7greeneyes
MedicalNLovingIt!
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- Jul 25, 2008
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Penicillium is another common one. From what I've read, it seems that it is not much of a concern. It's usually rather benign, and is most common from refridgerating (seems to prefer cold), but i'll get into that later. Your only real worry here is from contamination from putting something with the weed that can get Penicillium (ie. for re-hydration purposes), as we can see here: "Adding peels to pot imparts a "pleasant bouquet" (Frank & Rosenthal). In my case, the peel imparted a nidus of infection. _P italicum_, the "blue citrus mold," is notorious for its ability to spread by contact (i.e., "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch")." *2.
The last one i'll talk about is the one that people often cite reference to when burying their weed to "increase the potency". To describe this more specifically: "More recently, Margolis & Clorfene describe a mold that _increases_ potency in marijuana. Their "black weblike fungus" sounds like an _Aspergillus_ species" *2. This is kind of interesting, in that people will bury their weed in hopes of securing this specific one to increase potency.. but in my opinion it's not worth it, as it seems other strains come up a lot more often and just ruin the entire stash.
Identification:
How do you identify if you have a mold or not? I'll try to outline the main ways..
It seems that "Infested marijuana often darkens in color and becomes crumbly. Anaerobic bacteria turn marijuana into brown slime. Marijuana undergoing rapid decay may feel warm to touch. ... Tufts of fungi are often visible in mold material. In marijuana stored in darkness, strands look white to light grey. Exposed to light, storage molds spawn millions of colored spores in velvet clumps. A slight tap sends these spores into great billowing clouds. Generally, _Rhizopus_ and _Mucor_ produce grey-black spores; _Penicillium_ species are light blue-green; and _Aspergillus_ species are dark green-black." *2, which provides identification for penicillium, aspergillus, rhizopus, mucor, anaerobic, and generally what to look for (colour change, warmth, tufts, spores).
It also seems that it is possible to check for aflatoxins using a black light *2. It seems "Material contaminated with aflatoxin-producing _A. flavus_ will fluoresce to a green hue under ultraviolet light." *2.
Prevention & Ways around:
How do we go about preventing these strains from forming on my marijuana, seeing as any mold is unwanted?
First, the "fridging" or "freezing" your pot doesn't seem to hold any merit, as penicillium thrives in these situations *2. As well as these, we know of the "contact" spread of penicillium which was referrenced above in the penicillium section from things which can easily get contaminated by it.
There's no surprise here, the MAJOR factor is (ya, you guessed it) moisture. "Moisture control is the key to mold control. Molds need both food and water to survive; since molds can digest most things, water is the factor that limits mold growth." *3.
So you might be wondering how much moisture is too much, and how dry is too dry?
Well, "Living cannabis plants are about 80% water. Perfectly dried marijuana contains about 10%-15% water or moisture content (MC). Material below 10% MC becomes too brittle and disintegrates. Fungi cannot grow below 15% MC. Unfortunately, many growers market their crop _above_ 15% MC." *2.
For people with Aspergillus infected marijuana, it is recommended that one bakes it for 15 minutes at 300 degrees, as this apparantly does the trick in removing it *7.
There's also been a lot of theories that "using a waterpipe will filter the spores out" or something of that sort. That seems to be untrue however, as "Moody et al. evaluated waterpipes for smoking _Aspergillus_-contaminated marijuana. Unfortunately, they found only a 15% reduction in transmission of fungal spores." *2.
Conclusions:
It seems that there are quite a few risks with moldy weed, mostly respitory/immune problems. However, these are actually rather limited in their infection rates, and the most common are the more annoying (but not really a problem) allergy/asthma problems. As well, the strains most probable to develop on marijuana don't seem to be of particular deadliness, the more rare ones on the other hand do pose some serious risks.
Prevention of mold seems to be easiest executed by simply reducing the moisture level until the weed is below 15% moisture content.. however, since there's no way to really measure moisture content, i would just go for "pretty dry".
I realize quite a few people like to purposelly keep their bud a little moist, through re-hydration or whatever method. Although it might smoke better, the chance for contamination is FAR higher than if you dried the bud out quite well. So it's kind of a gamble i guess.
There doesn't seem to be any way to reduce the amount of spores that you intake (with the exception of cooking Aspergillus, and perhaps a few others), as even water bongs don't help much, thus if you're going to be inhaling a mold you should know WHICH one it is, and any problems that might be associated with it (or don't take the chance and throw it out).
I realize I used a lot of direct quotes to say what I wanted, to be honost this is because I'm lazy and the sites said what I wanted to pretty well
. As well, some of the writing might be awkard, and I apologize for that. I wrote this while a bit stoned. Hopefully it flows well enough to understand the points I was trying to make. If not please ask and I'll try to clarify.
I hope this will help people with mold problems make educated decisions on what they have, what they should do, ways to prevent it in the future, etc..
The last one i'll talk about is the one that people often cite reference to when burying their weed to "increase the potency". To describe this more specifically: "More recently, Margolis & Clorfene describe a mold that _increases_ potency in marijuana. Their "black weblike fungus" sounds like an _Aspergillus_ species" *2. This is kind of interesting, in that people will bury their weed in hopes of securing this specific one to increase potency.. but in my opinion it's not worth it, as it seems other strains come up a lot more often and just ruin the entire stash.
Identification:
How do you identify if you have a mold or not? I'll try to outline the main ways..
It seems that "Infested marijuana often darkens in color and becomes crumbly. Anaerobic bacteria turn marijuana into brown slime. Marijuana undergoing rapid decay may feel warm to touch. ... Tufts of fungi are often visible in mold material. In marijuana stored in darkness, strands look white to light grey. Exposed to light, storage molds spawn millions of colored spores in velvet clumps. A slight tap sends these spores into great billowing clouds. Generally, _Rhizopus_ and _Mucor_ produce grey-black spores; _Penicillium_ species are light blue-green; and _Aspergillus_ species are dark green-black." *2, which provides identification for penicillium, aspergillus, rhizopus, mucor, anaerobic, and generally what to look for (colour change, warmth, tufts, spores).
It also seems that it is possible to check for aflatoxins using a black light *2. It seems "Material contaminated with aflatoxin-producing _A. flavus_ will fluoresce to a green hue under ultraviolet light." *2.
Prevention & Ways around:
How do we go about preventing these strains from forming on my marijuana, seeing as any mold is unwanted?
First, the "fridging" or "freezing" your pot doesn't seem to hold any merit, as penicillium thrives in these situations *2. As well as these, we know of the "contact" spread of penicillium which was referrenced above in the penicillium section from things which can easily get contaminated by it.
There's no surprise here, the MAJOR factor is (ya, you guessed it) moisture. "Moisture control is the key to mold control. Molds need both food and water to survive; since molds can digest most things, water is the factor that limits mold growth." *3.
So you might be wondering how much moisture is too much, and how dry is too dry?
Well, "Living cannabis plants are about 80% water. Perfectly dried marijuana contains about 10%-15% water or moisture content (MC). Material below 10% MC becomes too brittle and disintegrates. Fungi cannot grow below 15% MC. Unfortunately, many growers market their crop _above_ 15% MC." *2.
For people with Aspergillus infected marijuana, it is recommended that one bakes it for 15 minutes at 300 degrees, as this apparantly does the trick in removing it *7.
There's also been a lot of theories that "using a waterpipe will filter the spores out" or something of that sort. That seems to be untrue however, as "Moody et al. evaluated waterpipes for smoking _Aspergillus_-contaminated marijuana. Unfortunately, they found only a 15% reduction in transmission of fungal spores." *2.
Conclusions:
It seems that there are quite a few risks with moldy weed, mostly respitory/immune problems. However, these are actually rather limited in their infection rates, and the most common are the more annoying (but not really a problem) allergy/asthma problems. As well, the strains most probable to develop on marijuana don't seem to be of particular deadliness, the more rare ones on the other hand do pose some serious risks.
Prevention of mold seems to be easiest executed by simply reducing the moisture level until the weed is below 15% moisture content.. however, since there's no way to really measure moisture content, i would just go for "pretty dry".
I realize quite a few people like to purposelly keep their bud a little moist, through re-hydration or whatever method. Although it might smoke better, the chance for contamination is FAR higher than if you dried the bud out quite well. So it's kind of a gamble i guess.
There doesn't seem to be any way to reduce the amount of spores that you intake (with the exception of cooking Aspergillus, and perhaps a few others), as even water bongs don't help much, thus if you're going to be inhaling a mold you should know WHICH one it is, and any problems that might be associated with it (or don't take the chance and throw it out).
I realize I used a lot of direct quotes to say what I wanted, to be honost this is because I'm lazy and the sites said what I wanted to pretty well
. As well, some of the writing might be awkard, and I apologize for that. I wrote this while a bit stoned. Hopefully it flows well enough to understand the points I was trying to make. If not please ask and I'll try to clarify.I hope this will help people with mold problems make educated decisions on what they have, what they should do, ways to prevent it in the future, etc..
