# Smokin' hay!



## pax5000 (Aug 14, 2011)

Having some issues with my NL hydro. It's been a while since I have grown and I'm working on my third crop and things are not getting much better. The final buds are weak in strength, strong in taste. Hay like. I thought I may have pulled them early last crop so I let the next ride out a little longer. Still keeping in mind the colors of the trichomes. Same problem. Dried them differently, same problem. I have and emily's garden type set up. The two that I cropped yesterday had mold in the cola!!! Shitty! I didn't have the fans on as much so that is more than the likely and unrelated problem that can be fixed with proper circulation. I got the seeds on line from a somewhat reputable seller however could the seed be the issue here? They could have given me some from their bag of shwag that they had to get while they were waiting on their own crop. Hopefully not but is a possibility because I am running out of ideas. I'm not sure what specs I need to provide so any questions please ask and I will be as specific as possible. Thanks in advance for your help!


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 14, 2011)

pax5000 said:
			
		

> Having some issues with my NL hydro. It's been a while since I have grown and I'm working on my third crop and things are not getting much better. The final buds are weak in strength, strong in taste. Hay like. I thought I may have pulled them early last crop so I let the next ride out a little longer. Still keeping in mind the colors of the trichomes. Same problem. Dried them differently, same problem. I have and emily's garden type set up. The two that I cropped yesterday had mold in the cola!!! Shitty! I didn't have the fans on as much so that is more than the likely and unrelated problem that can be fixed with proper circulation. I got the seeds on line from a somewhat reputable seller however could the seed be the issue here? They could have given me some from their bag of shwag that they had to get while they were waiting on their own crop. Hopefully not but is a possibility because I am running out of ideas. I'm not sure what specs I need to provide so any questions please ask and I will be as specific as possible. Thanks in advance for your help!



Well, first of all, Where did you get your seeds??  Did they come in "Breeder Packs??  The mold, is from shitty circulation, you got that right.  How did you dry your bud?  Have you given them time to cure??  You say you were using hydro, did you do a finishing flush, or were you using nutes through to the end???

HomieHogleg


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 14, 2011)

In addition to the questions Homie asked....

How long did you veg and flower them?  What size and type of lighting were you using in how much space?  Tell us more about your ventilation--fans should run all the time the lights are on.  Plants need fresh air all the time for proper photosynthesis.  Did you check the trichs with a microscope to determine ripeness?


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## pax5000 (Aug 14, 2011)

O.K. I bought the seeds from somewhere like marijuana-seeds.nl They came as 6 female I believe. To dry I hung my plants as a whole in the closet upside down. I hung them for 7 days until the stem just snapped. I then jarred them and have been curing since. I did flush for 2 weeks using only distilled water, no nutes.I vegged for about 2 months then 4 months for bloom. My bloom room is 5'x4'. Intake fan at bottom, exhaust fan on top of opposite side. Didn't have any other fan on the plants this last crop and the moldy buds were the result There's a 400W sodium on light track. Trichs were checked with under 100x magnification and all were cloudy moving into amber phase. Thanks again. Keep the questions coming! You all are awesome!!


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 14, 2011)

pax5000 said:
			
		

> O.K. I bought the seeds from somewhere like marijuana-seeds.nl They came as 6 female I believe. To dry I hung my plants as a whole in the closet upside down. I hung them for 7 days until the stem just snapped. I then jarred them and have been curing since. I did flush for 2 weeks using only distilled water, no nutes.I vegged for about 2 months then 4 months for bloom. My bloom room is 5'x4'. Intake fan at bottom, exhaust fan on top of opposite side. Didn't have any other fan on the plants this last crop and the moldy buds were the result There's a 400W sodium on light track. Trichs were checked with under 100x magnification and all were cloudy moving into amber phase. Thanks again. Keep the questions coming! You all are awesome!!



I think you may have dried them a little long, and possibly at too high a temp.  I never dry till the stem will snap.  What is the normal relative humidity, in your area???  I usually dry for around 5-7 days tops, and the humidity here ranges between 50%-90%, usually in the high range in the summer, and low range in the winter.  It actually takes longer to dry in the summer, as the RH is higher.  Do you have a hygrometer????  When my plants are getting close to being dry, I will put a few nugs in a jar with my hygrometer.  If the RH settles to between 60%-65%, they are ready for the jar, and curing to begin.  

Hope this helps.

HomieHogleg


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 15, 2011)

I would be inclined to believe that you may have let them flower too long--there are not very many strains that take a 120+ days to flower and NL, an Indica, is not one of them.  Marijuana seeds.nl lists their NL as being a 7-10 flowering plant.  Taken out 17 weeks or so, the trichs probably actually died.  I'm thinking you somehow "misread" the trich color.  Even with inadequate light, they should not have taken over 17 weeks to finish.  You are quite underlit, running around 2500 lumens per sq ft.  This can affect trich production.

You say nothing about trimming your plant--did you trim the small leaves off before hanging and curing?  IMO, leaf material burns harsh and nasty.  I trim absolutely all leaf material off the plant that I can (and save for hash).  How long have they been curing?

Can you post up some macros of your bud?


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## BlueNose (Aug 15, 2011)

THG lol, when I first saw 4 months I was thinking of some pretty degraded tim burton style trichomes. 
Well both my thoughts are mentioned above, how long they flowered and how/if they were trimmed


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 15, 2011)

WOW!!!,
I missed the 4 Months of flowering!!!!!!!!!!!  No wonder it was bunk.  I am suprized that they were still alive!!!


homieHogleg


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## pax5000 (Aug 15, 2011)

Looking back in my notes they took 12.5 weeks to flower. My bad! Down friends, down!!   The indoor temp averages 72 degrees and the humidity 50%. Outdoors the average relative is 70%.  I dry them until just I get that snap sound and they don't actually break. Not good? I do not yet own a hygrometer. I may need to invest. The newest crop has been drying for 2 days now. The buds are already starting to have the hay odor to it. Stress!! I am really beginning to think about the actual seeds. Everything I have are clones. Do you have any experience or heard of any with the type of site that I got them from? I did some research and didn't find many complaints about it. Do you know of a different source? Any other ideas?  I could very well need some trich 101. I thought it was pretty straight forward. I'll do more research.  I thought about the leaves earlier today. I went and cut back a big bud even further to see if I got much of a difference. The only result I got was a really skinny looking bud! So that wasn't the issue. When I cropped I trimmed off all leaves, as shown below, left them on the stalk and hung them. The first two pics are in their 8th day of flush b4 I cut down. The next two are on their third day of drying. The last one is from first crop that I am smoking now and smells like hay and weak. I'm hoping this isn't going to be any more of an epidemic. Thanks again for your insight.


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## BlueNose (Aug 15, 2011)

What does the bud feel like? it looks a bit crunchy?


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 15, 2011)

Gonna Eat That? said:
			
		

> What does the bud feel like? it looks a bit crunchy?



Yep,
It looks way overdried to me, or dried at too high a temp.

HomieHogleg


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## pax5000 (Aug 17, 2011)

They dried at 72 degrees. I thought I cut them when the trichs were cloudy/amber. Maybe I was wrong. I use 100x lighted light to view them. The buds do feel somewhat crunchy on the outside but still a little moist. I jarred them to see if by pulling that moisture out it will moisten it. They only dried for 3 days. Again what about the validity of the seeds and does anyone have a different reliable web source? Does this appear to be northern lights? I found in the two that are about to be cut down very small , what appears to be seed formations. Odd. Any ideas. I don't believe they are herms however I guess it is a possibility. Don't know how I changed them. If I pull clones from one will that make the next batch if those are indeed seeds? Thanks again for your help!


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 17, 2011)

Sounds like you had the bases covered.  Were the seeds in a breeder pack, or just a baggie??  

HomieHogleg


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## pax5000 (Aug 17, 2011)

Baggie


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 17, 2011)

pax5000 said:
			
		

> Baggie


That sounds suspect to me.  I only deal with seedbanks that ship in breeder packs.  That way if something is wrong with the seeds I can contact the breeder with the problem.  

Sorry for your troubles bro.  

HomieHogleg


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 18, 2011)

The trouble with bagseed is that you really do not know where the pollen (and 1/2 the genetics) come from.  You could well have been growing seeds that are 1/2 feral hemp.

I, like Homie, always buy good genetics.  It is really heartbreaking to take all that the time, effort, money, and love that a plant takes to have it turn out bad.  I always encourage people to start with known quality genetics.


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## pax5000 (Aug 18, 2011)

Thanks everyone! Needless to say, a learning experience. I will go the seedbank rout next. Talk to ya soon!


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## pax5000 (Aug 18, 2011)

420-seeds.com?


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## SunWolf (Aug 18, 2011)

Attitude seed bank (link at the top of the page above) is super reliable site to order seeds.  I will also recommend Herbies Head Shop, had great results with them. (HerbiesHeadShop.com).


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## BlueNose (Aug 18, 2011)

HomieHogleg said:
			
		

> That sounds suspect to me.  I only deal with seedbanks that ship in breeder packs.  That way if something is wrong with the seeds I can contact the breeder with the problem.
> 
> Sorry for your troubles bro.
> 
> HomieHogleg



I've never grown a bag seed where the finished product tasted like hay unless I made a mistake in the drying or curing process. "Bag seed" is blamed for many things but when considering all the possible things that can be less than optimum when drying and curing, chances are it needs some good curing.

pax, 100x is a bit much for looking at trichs. A 30x might be a little better for easy and accurate viewing.


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 19, 2011)

Gonna Eat That? said:
			
		

> I've never grown a bag seed where the finished product tasted like hay unless I made a mistake in the drying or curing process. "Bag seed" is blamed for many things but when considering all the possible things that can be less than optimum when drying and curing, chances are it needs some good curing.
> 
> pax, 100x is a bit much for looking at trichs. A 30x might be a little better for easy and accurate viewing.


I agree,
you are probably right about it being a drying/cure problem.  That was my first impression.  The only time I ever had a plant, I grew, taste like hay, was when it was dried too fast.  But the conditions, that PAX posted, do not indicate that that could happen.  The only other answer would be bad genetics.


HomieHogleg


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## BlueNose (Aug 19, 2011)

HomieHogleg said:
			
		

> I agree,
> you are probably right about it being a drying/cure problem.  That was my first impression.  The only time I ever had a plant, I grew, taste like hay, was when it was dried too fast.  But the conditions, that PAX posted, do not indicate that that could happen.  The only other answer would be bad genetics.
> 
> 
> HomieHogleg



Yeah, the crunchy parts taste like a bag of butts.


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## jesuse (Aug 20, 2011)

i grew out nirvana nl << and after cure taste like gunk hay to<<<<and out of 5 fem pack only 1 fem,, shoking put me off ever geting any nirvana strains again!! they used to have a good name b4 they ventured in to the auto and fem world i feel thats when all went pare shape for them now ther names dirty out ther,,,,,,,,,,,,,peace[j]


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## pax5000 (Aug 22, 2011)

I'm open to any tips on drying and curing. I'm going to have this next crop stop drying earlier. Perhaps by waiting for the stems to snap I let them go too far. Curing I burp a few times a day for a week then once or twice a day for another. Suggestions?


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## BlueNose (Aug 22, 2011)

I hang dry until stems are near breaking but still bend/fold over rather than actually snap. I check my jars often so I can control how fast they dry. Pretty low humidity where I'm at. If they feel too wet I'll empty the jar onto a tray until they have dried a bit more, otherwise they get sealed back up until my next check. Sometimes I change tactics depending on bud density.


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 22, 2011)

Gonna Eat That? said:
			
		

> ... Pretty low humidity where I'm at...



LOL--low humidity, yeah I have that too--the relative humidity where I live is 10% today.  It makes 100F feel not that hot.  I simply do not believe that I could survive somewhere that the humidity was high.


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## pax5000 (Aug 23, 2011)

When do I know when they are dry enough to jar? The humidity here where I live is 50% right now. Makes temp 96 and the feels like 104. You've got it good hemp. One step outside and I'm already sweating! Feels like ***!!


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## HomieDaGrower (Aug 24, 2011)

pax5000 said:
			
		

> I'm open to any tips on drying and curing. I'm going to have this next crop stop drying earlier. Perhaps by waiting for the stems to snap I let them go too far. Curing I burp a few times a day for a week then once or twice a day for another. Suggestions?


I had another BOB, "Brother of the Bud" give me a formula, that has served me well.  Take the RH of your drying area, take that number, to the nearest 10%, and divide by 10, then add one day.  So if the RH of your drying area is 50%, then it would take 6 days.   If the RH in your drying area is 20%, then it would only take 3 days.  If the RH in your drying area is 70%, get a dehumidifier for your house, because you have mold.:giggle: 

An easier way to tell for me, is the smoke test.  When you are thinking that it is close, try and smoke a bowl.  If it burns slow, but completely, put that stuff in a jar.  If the outside burns, but leaves a ball of unsmokeable charcoal, try again tomorrow.  

Hope this helps

HomieHogleg


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