Lets talk about super high THC flower

Lets talk about super high THC flower. This will be long, lots to unpack here, lots of smoke to clear up (yuk yuk yuk). To be clear, I am talking about flower that tests over 30 percent, some of it well over 30.

Not talking about inflated lab numbers, etc, but about flower that tests a solid 30+ from honest testing.

Where are we now?
Patient’s view: Was told flatout by more than one budtender, and industry people online, that THC doesn’t matter. That is completely absurd.
Industry view: People are choosing flower based only on THC percentage. That is just as absurd, sort of.

Lets go back to the patient’s view. People’s brains are comparison engines, always comparing this to that. Its how we work.
Patient walks in to a dispo. They definitely can’t touch the flower, usually can’t smell it (those sniff jars are good for maybe a half day at best), and might not even be able to see it.
What do they have to go on? A budtender they have probably never seen before telling them “its fiiiiire”. Yeah, the last one told me that too, and it was booooof.
Some patients will research strains, that helps. But often, the only thing they have to go on is that THC percentage on the package. In the absence of any other useful decision making criteria, are you going to pick the one that has more, or less? Patients kind of throw up their hands “okay, I will take the 32 percent over the 22 percent”.
What can the industry do? Simple, test for terps, put them on the packaging. Heck, put them before the THC and make them more prominent. That is one step. We have to figure out more if we want to resolve the THC shopping problem. Stop telling patients that THC doesn’t matter; tell them terps are the other half of the story and just as important.

Now let’s take a walk down memory lane with Big F. There I was in So Cal, smoking weed for my back pain.
Quick word about back pain and THC: For the most part, keep your CBD, give me massive THC. Still needs terps, but the THC is what is doing the heavy lifting.
Back to So Cal. I was smoking the best to be found in the area, including a LOT of Jungle Boys flower. Rainbow Belts is a good example of a lower THC strain that was still very effective for back pain, testing 20% to 24% or so. I smoked Rainbow Belts very regularly, it became a go-to. Then Ivan from Jungle Boys started posting about a new technique they were using, called EC stacking, and how it was pushing THC to crazy numbers
Not long after, they dropped Rainbow Belts grown with the new technique. It tested just over 30 percent. It was just like the 22% Rainbow Belts, with everything turned up a couple notches. Subjectively, nearly twice as potent. Noticeably tastier with more complex flavors. It was a whole new dimension on a day to day favorite!

High THC doesn’t mean high quality flower. But somehow we are moving toward attitudes that the lower testing flower is going to be better, that somehow less is more, that the 20% Gush Mints is somehow better than the 30% Gush Mints. That is completely nuts.

One last perspective to consider. Many say that high THC flower is sort of one dimensional. We agree that some of it is.
Jungle Boys Motor Breath is shy on terps, but tests high 30s every time. It hits like a truck, thrown by Superman. But the taste is lacking. We have grown genetics that looked amazing and probably test mid 30s but just don’t have terps.
However, there is also a lot of high THC flower that is that way because the grower hit it out of the park with great genetics. Good examples are Gush Mints, Animal Face, many OG Kush phenos and the phenos we found of La Bomba Ese.

So, some high THC flower is meh, some is amazing. To bash high THC flower that one hasn’t even smoked is silly, as it is with any flower. THC is not the enemy.

edits: formatting

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Good read! I wonder if there is a chart that shows each terp and the prospective effects of them. I’m sure some effects are based on different DNA as well though

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Have seen a few charts around, even cool looking posters. Not sure how accurate they are though. Definitely need more research, and education among the industry, especially customer facing positions.

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I don’t really care about terpenes though.

I care about effects.

THC number indeed, to me, doesn’t mean much either. I’d bet a dollar to donuts that a 20% chem91 bud is gonna rock your 30% rainbow belts bud. Put it to shame.

We need research into all the cannabinoids and proper labeling. Let me see thcv, thcp, thco, CBD, cbn, etc. numbers on there too.

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But the same Chem at 25 or 30 percent will better than the 20. Have smoked the queen of the chems, Chem 91 Skunk VA that grown by Jungle Boys that tested in low 30s. Was another dimension beyond chem at 20%.
Most places do test for many more cannabanoids than just THC per legal regs.

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Where I’m at I know that cultivators have CLOSE relationships with testing labs and it’s not unheard of to totally dehydrate the sample to test it, which means without any water present it may be 30% but fully hydrated and in the jars it’s 22-27%. There’s also monetary incentive for labs to return higher numbers to facilities so that facilities continue to use their labs

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Yeah of course. But I’m saying comparatively across strains. It’s not just THC doing the lifting.

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Yeah there are many tricks, this thread is really about honest testing 30+, not kief packing over dehydrating shenanigans, because we all know the shenanigans are out in full force these days.

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I hear ya, not trying to derail!

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Honestly, if I had to pick JB Chem 91 or JB Rainbow Belts, the only sensible solution is both!

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THC & Terpenes is an ignorant attempt to make Cannabis as simple as Alcohol, which it’s not. There are over 113 identified Phytocannabinoids so far and because it’s still semi-illegal, we only focus on two major ones, 4 or 5 now. Smoke all the distillate you can. Throw all the terpenes in you want. It’ll never make you feel like Thai, or Malawi, or Vietnam Black. Seriously, try it and let me know how it goes. Why do lower testing/longer flowering strains have more of a psychedelic effect? Just the terpenes right? But when I huff all the pinecones and lavender in my backyard nothing happens? The answer to why the plants produce different effects must lie in those 108 cannabinoids that we haven’t even studied, to say nothing of the ones we haven’t even identified yet. I’m as ignorant as anyone else, I’m just saying it doesn’t add up in my 35 years of smoking experience.

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Ive smoked sooo much of this high thc disp weed that tastes like absolute shit. Ill take dank ass terps and mid thc levels all day over everything else.

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The THC percentage actually reflects the percent that is is close to a 100% curve. They dissolve the sample into a standard solvent and then in the mass spec see how it compares to 100%. IT does not mean that the buds are 30% thc.

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Here’s a graphic of secondary metabolites, cannabinoids -v- terpenes, which may be of interest.

Tons of unaccounted variables but the general trending indicates a positive correlation, FWIW. As can been seen, there is a wide mixture of differing outcomes.

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Could care less about high thc percentges. Have had 14% thc with 6% terps that would smoke better than most stuff on the market.

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I’ve had over 40% cannabinoids in flower and it doesn’t make it better.

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Thought provoking post and a good discussion. Thanks @BigF.

What’s the best Explainer article on EC Stacking?

-Grouchy

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Have seen a few articles recently, video too, but nothing that isn’t part of a larger discussion or doesn’t really break it down in the simplest terms.
Athena published the personal feed schedule of one of their facility advisors that shows how he stacks and rinses:

That includes the EC Stacking part, the P1s.

The fertigation schedule is split up in to 3 parts, named P1, P2 and P3.

Prior to the first P1 event, about 2 hours after lights on, the plants should be at their maximum daily dryback. The exact dryback amount is important. Its usually around 50% of the media capacity, considerably lower late flower.

P1 events start around 2 hours after lights on. The objective is to stack the EC by watering with small shots. Small enough to dry quickly, just large enough to raise the moisture level in the media a little more with each shot.

At some point, a P1 event will produce runoff. That signals the time to start P2 events. These can be thought of as a rinse event, opposed to the stacking event P1. Frequency depends on how fast the media is drying.

Usually, a P2 late afternoon is all that is needed to get to that ideal overnight dryback. Scheduling the last P2 to achieve that ideal overnight dryback gets a little tricky, but can be dialed in a few days usually. These always produce considerable runoff. Objectives here are to stabilize the EC a bit, and maintain a certain moisture level.

If the girls are super thirsty, the media size small or the air extra dry, you may need an overnight watering event, just like a P2, but now its called a P3.

Right now, I am using a $50 dollar pump, black flex line and 1GPH drippers all from Lowes. Add to that a Kasa smart plug for scheduling the pump events, and all told under $100 to be running Precision Fertigation, albeit a bit crude an imprecise due to the econo gear.

Difference in the plants over just watering to runoff once or twice a day is amazing! Should also say, this is for coco and rockwool, not so much for soil. May be possible in soil, but never heard of anyone doing it, at least not yet.

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Crop steering is the term I know for this, if it helps you find studies and articles! Possible in all media :pray:t2::purple_heart:

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My understanding is that crop steering is one component of Precision Fertigation. In that context, its about crop steering via media moisture levels. The EC Stacking part is what I think would be tough in soil.

Definitely can use crop steering techniques in soil though.

The EC stacking part is what seems to shoot THC through the roof, the crop steering part seems more about yield and getting a nice even maturation.

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