take a big plastic tote bin, put a black bag in it, moer all the stuff in there. some dudes do this pre trim aswell, so the whole plant basically stem sugarleaves and all go in the bin. then forget about it for a month, make sure to kick it around a couple times. turn the pile, tops to bottom and vice versa. now, most important, once you start trimming, buds don't go in a jar, they go in a bag once the bag is full you push it down to give that brick weed look let it sit compressed like that for another month. you'll have some black market looking weed. that's basically what happens to the indoor you buy before it gets to you. 

Holy shit, this sounds like an invitation for mold. I don't think I'm brave enough to do this to an entire harvest. Just reading that made me cringe. Why would anyone treat their buds like that after loving the plant to harvest?? But thank you, though.This just sounds extremely risky.

[Prom]

19 hours ago, AK-47 Gold Arabesque said:

I know there won't be much of a visual difference, but I'm super curious to see weed that you've been curing for 3 fucking years  Care to share some photos?

You are a bit late  i started to clean up my special stash 2 months ago. Cant take it with... so gets smoked.

March 20 candykush, Sept 20 Blueberry, Oct 20 Critical

[Prom]

Is something I can recommend. When you have a nice batch of weed... lets say 50g. Spit it in 10g portions into vacuum sealed glasses and put a small Boveda bag inside.

Have a smoke and write down what you taste and experience. Then pack the jars in a dark cold space and forget em for 2 month.. do the next test and check how the weed changed. Next I suggest to wait another 3 months to reach 5 month cure time. This smoke will already surprise you as there will be huge taste changes. Then wait another 4 months to reach 9 months curing time. It is getting hyper smooth now and the taste should have changed again. And the last 3 months for this batch  to reach 12 months curing time. Smoke and check with your old reports you wrote.. it will once more taste different and now we reach zero throat irritation. You normally check if the joint is really lit and are surprised to see you exhaling smoke. Suuuppperrrrr smooooooooth ^^ taste wise it should still reflect the strain. Curing does huge changes to weed. If you dry weed way to fast and store it to dry it gets bitter and that bitterness you can't remove anymore. Over drying is not the best to do. Best is if you get it in one smooth dry run to 62% and there you stay rock solid.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Food for thought - 

Terpenes are volatile, they will never ever increase from harvest day onwards, doesn't matter what you do, they will always decrease, but they can be expressed better when they're in better ratio to other compounds.

You can have the best of the potential expression after a good cure, but it's down to the science, you'd never be able to change mids to top shelf through anything done post harvest. I don't choose it to be like that, science dictates and I just bend to understanding. Terpenes are volatile, by definition that means the terpenes are always evaporating, some conditions make it evaporate faster and some make it slower. That smootheness is all the compounds, along with the terpenes, that has left the plant. bit of a catch22 if you ask me. Anyone can try and argue this however they want, science is science.

It's a tight rope balanace of many many things easy and simple way to explain it is - there's 10 boxes and all need to be checked to make the green light go on, if one box is missed the green light will not go on and you can never go from having one or two boxes checked and then change one thing to check all 10 boxes. It basically starts from having a healthy plant, if you harvest a plant that don't look right you already missed the first box and nothing can be done to bring that bud back to giving its best expression.

You can easily fall any direction, you want terpenes but you also want less irritation. the cure is basically slowly reducing all the compounds the plant offgasses (along with the terpenes) to the acceptible range for the consumer. as said before, terpenes will never ever increase from harvest day onwards, they will always decrease, but they can be expressed better when they're in better ratio to other compounds.

Terpenes are found most notably in beauty products. perfumes and creams. even with topical stuff or whatever, if there's terpenes involved the principle stays the same - a specific consumer who loves lavender will try everything lavender till one day some lavender soap makes their skin itch, could be a new chemical, or sometimes it's the terp the consumer is crazy for but just in the wrong concentration or the wrong ratio to other compounds. one day the same consumer smells something lavender and doesn't like it at all, it's cause the ratio to other compounds, it changes the composition of the notes the terps carry so they hit your senses in an unpleasant way.

It's never ever just one thing with plants the more you narrow something down to one specific reason the further away you getting from the answer.

You've heard of the 99.99% pure thc amd that stuff? It's cause even solventless rosin fresh off the press isn't pure thc or pure cbd or any of the main cannabis related "things" people think of. There's many many many other compounds in there. now back to a bud...

We gotta remind ourselves that when the plant is chopped it doesn't magically loose all the other compounds that make up plant matter. along with a bud you smoking natural lipids, sugars and startches, many different chemicals in many different forms and combinations. The outside shell of a resin gland is almost pure silica, there's less chlorophyll when most of the moisture left as a form N offgas, but there will never be 0% chlorophyll, and there will always be trace amounts of a good number of the compounds on the periodic table and in different combinations and shit (this what we talking bout when saying "entourage effect") there's literally too many compounds for me to know them all by heart, but yeah we tend to think and focus only around the thc/cbd aspects, but that's more with extracts, but still not the only things to focus on. otherwise there would be no oil classification, there would be no high or low quality, there would just be "oil".

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

19 hours ago, Prom said:

You are a bit late  i started to clean up my special stash 2 months ago. Cant take it with... so gets smoked.

March 20 candykush, Sept 20 Blueberry, Oct 20 Critical

one on the right still looks fresh, then again some stuff just naturally already looks like the other two after drying. 

you perhaps have photos of these from 3 years back so we can compare to this? kinda hars to go oooh or aaah if I am just looking at some weed from a far. maybe a little closer inspection? most important would be trichome quality after 3 years, can't see them like this. 

[Prom]

Is a bit brighter as the weed is due to the flash light. 

THC starts to decompose after 9 months. So you do not store weed for potency increase.. but smoking pleasure increase. When i smoke a weed, potency is a bit secondary to me. Can be the most potent weed, if i do not like the taste in my mouth or makes me cough i will not smoke it. Curing makes the smoke smoother, fresh weed is never at its best. Most likely why street weed is never really top notch as they flock it into the market as soon as it is ready, dried and dressed.

One board member takes more or less all my gear.. he saw the picture of the weed too and asked if he can try. When he picks up some of the stuff we have some and he can write a report ^^ Then you get a smoke test from a third party.   

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

On 9/15/2023 at 2:26 PM, Prom said:

Is a bit brighter as the weed is due to the flash light. 

heheh I mean like the details of the bud, I can't see cz it's so far away and if I could see it up close I still need to see what it looked like 3 years ago too. but nevermind it's just observation, it wouldn't have much of a impact. 

On 9/15/2023 at 2:26 PM, Prom said:

THC starts to decompose after 9 months. So you do not store weed for potency increase.. but smoking pleasure increase.

aaaaah the 9 months, I keep that in mind, it's new info to me, but yeah I knew it was a fine line. I guess, that's probably what the book say, but we all know reality is a bit different, and it's very logical to assume that not every strain will be exactly the same. I have smoked 1 year old weed that tasted better than it did at 5 months. 1 year is more than 9 months, so how could that be? It doesn't correlate with the 9 months thing. I also see you say the 3 yeard old weed also still taste amazing but you also say 9 months is peak then it start decomposing. now I am left scratching my head even more but again, nevermind all that, doesn't have impact on me I'm just making observations and noting them. I do agree that a cure is only for smootheness, not increased terps. In fact the terps reduce, like we all know - they're volatile. so they don't "decompose" they literally "evaporate" the chemical interaction with oxygen, certain temperatures make them release gas into the air and this is what reduces quality. you know that the quality degrades because the terps have evaporated. the trichome glands that used to be clear/milky are all amber now. so basically knowing the 9 month thing people should never cure for over 9 months? 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

that's why they say "if you can smell the terps you are loosing the terps"