is thePuff of white powder when bud is broken Powder Mildew?

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indtune

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*HELP IDENTIFY POWDER MILDEW*

I just harvested, dried, and are in the process of trimming. As a medical patient for asthma, I am conserned with mold and mildew.

*Reasons to believe infection of Powder mildew*

I noticed when I break the bud from the main branch to trim, there is a fine puff of white powder that whisps off. This also occurs when I pull bigger feeder leaves off the bud, and break open bigger buds. It's very fine, and lighter than trichomes. The powder doesn't fall to the tray, but gets whisped into the air. When handling the branches to trim off the buds, my hands feel powdery after time - not sticky like normal. The secondary branches with buds attached have a fine light brown hue to them, almost as if the branch was dropped and got a little dust on them. And, to boot - after trimming for a couple days, 10 hours a day, I developed a horrible chest cold, and experienced the worst asthma attack I've ever had - I'm 27 and have had asthma since the 3rd grade - in which my albuterol inhaler did not help, which has never happened either. Everyone trimming ended up with some kind of conjestion, although the host of the house was sick two weeks before we started trimming.
Our grow was outdoors, and in a region with a relatively wet fall season. The plants in question were chopped while it was raining and taken straight into a shop to hang. Plants were still wet, and no dehumidifier was used, but oscillating fans were used. It rained for almost 2 weeks, and the tempature didn't get above 50F the majority of the time, making dry time 2 weeks+.
One plant did get cut before the heavy rains, hung by itself in a large shop for the majority of the time, and doesn't seem to be affected.

*Reasons to believe no mold is present*
The shop used to dry wasn't cleaned to a T - some say the stuff on the branches could be dust. The buds look just fine when trimmed up - no crumbling, no discoloration of the inner stem (that I know of), no spiderweb-looking stuff on the bottom of buds. It smells nice, even after being jarred and properly ventilated. Leaves did not have signs of powder mildew. As said earlier, my cold, as well as everyone else's, could have been contributed to the host's recent cold bug. There was very little grey mold we had to cut off while still growing, and little obvious mold to trim off while trimming.

I immediatly stopped trimming after the night of the horrible asthma attack, and noticed the puff of powder the next day after looking closer under a brighter light. Friends are still adament about my "paranoia", and I really don't want to have to turn my whole crop into bubble hash.

Can anyone help? Also, if it is powder mildew, what else can I do with the buds, besides bubble(water) hash?

Thank you!
 
Wow that's a tough one to answer. I would be concerned to. Has anyone smoked this yet? If so did they have any symptoms.
 
indtune - this is a tough one. One of my first grows was outdoors in back woods Vermont. I was paranoid as hell back then and we hiked for miles to find the spot trudging soil and amendments behind us. Its a great story of moose charges, raging rivers that swept a trash bag full of freshly cut plants down river, and harvesting in heavy, consistant rain.

The relavent part for you is rain obviously. Now please overlook the rookie decisions I made then because after all, I was a rookie. We planted in a moist river basin - too moist. Brown mold hit many plants and even after trimming off evidence it continued growing here and there. We harvested while raining, piled the plants in trash bags over our shoulders and hiked to the truck.

I had limited dry space and decided drying in an available attic was the only choice. Same deal, no dehumidifier - just a fan and a relatively dusty, moist environment. My crop had already been seriously diminished from the brown mold so it was important to me to have as much product as possible. I trimmed them clean, and began jarring for curing.

I noticed an occasional puff like you describe - dust, mold? I didn't know either but continued as normal hoping all was good. After everything was cured we smoked it up. It was a bit musty I suppose but nothing to write home about. We called it DinoDank.

Two days after opening the jar I smoked with a close friend. She smoked almost an entire joint with me before her eye's rolled back in her head and she literally passed out! :eek: She woke a few minutes later and was fine? Was it the smoke? - she thought so - and obviously was sensitive. I thought more was going on with her health. Keep in mind I'm a young buck back then - inexperienced in comparison.

I continued to smoke it. Guess what happened next.......another friend of mine passed the hell out! :eek: During a session.

I studied my herb closely, determined to find an issue. I never did - nor did I ever smoke it again nor did anyone else. As I look back - I'm sure it was mold and I'm lucky everyone turned out fine.

Point is, most of us grow for a community that extends beyond a few friends and it's our responsibility to insure quality. There is so little science on the effects of smoking possible contaminants that if your unsure - it's wise to assume the worst unfortunately. It may not be PM, it could be another mold, or simply dust but why chance it. I'll be the first to say your paranoia is probably well intentioned. Bubble Hash sounds like a good option to me.

best of luck...........
 
Well... It's been a couple weeks, I guess, since I posted about this...
I had to take most of my untrimmed product back to the shop, where it moistened back up, making it really hard to trim. I rigged up a cardboard box and dried it again, and have been trimming it for a couple hours a day for the past week. I've been gentle with it this time, and trimmed all the bud off the branches while wearing a mask. I then took it inside and started trimming without a mask... No symptoms. I, as well as my friends have smoked it... No symptoms. I've made some BHO with some of the smaller buds from a different strain that had similar qualities - not only was it ok... It was the best wax I've made thus far... and no symptoms. Actually, since buying a G pen, I've noticed that I've been able to breathe better. YAY VAPING! I'm still leary of smoking the herb itself, but I'll do dabs of this **** anyday! Thanks for the advise and reply, glad someone knewwhat I was talking about.
 

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