8.29
Brutal, brutal 2 weeks. A perfect storm of weather challenges and probable human error.
The aforementioned record heat wave produced a heat lightening storm. The mountains behind us erupted in fires. Heavy smoke blanketed us for 8-10 days, and ash rained from the skies for a week. Being under canopy, my plants were protected from some of the ash fall. They were lightly dusted as opposed to my friends completely outside plants, which were almost completely gray. Worried about the ash, I tried misting the plants one warm afternoon (Hoping to get some of the ash off, thinking that the warm day would dry the plants.). Worked a bit, but by the next morning, more ash had fallen.
With the forecast for more to come, I read up on the effects of ash and smoke. Not liking the reports, I decided to try and mitigate the quantity of at least ash by putting some clear plastic sheeting around the plants. In effect, creating a green house to contain them as they already had a roof and two walls. I simply enclosed the other 2 walls. I also took VF and put her outside the enclosure. As I had to go up to OR to visit a family member in need, I didn’t want to risk her continuing more bud rod and spreading it to the other plants.Then I headed up to OR.
When I returned 4 days later, I was met by disaster. VF, outside the tent, had another 7-8 branches showing bud rot. I decided to cut my losses and harvested her entirely. Albeit slightly immature, I figure some is better than none. I doubt I’ll get more than an oz. or so off of her, whereas she was looking like a quarter pound had she made it to full maturity without rot issues. (I’ll weigh her dry buds and update this report for my records.)
Worse still, GG had rot, and lots of it. Like every top cola. I gloved up and got plastic bags to minimize spore spread as I began cutting and culling. I ended up cutting down about 2/3d’s of her and leaving just the small bottom buds that don’t appear to show any rot yet. Gave her (and VF) hydrogen peroxide rinses, then clear water rinses. Then cut out all rot areas, liberally. The remaining buds then got their leaves trimmed off (to help them dry without being too wet from the rinse). Then I fan dried them at medium speed overnight, then moved into a closet to continue drying. The loss of GG really hurts. She had such big, corn dog sized beautiful colas. My guess is I would have gotten at least a half lb. to 10 oz. off of her (based on what I was seeing and compared to last year’s harvest for scale). I now doubt that I’ll get more than 2 oz, and that slightly immature. Though she had 57 days in bud, she still looked to want another couple of weeks.
Gulped, did a shot of tequila, and continued the inspection. Sure enough, the topped BD had rot in most of its upper buds as well. More culling, rinsing, trimming. More immature bud drying at a fraction of what might have been in terms of weight and quality.
So what’s left? A dozen or so smaller lower buds on GG. None of VF. A good portion of the topped BD, and all of the tall BD…for now. But the way rot goes?
In hindsite, I should have put fans in the enclosure when I put up the plastic siding. I think that coupled with the sudden increase of water produced humidity. I also think though, that Ma Nature played a role. The crazy heat spikes followed by smoke and ash didn’t help the girls. I almost think the ash and smoke sort of impaired their respiration.
Brutal year, but such is life. I’ll cross my fingers that the remaining BD’s can make it to maturity without continuing the rot. I’ve torn down the siding, and put fans on the plants to try and reduce the moisture levels.
Carnage pictures. Here’s VF’s rot. It was insidious and just kept slowly progressing, branch by branch, over the past few weeks. It was tobacco brown, and very obviously visible when it occurred.
The rot on GG was sneakier and less obvious. At first I saw just one tiny yellow/browned leaf…but then I pulled on it, and it came away with no resistance, revealing the brown rot behind it. The inspection of that plant was heartbreaking, because every time I’d think “Okay, there was just those few”…I’d find another…and another.
In the majority of cases, big buds like the one shown in my gloved hand were complete losses.