I harvested last Friday, trimmed em up and hung them to dry in my tene. Temp was kept between 65 and 70 F. ,and RMH at 57 to 60%. My moisture meter read 10% in 3 days which seems fast because everybody says 7 to 10 days. Any thoughts on what im doing wrong?
Was an exhaust fan running or too much air circulating in the tent?
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No fan, for that very reason.
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Check moisture on multiple buds of different sizes and see if the readings vary
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Bud size, plant moisture at the onset.
If your plant hadn’t been freshly watered, she likely had less moisture in her generally. If you wet-trimmed, there was less mass to help retain moisture.
For what it’s worth, I live in a desert. My RH is like 40% when it’s actively raining. “Optimal” parameters are impractical for me - I could do it, but it would be expensive. I just offset the speedy dry by the following:
Water your plant the day of or day before harvest. That way she’ll have more water in the cells of her stems, leaves, and buds.
Do not wet trim - not even the big fan leaves
Leave the plant whole, or in big clusters of branches.
Do a bud wash.
I can extend my dries out to a 5-7 day dry if I’m lucky using those methods to keep moisture in. That’s around 25-30% RH and temps around 68-70°F, because that’s what my guest bathroom is usually lookin’ like.
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Check your branches are they snappy if not then the plants humidity isnt equalized to the room meaning they’re still to wet
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Put the buds in a large Tupperware container with a hygrometer and see where your humidity falls in a few hours.
The hygrometer takes out all the guess work.
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This is part of a plant dried in my 3x3. I hung large clusters and whole stems. I did remove large fan leaves. However, a different plant that was dried in a closet, the fan leaves were kept on the plant.
After a week of drying I broke the large clusters down and put them into totes. I am glad I did this, not only because it extends the drying time, but it saved my bacon. I was unable to finish trim them until 5 - 6 days later. If I did not use the totes they would be dried to a crisp.
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I’m glad this subject came up. Last Saturday we chopped our big Harlequin clone to get it before the Ian rains hit. We had branches hung all over the house! I didn’t mess much with the leaves because we had the wood stove going. Those branches were snappy dry in 5 days. Since the buds felt pretty dry, I got them into jars ASAP.
In spite of that, the humidity in the jars is steady at about 45%. I’ve heard of rehydrating buds by putting a Boveda, or an apple slice, or a fresh leaf into the jars. Does this work? Does it affect/improve the quality of the buds?
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was worrying about a grow that took a month to dry because of the humidity. Always something…
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I use tortillas. They can come in contact with the bud and won’t cause mold. Or so I was told by some lady with so many plants her place looked like an apple orchard.
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How would I keep the plant whole and do a bud wash? I have to cut the branches in 3 or 4 lengths to fit them in a bucket to wash them?
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Heck for that matter take some buds and put em in a quart sealer for a few hours… if there’s water in the buds you will know, the stem and inner portion of the buds will sweat out and the buds will get soggy. Its how you check to see if yer weed is ready for jars. If you let your buds dry right out the curing process stops and yer dope will smell like hay and likely smoke harsh. Some guys need to run a humidifier while drying to keep the process slow.
Ideally if you can make it last 10 days thats ideal.
Im trying to hang some plants in my garage at 50f to see if they will dry.
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Dump your pyroxide water on your plant then run it under a shower or gently hose them off my plants are just small enough for me to just set my shower to minimal settings and give in a quick rinsing
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Like @Graysin I am in an arid area. Best dry I ever had was when I chopped three plants and hung them in the tent they grew up in. They had the humidity and airflow. Nice slow dry.
Tarzan does not want them drying in the garage for privacy and safety reasons they will be hanging in the basement with a humidifier and the whole house will reek of weed for the next month or so.
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Apple tree on the right, marijuana tree on the left… I aint getting that in the shower lol. No the only way to properly bud wash that is to take it down a bit at a time. I usually run a rope from tree to tree and hang the branches on that. I set up a wash station with 3 buckets and just get started. I make a day of it. The main colas are left as a short branch for hanging and the smaller buds are placed on drying racks, basically window screens.
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Do you use corn or flour tortillas?
If I use a vent fan speed higher then 30 or 40% of max it dries em super fast.
We just went through that process with our almost 6 foot Harlequin. We had branches hung all over the house!
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Noice! That image shows my greenhouse on the right which has a 12 foot cieling.
Its hard to get a proper frame of reference with cannabis plants. So the bush outside is actually much larger than it appears. Oddly, the bud size is only typical, but uniform, the greenhouse plant is doing much much better with bigger denser buds. Very pleased.
How did you do on your harvest? Was it a good producer for you?