Bud rot prevention

Why not if you don’t mind be asking? My extraction fan never stops and I have 2 fans in the tent as well that run 24/7…

My bad, should have read further up… I would unseal your grow room and evacuate the air more. assume you are not using the CO2 at night anyway ? You could look at it this way, you stand to lose FAR more via mold and bud rot with such high humidity levels and insufficient extraction than you could ever stand to gain with using the extra C02.

If you are burning that kind of power then you may as well use an AC for climate control would be my thoughts… Air at a lower temperature can’t hold as much water vapor so RH drops… Most of the humidity is going to be due to day time transpiration from the plants, so you could set an AC up on a temp/humidy relay and only fire it up when needed… and at night, set a timer on an extraction fan and just vent every so often?

Hmmmm so MOST fungicides are pretty nasty, partly because they develop a resistance pretty fast so they are made with multiple toxic agents often with loooong withholding periods. I personally would steer clear weed that had been treated with a fungicide…
I read some time ago that Bayer had a new type of antifungal

Apparently this is both a curative and preventative agent with a novel mode of action on botrytis and powdery mildew. i.e. they have low resistance to it so it can be used as a single agent. It has a 6 day withholding period which is comparatively short…

That said, I still wouldn’t use it on plants that I was smoking… There will be a motza of people on here who have been in your position… in general depending on how far into flower you are the best way to deal with bud rot is to chop it, or at least the infected branch before it all turns everything to slime .

Oh and swear and curse a lot… that’s a pretty normal response to finding bud rot :wink:

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Totally agree with Slain about the AC as humidifier.
Keep in account also that those dehums have a specific Operating temperature range that usually reaches his limit on about 34°C. After that performance drops drastically .
Of course the machine gets very warm and if your room temp is about 30°C means that the machine is way hotter reducing so the ability to pull water from the air.
When I didn’t have my AC in my sealed room I had to run 2 dehums like you and yes, was a waste of power and they were giving me half of the supposed water back…and were putting out a lot of heat!

Now I have AC and dehum and I’m thinking to ditch the dehum in the future and run 2 super efficient mini split , one as AC and another as dehum. Saving a fuckton of power (Ac in dehum mode is about 300w opposed to the dehum that is 900w!!) and without adding extra heat to the room…

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thank you very much for these responses.

co2 is off at the night. I have already a 355mm intake and one 355mm exhaust hole in the building. It is closed now because I use it only in the summer. external air without co2.

If I wanted to do an exhaust mechanism for only when the lights are off, then I have the problem that I don’t know how to do an extraction mechanism which is safe? I think I would need to do it with automatic ventilation flaps. One at the intake and another at the exhaust for external air. But If the exhaust flap would fail and stay close but the intake flap is open, it would blow out unfiltered air out of the building. Hazard! :smiley:

Would be the solution to that add a carbon filter at the intake hole? Also is there something like an inline filter, because my intake ducting splits into to ducting (two rooms veg and flower), which would mean with the normal carbon filters I would need to put a carbon filter at the intake of every room. I have 355mm ducting, which means the carbon filters for that are pretty huge and heavy. So if I could safe one of filter (putting it inline?), would be great. Does that exist? How you do your exhaust mechanism?

Last grow I just sprayed a fungicide once and had only some sort of white mold in the buds. But the structure of the buds stayed intact. Only minimal change in some cases. If it changed the structure already I threw it. Was maybe only one percent of the total harvest. After harvesting I washed them in h2o2 which removed that mold completely. Saw it in a Jorges Cervantes video where he washed off mildew with h2o2 after cutting the plants. Mabye it washes also the fungicide off? But maybe the fungicide is internal? The fungicide is approved for food. But I guess smoked its another thing.

I can’t install mini splits because in my country it is not common. Would be too much of a risk to have an outdoor unit installed. I have around 3000 watts of lights running. Do you think an evaporative cooler (only indoor unit with ducting to the exhaust) might work when outside of the building it is freezing temperatures?

Also I was thinking the RH raises when the temperature drops with absolute humidity staying same? How did you get the conclusion that with low temperature there is low rh? Or do you mean the high temperature is pulling the humidity out of the plants (vapor pressure), resulting in lots of absolute humidity?

And honest answer pls: How strong is that lactobacillus stuff? Would it make sense to brew it and use it? But spray a Lactobacillus mollasses mixture on the plants? Mollasses on the buds?

EDIT: I just found out it might be possible to use ozone for disinfection before exhausting the air at night? What you think?

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As far as exhausting the air,i read around that the best thing to do is place an ozone gen. inside the exhausting duct…in the way that treats only air going outside…and then of course a carbon filter.
Carbon filters become quite ineffective with very wet air…but maybe the ozone gen would fix that…

Evaporative coolers works ONLY with very dry air as intake…so if you run it inside the room it won’t work

For the LAB…what do you mean for strong? effective against the problem? harsh on buds?
You should definitely incorporate it in your schedule as far as soil drench once a month is plenty and for sure as a preventive foliar before flowers start to develop…

In your situation you should try to dial in the environment and genetics that of course created all this, anything else could be an attempt to save the situation in extreme…

I think buds should be not sprayed with nothing…I never did…but in your situation that u are struggling to improve the environment hitting several walls I would think to spray bacillus on them and after few days wash it off… bacillus is a powerhouse and can eat molds for breakfast mainly overtaking quickly all the food resources…

Have you tried Phd water sprays? I was reading that spray the mold with high or low ph water will kill it…

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ok. I got the scala pesticide. The ingredient is pyrimethanil. Have it since two weeks. Spray it every 10 days. No problems with any mold on the plants anymore.

Now the big question. How to get this off the buds when harvesting? I was reading about half life 7 to 54 days.

I dont really understand if it is possible to wash the pyrimethanil off. Can somebody with chemical knowledge have a at that site here? https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/source/hsdb/6916#section=Artificial-Pollution-Sources

I have no chemical knowledge but it sound nasty as hell and I would not raccomend to do it…
Very likely that stuff won’t come off and you will get poisoned smoking it…
None of the poisons are ever tested for smoking it (but I don’t even trust when they say its safe for food consumption)
Ill get provolone smelling weed anyday over that poison…

In the hills I’ve seen neighbors dip pm fresh harvested buds in a mix of lemon juice and soap and then redipped in water and then hanged to get rid of the PM … or spraying Eagle20 all thru flowering on buds… but man, I think we are crossing a line at this point…
Dont do it…:crystal_ball:

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Try a find products used in tobacco crops since that’s for smoking as well. And is legal so you will find more information on it and less bro science from cannabis forums.

I wouldn’t mess around with it though.

Try changing your grow. Put reservoirs outside the room if you can. Run condensate lines to outside the room.

I can’t believe 1200 watts of dehumidification can’t get you under 70%. What brand dehumidifiers are they? Are you using external sensors or are you relying on the units controls?

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Check out what the winery’s, at what they’re using.
It’s an endless battle with grapes, mostly milk is what they’re using.
Don’t know what, if anything they’re using with it.

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IME Quest has been helpful in answering questions and they could help you size up a unit if you told them how many square feet of water surface area you have, how many plants, what your day and night temps are, etc.

They are pretty much the go to brand for grow ops. They aren’t cheap though.

I work construction and the plans I saw recently had (36) 4x8 movable tables per room with only (3) quest 205s. Not sure how big your room is, but that’s only 3x as much wattage towards dehumidification than you are using so something isn’t right.

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Good hint on the tobacco industry…Its always better to look on how commercial crop growers deal with pests and problems…tobacco, wine, roses…more science, more facts then cannabis world for sure.
The only thing is that I would never follow what the tobacco guys are doing cause they have a pretty bad rep of poisoning people…but of course in a legal way, so will be probably good to wash your guilt and feel less of a greedy criminal assassin turd bag :joy::joy:

I never dealt with massive budrot problems, but when I fund some for me was always a loss, all my friends do the same…close your eyes and trow that big bud in the fireplace and tomorrow is another day… once I had to burn 2 paperbags full of molded nugs, almost 4 pounds in farm I was working…
sad but thats what’s up

I really can’t figure out why, doh…
a Quest 105 pint that has a power draw of 550w is 2500 $!! the ones I have are from Trotec and yes 105 pints a day for 800w draw I payed 300$!!! I mean…design? What do they have so special? I guess im gonna ask them and report here! Im always on the lookout for more efficient Dehums but trade 300 w for 2200 dallars seems another cannabusinness trap!!!..

I agree with that…thats very weird…
:peace:

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Never understood it either. They have a filter section, but that doesn’t add that kind of money.

Maybe they work better?

That is a good conundrum. Crazy difference in price too.

I’d say you need to look at a commercial type dehum ,I’d tried with 3 larger home type units that weren’t able to keep up in a 28x32 room ! Bought one of these https://www.legendbrandsrestoration.com/Products/DrizAir-1200
End of high humidity issues .
Works well enough it actually turns on and off throughout the day where the small units ran continually and still couldn’t drop the humidity below 60%
Nice thing is set-it and forget it except for dumping the 5 gal pail twice a day

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what is a condensate line?

Are you sure that the pesticides in tobacco are safe for smoking. I did read that the tobacco industry successfully stayed away from oversight :smiley:

Soon I will install automatic exhaust flaps which will exhaust at lights off.

Also I will do some proper lids for the ebb and flood tables so there will not be that much humidity anymore.

About the Quests, maybe it is a good product, but also lot of marketing? I looked also into a Quest dehumidifier. But I started wondering when I saw the power consumption.

Condensate lines is where you pipe the condensate. Instead of letting it sit in a tray.

Could be gimmicky. I would never buy one.

Munters, EBAC are good brands I see being used in the HVAC industry

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After you get your environment fixed up, innoculating your soil with Rootsheild or Actinovate may help without chem pesticides.

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Ive been taking fresh yucca leaves from my large yuccas and cutting them up in geyser water in very small pieces. I like to only use this fresh. Even a day or two can turn this mix sour and i dont find it as useful for cleaning plants as it does when its made fresh. It’s a natural foaming agent and leaves a protective coating on your leafs. The hormones found in these yucca leafs tell your plants that heat and drought is coming soon and to uptake nuits and water as much as possible. I also like to only veg in summer months. And flower my plants in the winter as its much drier inside the house naturally. Saves energy consumption. I have a small spidermite problem on a couple plants iam guessing from visiting others grows. Inwhich I told them to get some peppermint oil for the spidermites and it cleared them up well. How ever I am still vegging the infected plants thankfully and have time to save them. I bought a 70% Neem oil mix that’s 100% organic. But it also treats PM

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@Grapefruitroop @cannabissequoia did either of you end up trying out streptomyces? Any info about the safety of using that or BT as a spray during flower? Just recently dealt with a nasty botrytis infection and planning for what to do if I see it during my next cycle.

Also, I see a product out there called Arber Bio-Fungicide which uses a different species of bacillus, bacillus amyloliquefaciens. Anybody have any info on this?

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Im usign Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens as soil drench…togheter with LABs and ACTs…
If you are having bud rot problems, the main issue todeal with is is the temperature differential between night and day that creates microcondensation and can sprout spores…vented systems are guilty of that…if you go sealed next run you can potentially grow in very high humidity with no mold issue at all…
Also some genetics are more prone to this problem,
Ive never sprayed flowering plant with nothing…ever…
good luck

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Good to know, and I know that I have a problem with condensation / temp differential as you mentioned, but not sure how to solve it. I’ve never sprayed, common sense and prevailing wisdom both say if you spray during flower you’ll be consuming it, but I see suggestions out there that these bacterial solutions are safe for consumption at the suggested concentrations.

As a follow on, is there anything to suggest that foliar treatment with these bacteria during veg helps prevent botrytis and / or PM during flower? I’m imagining the bacteria might be able to colonize the surface of the buds as well, just by their presence on nodes and leaves when the flowers are forming?

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