Last summer, 40 growers germinated cannabis seeds as part of a global outdoor grow study. That fall, only 16 growers submitted harvest reports. Learn what made the difference between those who struggled, and those who succeeded.

What did successful outdoor growers do differently?

Reported by Alexandria Doner-Irons, owner and founder of Queen of the Sun Grown. GrowWeedEasy.com is not affiliated with Queen of the Sun Grown, but we thought this was awesome research that outdoor growers need to hear about.

See the full results of the study on Seedsman.

Quick Summary of BLAZE 2025 Outdoor Cannabis Grow Study

Written by Nebula Haze based on this report.

• 95 growers registered and bought seeds to participate
• 40 growers reported they germinated seeds
• 16 growers completed the challenge and submitted harvest reports

Doner-Irons stated, “While the completion rate came in below 30%, this highlights an important truth about outdoor cultivation: it’s unpredictable, challenging, and requires consistency. And that’s exactly why this data matters.”

• 40% completion rate (based on germination survey → harvest reports)
• 16.8% completion rate (based on total registered → completed)

3 Core Themes in The Study

Outdoor results were heavily affected by environment, grower decisions, and the chosen soil

• Your Climate is Key – The environment is ultimately the boss when it comes to outdoor growing. You can’t control the environment, and the most successful growers found ways to work with their climate instead of fighting against it.
• Grower Choices Matter –  Including, but not limited to, strain choice. Growers working with the same genetics in different regions had wildly different results from each other. The most experienced growers got great results even when the strains weren’t well suited to their climate. Preventative pest tactics (like IPM) and good watering habits avoided many of the stress and bug-related issues experienced by the less successful growers.
• Healthy Soil = Healthy Plants – One of the most notable results from the 2025 study was the connection between plant performance and soil.

Key Finding: Living soil growers had the best results.

“Growers who utilized living soil systems consistently reported stronger, more vigorous plants with increased resistance to both pests and environmental stress. These plants not only grew better but also recovered faster when challenges arose. Practices like microbial inoculation, compost teas, and regular top dressing with organic inputs proved to be highly effective.”

• Living soil – stronger, more vigorous plants

This is just the tip of the iceberg, don’t miss the full report!

Purple Oreoz F1 bud from the study basking in the sun.

Their outdoor grow calendar for cannabis growers helps you stay on track.

2026 Study Still Open to Outdoor Growers

For outdoor growers who want to participate for the 2026 grow season, there’s still time.

Sign up for the 2026 outdoor BLAZE study here (it’s free and helps other outdoor growers)

After completing a full cycle and sending your results, you get free seeds the following season if you want to participate again. Outdoor strains for this year’s study (if you didn’t participate last year, you can still use code BLAZE to get 10% off on these strains to participate in the study)

• Sour Diesel JUST RESTOCKED (Sativa dominant) – This new stabilized version of Sour Diesel was recently released by Seedsman. It’s particularly well suited to outdoor growing, with a faster finish than most Sativa strains. Especially likes warm, dry climates with room to stretch out and get big. Buds are dense and sticky growing in traditional “colas” (big baseball bat buds) like its Haze ancestors.
• Guava Root GMO (Indica dominant) – Compact grow pattern, high yielding, “rootbeer” hints, beginner friendly. Purple-tinted 22%+ THC buds are strong but not overwhelming, great for a mellow afternoon. Great for extracts (4.7% hash by weight using the ice water extraction method, for lovely bubble hash). Give it lots of sun and love.

She also offers a cannabis Botanical Latitude Wall Calendar. Even if you don’t grow outdoors, it’s fun to have a calendar about it.

This outdoor grow calendar for cannabis growers helps you stay on track.

See the full results of the study on Seedsman.

Wesley’s Acapulco Gold, Amnesia Haze and Lemon Skunk plants took over the yard.

The post What Successful Outdoor Growers Did Differently appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Today learn the universal principles that let you grow better weed than you can buy. 

I love these strains for home growers: Blue Dream (pictured here), Candy Games #38, and Purple Ghost Candy.

1.) Start with Extraordinary Genetics

What to Do: Start with the best seeds you can find. Good seeds germinate consistently and produce the kind of weed you want (density, smell, size, effects, strength, color, smoothless, etc.).

Why: Good seeds grow good weed with your desired effects, even if you make mistakes. Plants works with you instead of against you.

Quick Win: Use one of the following 3 methods to find great genetics for your next cannabis grow.

1. Choose a proven breeder and read the strain description to find what suits you. A good breeder always maintains quality for all their seeds. Some breeders I like lately are Happy Valley Genetics, Seedsman, Seed Supreme, and Ethos (all represented in my current grow journal). 
2. Copy what works – Get the genetics that you see people growing great weed with. For example, if you have friends that grow weed, or interact with growers on social media, take their lead if you like what you see. Find out what they’re growing and get seeds from the same source to copy their results.
3. Enjoy the gamble – The old fashioned method. Grow the seeds you have, or choose a strain that sounds good and go for the adventure! Good seed banks curate their seed selection and have seed germination guarantees, so any of their seeds should produce good weed.

The seeds you pick make a huge difference to results. For example, the following plants were grown together with the same grow medium, nutrients, and care. But look how different they’re turning out! The difference is 100% genetics, not anything I did.

Blue Dream and Candy Games #38 have wildly different genetics! Choose a strain that makes weed you want to grow.

2.) Use a Strong LED Grow Light (Cannabis-Specific)

What to Do: Get a proven cannabis grow light that’s designed for the size of your grow space.

Why: Light = food for plants. More light is better, up to a point. Spectrum (light color) matters too, affecting not only yields, but also density, color, and potency. Older grow lights, most especially “blurple” LEDs, don’t get nearly as good cannabis yields or bud density as newer “quantum board” style LEDs with pinkish or white light.

Modern cannabis LEDs usually produce white or pinkish light.

Quick Win:

1. Choose an LED grow light that’s proven to get great results with weed. The best thing you can do is use a grow light that growers are already using to produce great cannabis harvests. 
2. Good LED companies include… We’ve consistently found these are the most popular grow lights for GrowWeedEasy.com readers: Spider Farmer, Mars Hydro, and HLG. I’ve used multiple models from each of these companies and always had great results with growing weed. Which one to get? Choose the grow light that best fits your grow space and budget requirements. Spider Farmer and Mars Hydro get about equal results. HLG lights tend to be overpowered and cost a lot, and often have to be turned down even in a dialed in setup, but gets some of the best bud density of any LED we’ve tried so far. Even their tiny 65W and 100W LED lights have produced multiple ounces for us.
3. Check out our list of 9 recommended cannabis lights with yield estimates, and see pictures of real cannabis plants we’ve grown with them.

A HLG 65W LED is surprisingly productive in a 2x2x3 grow tent. Not bad for an LED that uses less electricity than my bedroom fan.

Or upgrade to a bigger grow light, like a HLG 350 Diablo (or two).

Or go BIG, like Max did here, with multiple lights including a Spider Farmer G5000.

Often it’s easier to combine multiple smaller grow lights than have one enormous grow light. That way you can adjust them independently and have more control over where light falls.

3.) The Right Nutrients at the Right Time

Whether you grow in soil, coco, or hydro, provide proper nutrients. Either use cannabis-specific nutrients and dole out to plants on a schedule. Or start with a cannabis-specific soil that slowly delivers the right nutrients at the right time (called “just-add-water” super soil). 

What to Do: Make sure plants get the right amount of nutrients at the right time.

Why: Faster greener growth, but more importantly, proper nutrition in the flowering stage greatly increases bud quality, yields, and potency. On the other hand, a plant that is starved of nutrients while buds are forming makes small, airy, non-potent buds. Most crucially, make sure plants have plenty of nutrients for the first 6+ weeks of the flowering stage, until hairs start darkening and curling in. Plants still need nutrients after that, but for the best harvest, it’s especially important to avoid significant nutrient deficiencies during the early flowering stage and initial bud formation.

Quick Win: Use cannabis nutrients and follow an already-tested schedule

1. Easy cheap option – Dyna-Gro Grow + Bloom. Give at 1 tsp/gallon. Give “Grow” for seedlings until first 3 weeks into flowering stage. Then once the flowering stretch is over, give “Bloom” until harvest. These nutrients were initially designed for orchids, but growers have discovered they give surprisingly great results with weed. I was impressed when I tried them in coco.
2. Advanced nutrient system – General Hydroponics Flora trio. My personal favorite nutrients, I find the GH trio provides some of the fastest growth and biggest yields. No need to follow a special schedule. Just follow the amounts listed on the side of the bottle at half-strength, and only raise the amounts if plant seem pale. I’ve had good results in soil, coco, and hydro.
3. Use super soil instead – Use a “just add water” organic soil that’s made for a plant like cannabis. This kind of soil slowly releases nutrients over the course of the grow, so you don’t need to add any extra nutrients. Nature’s Living Soil is a proven super soil concentrate that makes super soil when used with Coco Loco soil. Just remember, super soil can be stinky at first! But the smell settles after the plants make themselves at home in the soil.

General Hydroponics Flora trio are my personal favorite nutrients for growing weed.

Follow the directions on the bottle at half-strength to grow green, happy, and abundant cannabis plants.

4.) Water Plants So They Grow Faster

Water plants regularly with the right amount at a time. It’s important roots don’t dry out, or stay overly wet for too long. Luckily, if you’re following all the other steps here, you can make some watering mistakes and plants still turn out great. Cannabis plants are remarkably able to recover from watering issues as long as you course-correct.

What to Do: Water plants properly. The easiest method is to follow a cannabis-specific watering schedule like the one below. Or follow proven general principles.

Why: Plants grow faster and get fewer deficiencies, especially seedlings, when given the right amount of water. Good watering practices helps plants start growing fast out the gate. 

Seedlings grow super fast if you give the right amount of water!

I use a battery operated water transfer pump to easily water plants.

Quick Win: Basically, give seedlings just a little water at a time, at first, in a small circle around the base, every few days. If you don’t want guesswork, follow the following seedling watering schedule that I use. It’s suitable as long as you’re in a 3 or 5-gallon pot (and works pretty well in most sizes). Never wonder again if you’re over or under-watering your seedlings!

Day 1 – Give 2 cups (500ml) water per plant (at this point, your cannabis seedlings should have their leaves completely open and be in a 3-gallon or 5-gallon pot under the grow light)
Day 3 – Give 2 cups (500ml) water per plant
Day 6 – Give 2 cups (500ml) water per plant
Day 8 – Give 3 cups (750ml) water per plant (every 3 days after this)
Day 11 – Give 3 cups (750ml) water per plant
Day 14 – Give 4 cups (1 liter) water per plant
Day 17 – Give 4 cups (1 liter) water per plant
Day 20 – Give 5 cups (1.25 liter) water per plant
Day 23 – Give 6 cups (1.5 liter) water per plant
Day 26 – Give 6 cups (1.5 liter) water per plant
Day 29 – Give 8 cups or 1/2 gallon (2 liter) water per plant

At first, cannabis seedlings only need a little water in a circle around their base.

After the first 30 days, start watering like this…

(1+ Months) Cannabis Watering Schedule

1. Wait until top inch of soil is dry (for coco, wait until top is mostly dry)
2. Water until you get 10-20% runoff out the bottom
3. Remove runoff (test the pH if needed) and start over

P.S. Learn about auto-watering pot bases so you can water plants less often. I’m loving them lately.

5.) Harvest at the Right Time

Wait to harvest until buds have reached peak potency, size, and bud quality. Harvest earlier (speedier more “up” weed) or later (stronger relaxation effect) to achieve your desired effects. Dry and cure using a proven home method.

What to Do: Harvest buds based on their maturity level. After harvest, dry buds to make them smokable (buds are mostly water on the plant), and then jar them so they “cure”.

Why: Choosing the right harvest time maximizes yields, potency, and effects. Drying and especially curing increases density, appearance, potency, and effects, while enhancing the natural bud smell.

Quick Win: 

1. Follow our free harvest & curing guide on GrowWeedEasy.com
2. Check out our new digital book HARVEST. It’s perfect if you want a step-by-step harvest guide that’s available anywhere without the internet Growers who sign up for our Home Grow Masterclass next week get a free copy of HARVEST. And those who have already purchased HARVEST get a steep discount on the class! Make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter and watch your email for more info coming soon.

Wait until buds have reached maturing before harvesting for best effects…

Harvest time may be my favorite part of growing!

The post Grow Better Weed: The 5 Core Principles appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

“Curing” is a special process that makes cannabis better after you’re done harvesting and drying buds. A proper cure improves the density and smell of buds, but that’s not all. Curing cannabis actually increases the subjective potency of buds, and improves the overall subjective effects.

The #1 Most Important Tool for Curing Weed: Boveda Humidity Control Packs (automatically maintain humidity)

Why do growers cure weed in the first place?

• Higher Bud Density – Curing tends to tighten buds so they are overall more dense and feel more solid.
• Improve Smell – Sometimes the cannabis smell gets lost during the drying process. Curing helps bring those smells back. They also increase the overall complexity of smells.
• Increase Potency – After curing buds for two weeks, they typically feel “stronger” when smoking compared to smoking right after they are first dried.
• More Lovely Effects – Many growers feel the effects of cured buds are more captivating, more relaxing, or otherwise improved.
• Smoother to Smoke – Curing buds tend to make them less “harsh” to smoke, so they’re easier on your lungs.

Curing can make the difference between “good” and “out of this world” cannabis!

Curing gives you higher quality, more potent weed! (This is Alaskan Thunderf*ck after curing)

This Purple Ghost Candy got ultra dense after curing.

A cannabis grower’s 3 best curing tools:

1. Boveda Curing Packs – Moisture levels in the air are key to a great cure, and these packs automatically maintain the humidity (amount of water in the air) to ensure buds never get too wet or too dry. The right humidity ensures buds are exposed to the perfect amount of moisture during the curing process.
2. Wide-Mouth Glass Mason Jars – Glass mason jars are perfect for curing and long term storage, as they are airtight but easy to open and close. The “wide mouth” version ensures you can fit your hands inside. Glass mason jars are what most cannabis growers use for curing, and what I use. The most popular size is 32 oz (1 quart), which holds about 1 ounce of weed. A few other types of containers can be used for curing, but are much less common (more info below).
3. Mini Hygrometers (Optional) – It’s nice to know the humidity inside your jars. However, the Boveda Humidity Packs automatically maintain the humidity, so this is the least important of the 3 tools.

With these three tools alone, you can achieve a fool-proof professional cannabis cure every harvest!

Complete Step-By-Step Guide to Cannabis Curing

Curing is actually one of the most straightforward parts of growing cannabis, especially if you invested in Boveda Humidity Packs. Before these packs were popularized, growers had to manually maintain the humidity, which can be a pain. Luckily, the packs take out the guesswork and do most of the work for you.

Step 1: Dry and Trim Your Buds After Harvest

Before putting jars is buds, it’s essential to make sure your buds are fully dried and most of the leaves have been trimmed off.

Why Dry Buds Before Curing?

Freshly harvested buds are mostly water (75-85% water). Although humidity packs can take out extra moisture, they don’t have the drying power to take all that water out of your buds. Too much water locked in the jars can grow unwanted stuff, so you must dry buds first.

Buds are dry and ready to jar when…

• Small stems snap instead of bend
• Buds “pop off” the stem, without leaving strings behind

If the small stems are still bendy, or buds are leaving strings behind when you try to pop them off, it means there is still water contained inside and they should be dried a bit more.

The most common way to dry weed is hang branches upside down and let them air-dry.

Why Trim Buds Before Curing?

Although you can trim your buds before or after drying, it’s crucial to trim your buds before curing. If a lot of leaf matter is put in the jars to cure, the buds get a grassy hay smell, and buds won’t be as smooth to smoke even if you trim the buds at that point.

Don’t skip trimming before jarring your buds! Buds respond well to curing in jars, but leaves don’t.

Example of trimmed vs untrimmed cannabis buds.

Helpful Tutorials

• When to Harvest Weed Tutorial
• Complete Guide to Trimming Weed
• How to Dry Cannabis Buds

Step 2: Put Buds in Airtight Container with Humidity Pack (Optional: Add Hygrometer)

Once buds are trimmed and dried, it’s time to put them into an airtight container to start the curing process. These containers should be easy to open and close because you will be “burping” your jars once a day for a few weeks. Most cannabis growers use glass mason jars for curing cannabis.

During curing, it’s crucial to maintain the proper humidity. Luckily, this is easy with today’s curing tutorial! Just add a Boveda humidity control pack (sometimes called “Humidipaks”) to automatically maintain the humidity in the right range. They come in different versions, which I’ll explain below.

Lastly, you can optionally add a mini hygrometer to monitor the humidity in the jars.

Less than $20 for a 10-Pack of Humidity Control Packs – An investment worth EVERY penny!

There are two types of humidity packs you can choose to use for curing weed.

58% vs 62% Humidity Pack – Which is Better for Curing Weed?

• 58% Humidity Pack – The 58% version keeps things a little more dry than the 62% option. I personally prefer this version for curing weed. I think buds tend to smoke better, and it lowers the chance of any moisture building up in the jar, especially if you’ve got bigger or denser buds. It is also an ideal humidity for long-term storage, as weed should be a bit drier when stored for more than a month or two.
• 62% Humidity Pack – The 62% size is another great choice for curing weed. This is better if you prefer slightly softer weed, and also is an ideal choice for smaller buds (which tend to be easier to dry out). Although I like slightly drier buds, many cannabis enthusiasts prefer the texture of weed that has just a bit more moisture contained inside. However, if you plan on storing your weed for more than a month, you should opt for the 58% version (or switch after the 2-week cure).

Besides the humidity rating, these packs also come in different sizes. Boveda’s “Size 8” (this stands for 8 grams, which is the weight of each pack) is the perfect size to cure 1 ounce of weed. If you’re

Whether you get 58% or 62% packs, choose “Size 8” for 1 ounce of weed.

What containers to cure weed?

These are the most popular types of containers to cure your weed inside:

• Wide-Mouth Glass Mason Jars – These glass jars were originally made for cooking, but they’re also perfect for curing! These are what I use, and (by far) the most popular container for curing weed. They’re completely airtight, yet easy to open and close. You can easily see the weed inside.
• Turkey Bags – Also known as “oven bags”. These are what you would stick a turkey inside of to cook in your oven without drying out. They happen to work well for curing weed, especially if you’ve got a BIG harvest and don’t want to have to “burp” tons of jars once a day. The one downside is the trichomes may stick to the sides from static, but if a bag is full of a ton of weed that won’t make a significant difference.
• Other Airtight Containers – Glass tends to get the best results. Wood containers can leave a woody smell, and plastic tends to make static and can attract trichomes so they stick to the side instead of staying on your weed. Some growers get specially made curing containers that claim to automatically “burp” the weed for you, like the insanely expensive Herb Guard Auto-Cure Smart Jar or much more reasonably priced 2-Way Humidity Control Bags. However, in my experience these don’t work any better than the tried and true glass-jar-plus-humidity-pack combo.

Make sure to get the “wide mouth” version (not “regular mouth”) so your hands can easily fit inside.

Glass mason jars – tried and true for awesome curing. The 32 oz (1 quart) size is most popular, and holds about 1 ounce of weed.

After buds are cured, they can be kept in the jars for long-term storage.

Another option that’s popular for a big harvest is to cure the buds in “turkey bags” (the kind of bag you would use to cook a turkey in the oven). Buds are put into the bag, and then you tie it closed tightly to make it airtight. The benefits of turkey bags are you can put a lot more weed in them, and they’re easier to open and close to “burp” than jars (which you’ll learn about in the next step).

If you’ve got 20 ounces of weed in 20 jars, it can actually get a bit time consuming to burp them all every day. But you could put that much weed in a few turkey bags, and opening/closing is easier.

With a large harvest, daily burping can feel a bit daunting. Turkey bags make burping easier.

The only thing to keep in mind with turkey bags is they’re not suitable for long-term storage. Even if you tie them tightly closed, they’re not airtight like glass mason jars. That’s fine during the curing process when buds still need a little fresh air. But once the buds have finished curing for 2 weeks, you should move them into a truly airtight container.

Turkey oven bags can also be used for curing cannabis the first 2 weeks.

Tie the bag as tight as you can. Note: Even tied tightly, they are not completely airtight.

Remember, buds need to be moved to an actual airtight container after 2 weeks of curing.

Hygrometers are optional, but fun. If you want to see the actual humidity in you jars, you can buy cheap mini hygrometers that fit right inside a glass mason jar! However, if you follow all the other steps including getting the Boveda humidity packs and burping the jars, you don’t really need them.

Mini hygrometers are unnecessary if you follow all the other steps.

But they’re cheap and fun!

Step 3: “Burp” Jars Once a Day for 2 Weeks

While curing buds, the container should prevent air from going in and out, but buds do need some amount of fresh air. That’s why jars should be “burped” once a day during curing.

“Burping” means to open the jars and then close them. Larry had a LOT of jars to burp last harvest.

This step is pretty straightforward. Open your jars (or other curing container such as a turkey bag) once a day for the first 2 weeks. This ensures they get some amount of fresh air.

Don’t skip this step even if you feel like you overdried your weed. It’s crucial for the buds to get some fresh air to properly cure. The humidity packs ensure there is the right amount of moisture for a proper cure.

Sniff your weed! Burping is also a good time to enjoy the smell of your weed as it intensifies over the curing process. Maybe keep a nug for a smoke test 😉

Some strains like Platinum Cookies smell like a tasty dessert!

If buds smell musty or feel wet on the outside, pay attention! Buds should feel dry to the touch. Also, if buds smell like something besides weed (ammonia, vinegar, musty, or otherwise like something unwanted is growing in there), don’t ignore it! Typically, this happens when the weed was still too wet when jarred.

A humidity pack can remove some amount of moisture, but if the buds weren’t fully dried before being put in the jar, it may not be able to pull enough water out. Or the moisture may be building in the bottom of the jar, away from the humidity pack.

If you think your buds aren’t dry enough, dump them out of the jars onto a clean surface and let them dry for a few hours. Don’t put them back in the jars unless the outside of each bud feels completely dry. You may need to repeat this process again the next day if you still notice a musty smell or the buds feel wet again.

If buds seem wet in the jars, lay them out on a clean surface and let them dry for a few hours.

Step 4: Enjoy Your Cured Buds!

After 2 weeks, your buds are done their initial cure. At this point, they’re ready to smoke!

After 2 weeks, you don’t need to keep burping the jars every day. But it’s not a bad idea to open the jars once a week for a few more weeks to keep the curing process going. Buds may continue to improve for several more weeks or even months of curing.

Is it worth curing buds for longer than 2 weeks?

I’ve noticed certain strains keep getting more and more potent for months, while other strains don’t seem to improve much past the first 2-4 weeks of curing.

For example, we grew some Full Moon and Purple Ghost Candy plants together. The harvest was enormous, and we were smoking it for over a year. We noticed that the Full Moon maintained its potency, but for the Purple Ghost Candy continued getting more and more potent until we used it all up. We actually started calling it the “Day Ender” because if you smoked some of it you weren’t going to be doing anything else that day!

Some strains continue improving from longer curing, like this Purple Ghost Candy.

Buds were super potent after 2 weeks of curing. (Note: although the leaves were purple, the buds were mostly green)

But after curing in jars for a few more months, the Purple Ghost Candy potency reached “day-ender” status!

On the other hand, the Full Moon buds (plant on the left from the same grow) only maintained the same potency after a long cure.

So strain and genetics seem to play an important role on the effects of long-term curing.

What about long-term storage?

One of the coolest parts of being a home grower is after you’ve gotten the hang of it, each harvest results in way more weed than you can use. Even for daily smokers!

Check out this unbelievable harvest by our friend Mr. K!

So you may end up in a situation where you want to store your weed for a long time. Properly stored weed maintains its potency for years.

Here’s what’s most important for long term storage:

• Buds are completely dry – It’s a good idea to open jars once a week for a little while to ensure that moisture isn’t building up inside. After a few weeks, if buds seem totally dry every time you check, they’re ready for long term storage.
• Add a Boveda 58% Pack – For long term storage, moisture is your enemy, so you want to keep buds on the drier side. A 58% Boveda pack works great.
• Cool, dark place – Besides moisture, the biggest enemy to weed in storage are heat and light. Both tend to degrade THC levels. Ideally, you want to keep your buds completely in the dark, in a place that stays cool all the time. Don’t store your weed jars next to a window with the sun shining on them, or a room that gets hot!

If you followed all the steps, buds can be stored for years without losing potency. And as mentioned before, in some cases, you may find they’ve actually gotten more potent!

If you follow today’s 4 easy steps, you’ll end up with perfectly cured cannabis every single harvest!

Happy Growing!

Looking for some awesome new cannabis strains to grow? Wondering where to buy marijuana seeds? There are lot of choices, but learn about the marijuana seed banks we recommend here: https://www.growweedeasy.com/seeds

Want free cannabis grow tips delivered to your inbox every Sunday? Join our weekly newsletter!

About the Author: Nebula Haze

Nebula Haze founded GrowWeedEasy.com with her husband Sirius in 2010. Our mission is to demystify the world of indoor marijuana cultivation. We’ve shared our passion and knowledge through hundreds of tutorials covering every aspect of growing, both in print and online. We’ve also guided numerous students through our comprehensive online courses. For us, it’s not just about growing cannabis; it’s about empowering every grower to discover the simplicity and joy of nurturing cannabis plants to an outstanding harvest. Growing is easy, you just need to know what to do!

Keep smiling and growing,
~Nebula Haze

The post The #1 Method to Cure Buds Perfectly Every Time appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

The moment has arrived! Your cannabis buds are finally ready to harvest and you’re ready to start the cannabis drying process. You’ve decided to trim the leaves off your cannabis buds because you know trimming helps buds look better, smoke better, and taste better.

Yet should you trim your cannabis buds before or after drying them? This is a surprisingly controversial topic, with strong supporters on each side. The controversy is often referred to as “wet trimming” vs “dry trimming” in the cannabis grow community.

But does it even make a difference when you trim your cannabis buds? Let me clear it up for you today. By the end of this tutorial, you will know exactly the difference between wet trim vs dry trim, including the pros and cons of each. Let’s go!

Dry Trim (before and after) – Cannabis buds were dried first before getting trimmed.

Wet Trim (before and after) – Cannabis buds are trimmed as soon as they’re harvested.

“Wet Trim” vs “Dry Trim” – Should Cannabis Growers Trim Buds Before or After Drying? 

When I first started growing cannabis, I didn’t know anything about trimming. I knew you could do it before or after drying buds, but I didn’t know the pros and cons of each method. From reading online, I could see that growers successfully use both methods, so there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to trim your buds. As long as you’re happy with the results, you did a good trimming job.

But what do cannabis cultivation experts say about timing when it comes to trimming buds?

A beautiful trimming job. This cannabis job received a “dry trim”.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to trimming cannabis:

Trim before drying (“wet trim”)

Some growers trim their cannabis buds before drying them.

Pros

• Best If Humidity is High  – Cannabis leaves are mostly made of water, and they give off a lot of moisture as they dry. Trimming means fewer leaves, which adds less humidity overall to the drying space. For reference, it’s getting too humid for drying buds above 60% RH in the dry space.*
• Buds Dry Faster – Overly leafy plants can add a surprising amount of moisture to the surrounding area. If buds are drying too slowly, trimming extra leaves can help buds dry faster.
• Helps Prevent Mold – In humid conditions (or when there is no air movement), leaves can cause wet spots. Mold loves to grow on wet buds. Trimming off extra leaves before drying can help prevent that.

* Up to 70% RH can be okay if the temperature is below 70°F/20°C, because mold doesn’t like cool temperatures. But most growers should aim for under 60% while drying.

Cons

• Not Optimal If Humidity is Low  – Without the protection from cannabis leaves, buds in dry air conditions tend to dry out unevenly
• Buds May Dry Too Fast – In dry air, buds may dry too fast, which can prevent them from curing properly later.

Freshly harvested buds that haven’t been dried yet, about to be wet trimmed.

Trim after drying (“dry trim”)

Some growers trim their cannabis after buds have already dried.

Pros

• Best Choice in Low Humidity – Low humidity (below 50% RH or so) tends to make buds dry unevenly and too fast. Keeping leaves until after buds have dried can help raise the overall humidity in the drying space.
• Buds Tend to Dry Slower and More Evenly – The extra leaves adds moisture to the air and create humid pockets around buds to help them dry more evenly. These buds tend to smoke better, and improve more from the curing process.
• Some Growers Find it Easier to Trim Dry Buds – If buds are fully and completely dried first, it’s typically faster to trim them. Since the leaves are dry and crispy, you can brush a lot of them off.

Note: Unless it is extremely dry (under 35% RH), you should remove at least some of the big leaves on a leafy plant. If your plant is a bundle of leaves it will get wet and make the buds wet for too long. If you’re not sure, leave the fan leaves on, and check on the drying plants after 24 hours of drying. If the plants seem super wet, remove the excess fan leaves and let the buds continue drying.

Cons

• Not Suitable if Humidity is High – If it’s high humidity in the drying space, it’s crucial to at least remove all the big fan leaves protect buds from mold. Even if you don’t give your buds a full trim, removing the fan leaves helps keep excess moisture out of the dry space.
• Some Growers Find it More Difficult to Trim Buds – Some growers find it more difficult to dry trim buds and get a neat, manicured appearance. This is worst if the buds are still a bit underdried. If you’re going to dry trim your buds, it’s important to let them be fully dried before trimming. For example if the buds come off with strings when you try to pluck them off the stem, this is a sign there is still moisture inside and the buds should be allowed to dry for a bit longer.

Buds that were dried first before trimming, about to be dry trimmed.

If buds are dried first before trimming, sometimes it can be difficult to remove all the leaves.

When deciding whether to trim your cannabis wet or dry, think about your grow environment and what you want from your buds. If your area is very humid, wet trimming can help avoid mold and gets your buds ready faster. But if the humidity is moderate, and especially it’s really dry where you grow, dry trimming might be better because it lets your buds dry out more slowly and evenly, resulting in better quality. The best choice depends on your situation and preference. I highly recommend trying both ways to see what works best for you.

Check out what growers say about dry trim vs wet trim.

Why are they called “wet trim” and “dry trim”?

Trimming your cannabis before drying is known as a “wet trim” because the leaves still contain all their moisture during the trimming process. Trimming after the cannabis buds have already dried is known as a “dry trim” since your buds and leaves will already be completely dry before you trim off the leaves.

Most cannabis growers will at least remove all or most of the big fan leaves with their fingers before drying, though some growers will hang the whole plant upside down without any type of trim whatsoever.

Wet Trim Example (fully trimmed before drying) – All leaves are removed before buds are allowed to dry. These buds are still full of moisture.

Dry Trim Example (light trim before drying) – Only the biggest leaves were removed before the buds were dried. Most leaves are still there for the dry process.

Dry Trim Example (no trim before drying) – Full branches were hung without any trimming. Not even fan leaves were removed before drying.

Here are some examples of buds from plants where I trimmed half the buds before, and half after. I wanted to help you see what difference it made. It’s really kind of different depending on each strain and your drying conditions.

Notes on the test of dry trim vs wet trim:

• The untrimmed cannabis buds took 0.5 to 3 days longer to dry. The leafier the plant, the longer it added to the total dry time.
• The biggest difference is I noticed the “dry trim” buds seem noticeably more dense/uniform. Drying with the leaves on seems to help them “tighten up” and seem more solid.
• The dry vs wet trim buds smell a bit differently, but all smell good. Neither seems particularly stronger or better as far as smell.
• I noticed that the “dry trim” buds often seem browner as if they’ve been curing for a while. The effect was most pronounced on the leafiest plants. Perhaps the additional water content causes some processes to go faster at the micro level?
• As far as comparing taste/smoothness/potency. In blind tests with cannabis enthusiasts, I’ve gotten mixed results. Some people prefer the smell or smoothness of the buds one way, while others like the exact opposite. It doesn’t seem to follow any particular pattern that I can tell. I truly think it’s a matter of personal preference, and also varies from strain to strain.

Buds drying with their leaves on.

In practice, I’ve seen a huge variation between growers as far as when they trim. Some cannabis growers trim plants immediately after harvest, some trim partway through drying, some wait to trim until after buds are totally dry, and some never trim at all. It can also vary with the local weather and even the particular plant. For example, if I had an extremely leafy plant and the humidity was high right as I was harvesting, I may opt to trim that plant before drying to prevent the chance of mold, even though I might normally prefer to trim after buds dry.

In the end, nothing beats trying both options for yourself. Next cannabis harvest, trim some buds before drying and some after drying. See what you like best!

Ready to get trimming?

Learn how to trim your cannabis buds like a pro!

Conclusion: Dry Trim vs Wet Trim

Let me sum up today’s tutorial on dry trimming vs wet trimming cannabis buds after harvest.

Trim before drying (“wet trim”) when…

• You’re worried about mold
• You have high humidity (above 60% RH)
• There is poor air circulation and little air movement
• There’s a lot of buds drying in a small space
• Buds are taking too long to dry

Freshly harvested buds that haven’t been dried yet, about to be wet trimmed.

Trim after drying (“dry trim”) when…

• You’re not worried about mold.
• You have low humidity (below 45% RH)
• You want buds to be “tighter” or more dense
• You want buds to dry more slowly

Buds that were dried first before trimming, about to be dry trimmed.

FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about trimming cannabis.

Read the full tutorial on how to trim cannabis buds.

Why do growers trim cannabis buds in the first place?

• “Top Shelf” Appearance – Trimmed buds are often considered higher quality. Most buds are completely manicured (or at least somewhat trimmed) when you see them in magazines, at the dispensary, and online. This is the appearance we’ve come to associate with “good weed” and so untrimmed buds may look less appealing to some people.
• Better Smell – Buds that are trimmed before being going into jars tend to gain a stronger “weed” smell over time. On the flip side, untrimmed buds sometimes take on a “planty” hay smell if they’re stored in an airtight container for too long with all their leaves intact (several weeks to months).
• Easier on Your Throat – Leaves are more “harsh” on your throat/lungs than flowers when vaping or smoking. Trimming off extra leaf matter makes buds more “smooth” to smoke or vaporize by removing unnecessary leafy matter.
• Higher THC Concentration – Buds from modern strains can be 20-30+% THC by dry weight, while leaves have much lower THC (1-4%, depending on strain).  Even trichome-encrusted sugar leaves have a significantly lower concentration of THC and other cannabinoids than the flowers. That means trimmed buds tend to have higher levels of THC gram-for-gram, so you can smoke or vape less to get the same effects.

Many growers want trimmed buds but don’t want to waste any THC, so they process their trim to extract the THC in the leaves separately. You have endless options for getting the good stuff out of your leaves and other trim. My favorite ways to extract THC from leaves include making dry ice hash, weed butter or canna caps. I sprinkle dry ice hash on top of bowls to skyrocket their potency, I use butter for edibles, and I love canna caps for the ability to easily dose edibles on the go.

An example of well-trimmed cannabis buds. You can barely see any leaves.

Untrimmed cannabis buds with leaves intact – pic by psychonaught

What Other Cannabis Growers Say – Dry Trim vs Wet Trim

I thought you might be interested in learning what we’ve heard from growers in our cannabis grow forum on this topic. It’s often nice to hear multiple opinions from different experienced growers.

Pro Wet Trim

• “Trimming when wet (just picked buds) is easier!” ~Sylvester
• “Wet trimming always. Easier to get all the sugar leaves before they dry and curl into the bud.” ~CaptainWiese91
• “Wet trim. I got tired of seeing beautiful, tiny crystals go flying everywhere when dry trimming.” ~YYCannabis
• “I think wet trimmed buds look way better than buds that have been dry trimmed with half of all the sugar leaf stems in the bud still.” ~CaptainWiese91
• “Wet trim, I leave about 40% of the sugar leaves so it dries slower.” ~Ace1973

Pro Dry Trim

• “I feel like dry trimming is better for me. I like to get as much of the leaf off as possible and it feels easier that way. I also like that it takes a little more time to dry. I got a bowl leaf trimmer that works pretty good on bigger buds, and a Cannabrush for everything else. Both cut off a lot of time on my meticulous trimming. And if I over dry it I just soak a stem (or a few) in water for a little while and it goes in the jar too until it’s around 64-65%. That eliminates the Boveda packs that some say makes the weed taste different. I never noticed personally, but I stopped using them anyway.” ~dphipps1020
• “As a person making a living from growing dank buds and selling them at a high price just for the quality; I personally have found that wet trimming diminishes the bud quality and smell. It dries not just quickly but the wrong way. It dries up from all the open tissue connected by the plants circulatory system. Meaning the branch looses water way too quickly. You need that moisture reservoir to keep the buds from drying to quickly. The same goes with trichomes. Leaves make a moisture cocoon that protects terpenes and trichomes from evaporating and drying the outer layer of the trichomes so quickly that it rips open and the trichome oxidizes and the terps fly out. Gotta mention I got full control of my drying room and keep at 60% rh 22-24C.” ~9fingerleafs
• “I live in the desert super low rh and leaving the leaves on while drying helps hold some moisture in. The leaves form over the buds after a few hours like a cocoon and I lay them out on stackable sweater drying racks (old days we used window screens) with a cover over them to trap more moisture.” ~MeEasy

Depends

• “If its low humidity dry trim and if high humidity wet trim.” ~LemonBuzz

I hope that helped give you some ideas of what works for other cannabis growers depending on their goals and environment. Contact us if you have experience to share!

You might be interested in…

10-Step Guide to Grow Cannabis

Complete Guide to Trimming Weed

When to Harvest Cannabis Buds

How to Grow More Dense Weed

The post Wet Trim vs. Dry Trim: Which Makes Better Cannabis? [Controversial] appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Cannabis growers often use a magnifier to look at the glittery trichomes to know when to harvest weed. Some growers wait until most of the clear trichomes turn white, and some wait longer until some of the trichomes turn amber before they harvest. But what about when cannabis trichomes turn purple?

What do purple trichomes tell you about cannabis buds?

I decided to make this article in response to a post about purple cannabis trichomes in our free grow forum.

You need a magnifier like a jeweler’s loupe or USB magnifier to clearly see trichomes. (Learn how to see trichomes.)

Marijuana growers often examine the color of the cannabis trichome heads as harvest time approaches. These trichome heads typically turn white when buds reach maximum THC levels, but not always.

If trichomes are normally clear, white or amber/gold, what does it mean if they turn other colors, including purple?

What Makes Trichomes Turn Purple (or Pink or Other Jewel Colors)

What makes cannabis trichomes turn purple: Genetics.

While growers have developed methods to increase the amount of purple on your buds or leaves (temperature swings, cold nights, LEDs, slightly lower pH, harvest on the later side, etc.), the color of trichomes is almost 100% dependent on your genetics. The strain is in charge when it comes to cannabis trichome color.

Purple Lemonade by North Atlantic Seed Co. loves growing purple trichomes

For Most Strains, Trichomes Go from Clear > White > Amber (Yellow)…

With most cannabis strains, the trichomes appear with clear glass-looking heads, turn a milky white when they hit peak THC, and then turn amber (a nice way of saying “yellow”) when the THC is starting to degrade. For optimum potency, most growers harvest weed when the heads are mostly white or just starting to turn amber.

• Clear trichomes – not ready for harvest
• White trichomes – highest THC
• Amber/yellow trichomes – more sleepy effect, THC is starting to degrade

Clear trichomes (not ready yet – these are a sign of low THC potency)

Mostly white trichomes (max THC potency)

Mostly amber/yellow trichomes (THC is starting to degrade, effects are more “sleepy”)

What about purple trichomes?

When Do You Harvest Weed with Purple Trichomes?

Unfortunately, with cannabis strains that grow purple trichomes, you can’t use the color to know when to harvest the buds. So how do you know when to harvest your weed?

• Option 1: Ask the breeder – Most trustworthy cannabis breeders will answer questions about their strains, including hints about the best time to harvest buds. Additionally, the strain description from when you bought the seeds may have relevant information.
• Option 2: Look at the buds directly to see whether they look ready to harvest. Here is a picture gallery of ready-to-harvest cannabis buds to help guide you.

Some cannabis strains produce trichomes in colors like purple or pink. These trichomes may never turn white. When it comes to these “exotic” trichomes, the standard rules don’t always apply. In these cases, it’s best to ask the breeder when the trichomes indicate readiness. If that’s not possible, make sure to look at the buds and ensure they look ready from a visual inspection and use the trichomes as only a secondary indicator.

These trichomes started white as normal and then just turned purple instead of amber.

But for some strains, the trichomes turn purple from the beginning and therefore the color doesn’t tell you anything about potency. That’s why, with colorful trichomes, it can be best to either ask the breeder about when to harvest, or judge the apparent maturity of the plant.

Regardless of the color of trichomes, most cannabis strains are ready to harvest when buds look solid. At this point, all of the hairs on the buds have darkened and curled in. When you can’t tell when to harvest based on the trichomes, use the visual appearance of the buds to guide you. Here is how to look at the buds themselves to determine when to harvest.

Need more help knowing when to harvest cannabis?

• Full cannabis harvest tutorial: https://www.growweedeasy.com/harvest
• Picture Gallery of Ready-to-Harvest Cannabis: https://www.growweedeasy.com/ready-for-harvest-pictures
• Trichome Deep Dive: Picture Gallery of Ready-to-Harvest Trichomes: https://www.growweedeasy.com/what-do-trichomes-look-like-when-ready-to-harvest-ready-to-harvest-trichome-picture-gallery

Harvest your weed at the right time and get rewarded!

The post Purple Trichomes: When do I harvest buds? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

NOTE: As an Amazon Associate, GrowWeedEasy.com earns a commission from qualifying purchases on Amazon. You support our website when you visit Amazon through the links below.

Harvest time is here (or almost here), and you must be ready. A prepared cannabis grower maximizes their yields and bud quality while reducing the chance of running into challenges.

What do you need to ensure a great cannabis harvest? Find out now!

Before Harvest Day

Stay vigilant in caring for your maturing buds until it’s time to harvest. Here are some tools to help you keep a close eye on your cannabis buds during the final weeks.

Thermometer / Hygrometer to monitor temperature and humidity

Monitor conditions to make sure it doesn’t get too hot/cold or too humid. Buds develop best when it’s slightly cool and not too humid. Good conditions help prevent bud rot and improve overall bud development.

If growing outdoors, you don’t have a lot of control over the environment, but it’s still good to monitor the humidity so you aren’t surprised when the weather starts getting bad. Indoors you actually have a lot of control to change your environment. Learn more about changing your indoor environment.

This thermometer lets you monitor the conditions remotely, whether your plants are outside or in a grow tent.

Extra tips:

• Weather stations and thermometers help you monitor environmental conditions, so you can take action if necessary.
• Consider defoliating a super leafy plant especially if you see leaves lying over each other and making wet spots. Extra moisture leads to mold.
• It’s better to harvest a little earlier than to harvest after you’ve already started seeing mold or bud rot.

Fiskar micro-tip snips are useful to remove leaves or prune plants easily and cleanly.

Magnifiers (to Inspect Color of Trichomes)

• If it fits your camera, get a Spider Farmer phone microscope (what I use)
• To use with a laptop or newer smartphone: USB Microscope
• Low-tech option: Jeweler’s Loupe

Learn everything you need to know to check your trichome color with a magnifier.

Harvest Day

Here are the supplies a cannabis grower needs for harvest day.

Use shears to cut the big, thick branches

Big shears – to cut through thick stems.

• I like this heavy-duty pair of pruning shears by Fiskars when I have to cut through a really thick branch that regular scissors can’t deal with.

Plant scissors to cleanly cut stems

Fiskar micro-tip snips are one of my favorite and most used tools around harvest time (before, during, and after).

Protective gear

• Gloves – protect your hands from all the sticky weed, and help keep everything clean.
• If growing outdoors, wear your gardening apparel (hat, hardy clothes, etc.)

I think black disposable gloves look the coolest 🙂

After Harvest

Drying

Cannabis buds need to be dried before they can be used. There are many ways to dry weed, and here are the most common:

• Air drying – Hang individual branches upside down to dry. For the best result, buds should be dried in a cool spot with slight air circulation and humidity in the 50-60% RH range.
• Drying racks, nets, or lines – Various ways to hang harvested buds. Typically it’s better to hang each branch upside down, but drying racks and nets can be useful if you have to dry a lot of bud close together in a small area.
• Cannabis-specific bud dryers – These are a good choice if you don’t have a great drying environment. Air-drying in a cool spot gives the most consistent results and is difficult to mess up, but if your drying spot is warm or humid it may cause mold to grow on your buds. If that’s a concern, you can use something like the HerbsNow or other cannabis-specific dryers to dry your buds with strong airflow under low heat. However, with these dryers it’s super easy to overdry your buds, which reduces their quality and potency, so when using any dryer it’s crucially important to monitor your buds closely and stop drying them as soon as they’re dry enough (the small stems snap instead of bend). Read my review of the HerbsNow.

Learn how to dry cannabis buds perfectly.

If your space has a good drying environment (doesn’t get hot or overly humid), hang your branches upside down to dry. I typically dry my buds inside the same tent I grew them in.

If your drying space gets warm and/or humid, you might want to consider using a specialty cannabis dryer. Check out my HerbsNow review for one example.

Trimming

Spring-Loaded Scissors

You want trimmers or scissors designed for harvesting cannabis. Regular scissors are unwieldy and typically aren’t strong or sharp enough to harvest cannabis plants. The scissors listed here are designed particularly for cutting through plants.

When trimming away extra leaves from your buds, it’s best to get a pair of scissors that is “spring-loaded” which means it will automatically open on its own between each snip. This ends up saving your hands half the work since they only need to work to close the scissors and never to open them.

Examples of good cannabis-trimming scissors – The thin blades of these scissors make it easy to cut accurately.

• The 6″ Fiskars micro-tip pruning snips are my personal favorite.
• I also love these disposable bonsai pruning shears.

What are the “best” scissors for cannabis? Everyone has different preferences so I recommend getting a few different kinds and trying them out. Whatever scissors you like best is the best option for you.

Storage and Curing

“Curing” is the process where you store your cannabis buds in an airtight container and let them continue to age like fine wine, occasionally “burping” the container (letting in air) to help the curing process. Cannabis buds typically improve in perceived quality and potency for the first 2+ weeks of curing.

• Airtight container – Quart-size wide-mouth glass mason jars (most common), curing-specific jars, etc. These are excellent for curing and long-term storage of cannabis buds.
• Oven bags – For short-term storage and curing, you can put buds in turkey oven bags (Like what you’d use to cook a turkey in the oven). These are not fully airtight, but that’s okay for the beginning of the curing process since you have to burp the air regularly. Some growers will cure their buds in bags for 1-2 weeks, then transfer to jars or other air-tight container after that. If you’ve got a big harvest, this can be easier than burping 20 jars every day. But oven bags are not sealed and therefore not good for long-term storage.
• Hygrometers – They sell packs of small hygrometers that fit in most curing containers. These make it easy to monitor the humidity in the airtight container. Ideally, it should stay between 55-62% RH to ensure proper curing.
• Humidipaks – Boveda and Boost offer specialty humidity-regulating packs that will automatically maintain the humidity at a specific reading. I use the Boveda 58% RH packs. Each of the “Size 8” packs is enough to maintain the humidity in a quart-size jar (about 1 ounce of weed).

Quart-size wide-mouth glass mason jars are the most common container to cure and store weed. You can often find these cheaper at Walmart, the grocery store, home improvement stores like Home Depot, and craft stores.

Turkey oven bags can be a convenient choice for the first 2 weeks of curing, but aren’t suitable for long-term storage since they’re not totally airtight.

Small hygrometers can be placed with your buds during curing and allow you to monitor the humidity.

Boveda “Size 8” Humidity packs are one great option for automatically maintaining the humidity in a quart-sized jar. I like the 58% RH packs because I like how the bud tends to burn smoothly at that level.

You now have all the gear you need for an epic marijuana harvest!

Looking for more harvesting resources? You might like these articles…

Complete Tutorial: When Do I Harvest Weed?

Outdoor Harvest Tutorial: When to harvest cannabis outdoors

How to Trim Your Cannabis Buds

Complete Drying and Cannabis Curing Tutorial

The post Your “Cannabis Harvest Kit” – Get Supplies for a Successful Harvest! appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Outdoor cannabis harvest season is here! But when should you harvest your gorgeous outdoor marijuana buds?

When to harvest outdoor cannabis plants? Find out in today’s outdoor harvest tutorial.

When it comes to growing weed outdoors, figuring out the perfect time to harvest is both an art and a science. However, getting the harvest timing just right rewards you with maximum yields of the best quality buds.

Ready to harvest outdoor weed (Purple Oreoz F1)

Today’s tutorial on when to harvest outdoor marijuana plants first tells you what to look for when it comes to bud maturity, so you harvest buds when they have max THC, CBD, and terpenes (smells). After that, I’ll show you a ton of pictures so you don’t have to do any guesswork, even if your buds don’t look like most other strains.

What to pay attention to when harvesting outdoor cannabis plants:

1. Appearance of buds – Hairs should have all darkened and curled in. This is the best way to know when to harvest your buds. Learn what your strain looks like when outdoor buds are fully mature, and pick that moment. Today’s article will focus on how to choose when to harvest buds based on how they look.
   • Trichome color – The tiny mushroom-shaped trichomes (“glitter” on the buds) typically look white or gold (“amber”) when the buds are ready to harvest. You need a magnifier to see the trichomes clearly, and trichome color is not as consistent an indicator on outdoor plants compared to indoor buds. Therefore, checking the trichomes is not a bad idea, but also not as important as the other factors on this list. Learn how to look at trichomes with a magnifier.
   • Watch out for round leaves – Pay attention to the leaves touching your buds for signs of re-vegging (re-vegging causes round leaves), which causes your cannabis buds to stop developing.
2. Strain-specific harvest time – Different strains take more or less time before buds are ready to harvest. Typically when you buy a strain, the breeder gives an estimate as to how long the buds will take before they’re ready. When in doubt, it can’t hurt to contact the breeder directly and ask if they have any info about when to harvest this particular strain outdoors. I’m often surprised at how helpful breeders are if you ask about their strains.
3. Weather conditions – Keep a close eye on weather forecasts because you don’t want to let some bad weather ruin your whole crop. If you see predictions for heavy rain, frost, or freezing temperatures right as buds are looking mature, it might be best to harvest early to avoid bud rot or other damage.
4. Bud density and size – Big fat buds are more susceptible to mold and pests. If you have very big buds on your plant, consider harvesting those ones early just in case.
5. Mold and pests – Inspect your plants regularly for signs of bugs, webbing, mold, or spots of major discoloration. It’s always better to harvest a little early than harvest buds covered in bugs.

Over time, cannabis growers gain experience and a sense of intuition about the best time to harvest their outdoor marijuana plants. I recommend writing down any observations for next year, pay attention to the plants, and trust your gut. Don’t hold it against yourself if you make a mistake. Gardening (and life) is a learning process.

Until you gain that cannabis grower’s intuition, here’s a bunch of pictures to help.

Pictures of When to Harvest Outdoor Cannabis Plants

First, let’s look at outdoor cannabis buds that are NOT ready yet. You can tell because the hairs on the buds have not fully darkened and curled in.

Outdoors Cannabis Buds – Not Ready Yet

You can tell that these outdoor cannabis buds are still not ready to harvest because they still have lots of white hair sticking straight out.

Still a lot of white hairs. Getting close but still a few weeks until harvest.

Outdoors Cannabis Buds – Ready to Harvest

These outdoor cannabis buds are ready to harvest. Sometimes outdoor buds look a little different than indoor buds from the same strain. For instance, outdoor buds are often leafier (though not always).

Beginning of outdoor cannabis harvest window. Buds feel solid and most hairs have curled in.

This outdoor cannabis bud is also at the beginning of the harvest window. It’s normal for outdoor buds to be a bit more leafy than the same strain grown indoors.

The hairs on these cannabis buds have all curled in and turned purple. Ready to harvest.

There’s still a few white hairs left on this next bud, but they’re a very small percentage of the total number of hairs. This purple bud is in the harvest window and can be harvested now if necessary.

3 Signs It May Be Time to Harvest Immediately

Sometimes it’s better to harvest cannabis buds a little early to prevent other kinds of damage to them. Here are the 3 most common reasons to harvest buds earlier than you normally would.

Bad Weather is Coming

These cannabis plants are getting close to the optimal harvest time, but still have a lot of white hairs left. However, a huge rainstorm is predicted in a few days, and then it’s going to be cold. Best to harvest now, because you don’t want to lose your harvest to bud rot!

What’s the matter with a little bad weather? The biggest issue is wet and cold weather can trigger bud rot, which can decimate an entire outdoor harvest almost overnight. What do outdoor cannabis growers need to know about bud rot?

Bud Rot

If you see bud rot, harvest now! This problem is caused by a fungus and spreads quickly, especially outdoors.

The first sign of bud rot is usually the leaves around the buds get discolored.

If you look at the base of the discolored leaves, you’ll see the cannabis bud is rotting at that point. It may appear moldy, brown, gray, or otherwise have dead patches.

Bud rot is most common after wet weather (or a lot of dew in the mornings) as it’s caused by a fungus.

A cannabis bud with bud rot will often “open up” or split open where it’s rotting.

Learn more about cannabis bud rot.

Pest Infestation

If your buds are already close, and you’ve got bugs, it’s best to harvest now before they reduce your bud quality further.

Harvest now if your cannabis plants are overrun with bugs.

Learn about “bud washing” to help clean buds that were infested by bugs.

Conclusion – Pick the Perfect Time to Harvest Outdoors

With outdoor growing, the visual appearance of the buds is often the best method to know when to harvest. The most important things to keep in mind…

• Watch the Hairs – Wait until the white hairs have all darkened and curled in. This is the most consistent indicator of cannabis bud maturity for most strains.
• Watch the Weather – Watch the weather forecast and harvest before days of heavy rain or freezing temperatures
• Watch the Plants – Check your plants and buds closely to immediately identify any issues that mean you should harvest early.

You’re now armed with the information to harvest your outdoor cannabis buds at the perfect moment.

Learn how to dry and cure your buds after harvest.

About the Author: Nebula Haze

Nebula Haze is a cannabis enthusiast and co-creator of GrowWeedEasy.com, your ultimate resource for cannabis cultivation. Nebula has over a decade of hands-on experience growing cannabis at home, and uses her knowledge to create simple, easy-to-follow tutorials that make learning to grow weed easy and fun. Her tutorials and online classes have helped countless growers use simple methods to achieve outstanding yields and professional bud quality.

In this article, Nebula demystifies the art and science of harvesting outdoor cannabis, providing insights into the visual cues and environmental factors that ensure perfect timing for maximum yield and quality. By focusing on bud appearance, strain-specific harvest times, and weather conditions, she guides growers to make informed decisions that lead to successful harvests.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to improve your results, Nebula’s expertise and enthusiasm are here at GrowWeedEasy.com to guide you every step of the way.

Nebula Haze wishing you abundant harvests!

Don’t miss out on the latest tips, tricks, and expert advice from Nebula Haze! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get the best cannabis cultivation tactics delivered straight to you every Sunday morning at 4:20 am.

The post Is it Time to Harvest My Outdoor Cannabis? (Outdoor Ready-to-Harvest Weed Picture Gallery) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

During the flowering stage, your marijuana plants are focused on making buds. They put little effort into staying healthy, especially towards the end.

Cannabis plants need extra TLC (tender loving care) while making buds.

That means you as a grower are much more likely to see yellow leaves, burnt tips, and other problems even though you’re giving the same level of care.

Yellow leaves and deficiencies are especially common during the last 3-4 weeks before harvest time. Unfortunately, this is also when many beginning indoor growers get comfortable and aren’t paying as much attention to their plants.

Flowering plants are more sensitive. That’s normal, but can be overcome.

Besides nutrient deficiencies, cannabis plants can also throw you a few other curve balls in the flowering stage that you need to watch out for.

Don’t worry, I’ve made all the mistakes in the last two decades of growing, so I can show you what to look for and how to prevent common issues before they become real problems.

I put together this list to prevent 7 common cannabis flowering issues or other goofs with simple and effective solutions. This guidebook walks you through the flowering stage from beginning to end so your plants produce great yields and excellent buds even if it’s your first grow.

1.) Buds Aren’t Growing Yet

What to Do: Know how to get cannabis plants to make buds.

A cannabis plant only grows leaves and stems for the first part of its life. This is known as the “vegetative stage” because you only see vegetative growth.

Vegetative Stage: At first, cannabis plants only grow leaves and stems without any buds.

Your plant won’t actually start making buds until they enter the flowering stage.

Note: buds are the flowers of a female cannabis plant, which is why it’s called the flowering stage.

But how do you initiate the flowering stage?

With “autoflower” strains, cannabis plants start flowering automatically about 4-6 weeks from germination. The exact timing depends on the strain and care.

For traditional “photoperiod” strains (most common and what you probably have), plants need 12-hour dark periods every day to start flowering. This simulates the long nights of late summer and “tells” the plant that winter is coming and it’s time to make buds. Indoors, dark periods are easy to change by plugging grow lights into a wall timer that turns off the lights for 12 hours each night. Just make sure to light-proof the area so outside light doesn’t mess up your plant’s beauty sleep.

After you start giving plants a 12/12 light schedule, white hairs should appear at the joints within 1-3 weeks. These are the first signs of buds 🙂

White fuzzy “budlets” start growing at the tops of every main branch. These little puffs will fatten and turn into buds over the next several weeks.

Now that you know how to get buds to form and what they look like at first, what should you watch out for?

2.) Seedy buds

How to Prevent: Watch out for male plants pollinating your female plants.

Unlike most plants, cannabis plants have a sex, and only female cannabis plants produce buds. With “regular” seeds, only half of plants are female. Luckily for home growers, if you start with feminized seeds (highly recommended!), you should get 100% female plants, which means every plant grows buds. However, if you start with non-feminized seeds, about half of all plants will start growing male flowers (pollen sacs) instead of buds and need to be immediately removed from the grow room.

Male cannabis plants grow pollen sacs instead of buds, which open and spill pollen.

Male flowers can be surprisingly pretty, but they don’t look like buds.

Pollen sacs eventually open and spill pollen, which is floaty and gets everywhere. Any pollent that touches buds will pollinate them, causing seeds to grow. So remove male plants from the grow space before the pollen sacs open.

Even if you’ve started with feminized seeds, it’s still a good idea to keep an eye out for unexpected male plants or hermaphrodite plants (lovingly called hermies by growers), which grow both male and female flowers. Hermies come in a few forms. They may look like male pollen sacs growing among your flowers, or you may see the signature hermie “yellow banana”. Hermies may appear in response to light stress (or other stress), or sometimes they appear for no reason at all as a result of genetics. Cannabis plants are natural things and don’t always do what growers want.

Always remove a plant that is growing pollen sacs or they will release pollen and make your buds seedy.  Male plants and hermies are pollen factories. The sooner you catch and remove them, the less likely you’ll have seeds in your buds.

In this picture, there are pollen sacs growing where buds should be forming (bottom middle of the picture).

Here are yellow hermie “bananas” growing among the beautiful buds as a result of long-term heat stress 🙁

Even a single pollen sac or banana can affect your crop by spreading pollen and “seeding” the female plants, especially if the source of pollen goes unnoticed for a long time. Pollinated buds stop fattening up and focus on making seeds, resulting in seedy buds and low yields with reduced potency. So try to identify and remove all sources of pollen as soon as possible.

But there’s nothing terrible about seedy buds. It happens; it just isn’t ideal. Most of us have enjoyed some in the past! In fact, many of you may be growing from seeds you’ve found in your buds.

Learn more about male plants and hermies (with lots more pictures):
https://www.growweedeasy.com/male-plants-bananas-hermies

3.) Light stress

How to Prevent: Make sure indoor grow lights don’t get too hot/too close.

There is an ideal distance between your grow light and the plants, and it’s up to you as the grower to maintain that distance throughout the flowering stage. You don’t want Icarus flying into the sun. Light and heat stress can damage plant leaves and buds, so don’t ignore this step.

What should you expect after buds start forming? During the first 4-6 weeks of the flowering stage, many cannabis plants go through a dramatic upward growth known as “the flowering stretch“.

Example of the flowering stretch in action – your plant may double in size after the switch to 12/12 so make sure to adjust your grow lights.

Some strains stretch more than others, but breeders should be able to tell you what to expect so you can plan for it. It’s helpful to know what strain you’re growing. In general, it’s a good idea to initiate 12/12 when the plant is half the final desired size so you still have room to move up the lights if the plants double in size. Even after the flowering stretch is over, plants may keep inching closer and closer toward the grow light. Always keep an eye on the light distance so you maintain the right distance between your plants and your lights. 

Learn how far to keep your grow light from your plant:
https://www.growweedeasy.com/how-far-grow-lights

4.) Nutrient deficiencies

How to Prevent: Avoid nutrient deficiencies by checking pH of your water.

Nutrient deficiencies are the most common flowering stage problem. Deficiencies often happen in the flowering stage even when you’re using good cannabis nutrients exactly according to directions.

So what do you do if you see a nutrient deficiency? Fix the pH.

Correct pH to fix nutrient problems before they spread to the buds!

Dig Deeper: Deficiencies in the Flowering Stage? How to Beat the Mid-Flower Curse.

As long as your cannabis plants are getting a source of basic nutrients, chances are any nutrient deficiencies you see are actually the result of incorrect pH at the roots.

In other words, the root area is too “acidic” or “alkaline” for your plant roots to absorb nutrients through the water. Some growers get lucky and their water has the perfect pH, but if your starting water has high or low pH considering your setup, you need to take steps to fix it.

More than half of the marijuana plant problems submitted to GrowWeedEasy.com end up being the result of too high or too low pH in the root zone.

Use a PH kit to test the pH of your water. It only takes a minute!

PH problems can cause wrinkly leaves, curling, and what appears to be a wide variety of nutrient deficiencies. Plants can’t absorb nutrients when the pH is off at the roots, so symptoms can look like almost anything. In hydroponics, pH management is absolutely crucial to your success. Even when growing in soil, pH has a big effect.

Some growers may get lucky, but if you’re having unexplainable problems, I highly recommend at least checking the pH and eliminating that as a possible cause.

Problems from pH manifest in a variety of ways, and look like nutrient deficiencies

Although the symptoms can look different, most nutrient deficiencies can be traced back to incorrect pH.

Learn what you need to know about pH right here (it’s simpler than you probably think!): https://www.growweedeasy.com/ph

Don’t overdose plant with nutrients.

Going overboard on nutrients (even organic nutrients if they’re concentrated enough) burns the tips of leaves. If you ignore the issue and nutrient burn gets bad enough, it will discolor your buds, too.

Never raise nutrient levels unless you’ve ruled out a pH problem and even then, do so slowly.

It’s normal for your oldest, lower leaves to start yellowing and falling as harvest approaches. Don’t raise nutrient levels towards the end of the flowering stage (especially after buds already appear fully formed and close to harvest).

5.) Smell Overload

What to Do: Set up a carbon filter inside your grow tent.

The secret to staying stealthy when growing cannabis is “Don’t tell, don’t sell, don’t smell.” Basically, don’t tell anyone, and don’t let anyone see or smell your garden.

Some cannabis plants are a little stinky in the vegetative stage, but most cannabis plants produce a very strong smell in the flowering stage.

It’s worth the time and money to set up a carbon filter to prevent odors from escaping the grow space.

A carbon filter works best when paired with a grow tent, which is why they’re often sold together as a set with the grow light.

Most all-in-one-grow kits for cannabis come with a carbon filter.

Learn How to Control Smells in the Grow Room.

6.) Harvest at the wrong time

What to Do: Harvest cannabis plants at the right time. 

How long does the flowering stage last? When do I harvest?

The time spent in flowering depends heavily on your strain, as well as the effects you’d like to produce. View a complete marijuana timeline.

These cannabis plants are ready to harvest (grown under a Spider Farmer SF-2000 LED)

Most strains need 2-3 months in the flowering stage before they’re ready to harvest, though commercial strains are a bit faster and some strains may need as long as 4 months of flowering before buds are ready (though there are tricks to get these long-flowering strains to mature faster).

Some growers prefer to harvest on the earlier side for more of a “buzzy” weak high while other growers harvest later for more of a “couchlock” high.

• Harvesting too early causes low yields, low smell, and low potency buds.
• Harvesting very late produces less-potent buds that tend to cause sleepiness.

When you harvest at the right time, you get the best yields and the effects you want.

When you still see lots of white hairs, it means you’ve got several weeks to go

Buds fatten throughout the flowering stage and are ready to harvest when the white hairs darken and curl. This bud is ready to harvest.

The best thing to remember with harvesting is to be patient. A lot of people get too eager to harvest buds, and they end up taking their plants down too early. You’ve come this far, make sure to end strong!

Here’s a complete guide to knowing exactly when to harvest your marijuana:
https://www.growweedeasy.com/harvest

For the geeks like me… here’s an article explaining the science behind picking the right harvest time to achieve optimum cannabinoid levels:
https://www.growweedeasy.com/thc-cbd-cbn-when-to-harvest-marijuana

7.) Poor drying technique

What to Do: Dry and “cure” your newly harvested buds the right way.

Although it may seem like everything is over after harvest day, the next few days are incredibly important to your bud quality. Avoiding common problems in this phase will produce significantly higher-quality buds.

Once you’ve determined the plants are ready to harvest, you need to cut down the branches, remove excessive fan leaves, and hang the branches upside down to slowly dry over the course of 3-10 days. The total drying time depends on how dense your buds are and the drying environment.

Some growers may dry weed in different ways, for example in cardboard boxes, on mesh netting, in paper bags, or even in a specialized weed dryer.

The ideal drying environment is cool with slight air movement. Buds want to dry slowly and evenly. Commercial growers dry buds in spaces controlled to 60°F and 60% RH. Obviously, that level of environmental control is not feasible for most home growers. Your best bet is to make sure you’re growing in a space that stays cool with some air circulation. Make sure the area is clean.

Smaller buds typically don’t mold but if you have any big fat buds, make sure there’s air movement around them while drying. Never dry buds in a warm or humid space to reduce the chance of mold. A good environment also helps prevent buds from drying unevenly or growing unwanted microorganisms. If the drying space must be warm or humid, make sure buds are spaced apart from each other, and there is gentle but measurable air movement between all the buds (point a fan at the wall), check often for mold.

Buds are done drying when…

• small stems snap instead of bend
• buds “pop” off the branch instead of coming off with strings

Once buds are dry, growers typically use scissors to trim away most of the leaves, so only the buds are left.

Curing Your Buds

After buds are dried, they can be smoked but they tend to be harsh. That’s where the curing process comes in. Curing buds in jars makes them smoke better, smell better, and feel more potent with nicer effects.

Once your buds are dried and trimmed, put them in airtight jars, and place the jar in a dark place.

For the next two weeks, open the jars every day and jostle the buds a bit. This is also a good time to make sure you don’t see/smell mold and buds still feel dry (they tend to get wetter over time as water from inside the buds works its way to the outside).

Tip: Get Boveda 58% RH humidipaks and put them in your jars with your buds to automatically regulate the humidity to the ideal level. A must for every home grower!

After about 2 weeks of this process, you have cured herb. You can stop burping the jars every day, though it’s a good idea to open them occasionally to check for mold or weird smells (which are the result of too much moisture). Some growers cure buds in jars even longer than 2 weeks, up to 6 months, for continued improvement in flavor/smell.

I hope you enjoyed this article, I wish I had known this stuff when I first started growing 🙂

About the Author: Nebula Haze

I believe adults should have safe access to marijuana, and GrowWeedEasy.com is dedicated to showing you how easy it can be to grow your own at home.

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter!

View past newsletters here.

GrowWeedEasy.com’s new book teaches you total Harvest Mastery.

Jump to…

Supercropping: Simple secret to bigger yields

View Pictures of Common Plant Problems

Learn about buying seeds online

How to germinate seeds

The post 7 Common Flowering Stage Mistakes (and how to prevent them) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Is there a last-minute trick to increase THC right before harvest?

If your cannabis plants are close to harvest, you probably want to make sure you do everything possible to maximize your results. What if I told you there might be a way to increase THC and overall bud quality in marijuana plants, right before harvest time?

Enter the 3-day dark period.

I’ve heard about this tactic multiple times over the years.

Essentially, the idea is to “shock” your plant in the days leading up to harvest in hopes of increasing the potency of your buds. The most common tactic is to place your plants in total darkness for 3 days before harvest. Another tactic is to water your plants with ice water. I’ve even heard a grower say that you should put nails through the main stem to “scare” your plant.

But do these tactics work to increase bud quality, potency, THC, or anything measurable in cannabis plants?

Keep reading to learn more about whether the 3-day dark period works to increase cannabis potency.

Does the 3-day dark period actually work?

I don’t know for sure. I have only seen one other grower do an experiment on the cannabis dark period with lab testing. Check out the bottom of the article for my first set of experiment results, and a comparison between our findings.

From a theoretical standpoint, I personally have difficulty imagining a vast difference in bud quality using last-minute tactics. My reasoning is that THC develops slowly throughout the flowering stage. It takes “work” on the part of the plant to create molecules of THC. Even if stressing the plant increased THC production, how much extra THC could be produced in a few days?

But I’ve grown cannabis long enough to know that sometimes what seems intuitive isn’t correct, which is why experiments are so helpful and powerful.

Check out my other side-by-side cannabis growing experiments.

My experiment: Test a 3-day dark period before harvest

These 2 cannabis plants are close to harvest. They were grown in small grow tents under small LED grow lights.

Square One Genetics special cut plant under an HLG 65 4000k LED grow light (65W) in a 2’x2’x3′ mini tent (check out the full grow journal).

Runtz cannabis plant under a Spider Farmer SF-1000 LED grow light (100W) in a slightly taller 2’x2’x4′ grow tent.

I harvested buds off these two plants from before and after giving them a 3-day dark period.

Lab Test 1 (by GrowWeedEasy.com)

Let’s see how these buds test against each other in the lab.

• Before 3-day dark period: 18.4% THC average
  • Pacific Punch: 19.8% THC
  • Runtz: 16.9% THC
• After 3-day dark period: 19.7% THC average
  • Pacific Punch: 21.9% THC
  • Runtz: 17.6% THC

Wow! This was a spur-of-the-moment test without any controls, so take this with a grain of salt, but it’s pretty stark how much higher the THC tested after the 3-day dark period on both plants. The average is more than 1% higher. I must run more side-by-side experiments to see if this is a fluke. It’s hard for me to believe a dark period could increase the THC this much on a consistent basis.

I wonder if there is some other factor. Perhaps it was natural variation between the buds and it was a matter of luck which ones I picked. It’s also possible that harvesting half the plant caused stress that increased THC in the remaining buds. That would mean it actually had nothing to do with the darkness. Or there may have been some other unknown factor.

A follow-up experiment is definitely coming. This first one was last minute and not well planned. There were no control plants. But the next experiment will involve clones and I’ll harvest plants separately  before and after the dark period to reduce the total number of variables. Maybe I’ll think up some other similar tests. Such an exciting time to be a grower!

Closeup of one of the Runtz buds.

Lab Test 2 (by CannabisGreenTeam.ca)

CannabisGreenTeam.ca is run by a long-term cannabis grower and friend who also sells cheap dry cannabis nutrients. He recently released the lab test results for his own 3-day dark period experiment, and he got the opposite results.

Max tested the THC of Wedding Cake and 3 other strains.

See his dark period experiment with THC analysis.

Now we have two lab tests, each showing opposite results… Clearly it’s time to run another experiment and collect more data points.

Check out more side-by-side cannabis growing experiments.

Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter to get updates on my current experiments before they’re published on the website!

Now learn how to improve…

• Yields
• Bud Quality
• THC Levels
• CBD Levels
• Smell/Taste
• Density
• Bonus: What Determines Yields?

The post Does a 3-Day Dark Period Before Harvest Increase THC? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

The dreaded cannabis “hay smell” after drying marijuana buds has been a thorn in the side of home growers since we first started growing weed. Sometimes the terrible smell appears during the drying process, and sometimes it happens after buds get put in jars for curing.

It’s unbelievably frustrating to get hay smell after all your hard work, and many growers can’t figure out why it happens. What causes marijuana buds to smell “harsh” or like “fresh cut grass” or “hay” after they’ve been dried or cured? Today I’ll teach you why it happens and how to avoid it.

Why do buds sometimes smell bad like musty hay after being dried?

This often happens to beginner cannabis growers:

1. Buds smell good before harvest
2. Musty “hay” smell after drying
3. Curing buds in jars helps fix the smell …or sometimes it makes buds smell worse!

Stop this vicious cycle!

Did you know you can dry buds in the right way and they smell delightful from the moment they’re done drying? At that point, curing buds in jars will enhance the smell further and make buds smooth to smoke, but you don’t have any point where they smell “bad”.

5 Tactics to Dry & Cure Cannabis Buds without Hay Smell

This section will teach you how to grow the best-smelling marijuana buds possible.

1.) Air dry in a cool space if possible

Cut off individual branches and change them upside down in a lightly ventilated space. Some growers put their buds on mesh drying racks but that leaves flat spots on the buds. Keep the temperature between 60-70°F (15-20°C) while drying. I set my AC to the lowest setting and dry buds in a grow tent with gentle air circulation. Perfect buds every time. If your drying space is warm most of the time (like the inside of many closets), consider one of the next two options if possible.

Keep the temperature under 70°F/20°C while air-drying in a gently ventilated area to produce excellent buds with no hay smell every time. Buds come out perfect after 7-10 days.

2.) Or use a cannabis bud dryer

An alternative method is a cannabis-specific dryer/dehydrator like the HerbsNow dryer. Note: I have no affiliation with this company; I’m just sharing my personal experience. The heat settings on most food dehydrators are too high and will cook your weed but the HerbsNow uses gentle warmth. Even though it’s a cannabis-specific dryer, you must use it properly or you’ll get poor results because buds are easy to over-dry. Click here to read my full review of the HerbsNow dryer.

Cannabis-specific dryer gets good results when used properly in a variety of different environments, but it’s super easy to over-dry your weed if you aren’t careful. They work well even in a warm drying space, but they tend to get worse results in low humidity.

3.) Or air dry in a cardboard box or paper bag

If you don’t have a cool ventilated space and can’t get a dryer, your best option is air-drying in a box (or even in a paper bag) in a room. The properties of paper/cardboard help create a good bud drying environment, especially combined with some gentle air movement around the box. Hang the buds upside down from within the box like your own personal drying chamber. Don’t let the buds touch each other and make sure there is some air circulation. For example, leave the top of the box slightly open or cut some slits in the sides of the box. In the room, blow a fan towards a wall (not directly at the box unless it’s a weak fan) to ensure some air movement. Smell the inside of the box while air drying. If it smells at all musty it needs more air, otherwise try to minimize airflow so buds don’t dry too fast. Just remember that buds are more likely to gain hay smell when air-dried in a warm environment, so try to keep buds cool while air-drying if possible.

Drying in a cardboard box (or paper bag) is a great old-school but effective choice to reduce hay smell when you don’t have a cool drying space and can’t get a dryer. Boxes also help buds dry better if you have low humidity.

4.) Dry buds until small stems snap instead of bend

Buds can get musty if you put them in jars before they are fully dry. These two tests help ensure buds are fully dry: The small stems will snap instead of bend and the buds will pop off the stem without making strings. If you have to use scissors to cut off the buds cleanly because they’re taking stringy bits of stem, it means they’re too wet on the inside and need to be dried further.

How to tell when cannabis buds are fully dried:

5.) Monitor humidity of buds in jars (keep under 60% RH)

Generally, it’s recommended to make sure humidity is 62% or lower, but if you’re worried about hay smell, stay under 60% RH to be safe. Musty smell can be the result of mold or bacteria growth, so you need to make sure buds aren’t too wet in jars or wherever you’re storing buds. Sometimes the outsides of buds will get more wet over time as water works its way out of the middle, which can trigger the growth of unwanted organisms. It can be helpful to monitor buds with a hygrometer.  If you’re having trouble making buds dry enough (for example because of high humidity where you live), get a Boveda or Boost humidipak, which will help suck up extra moisture out of the buds. These packs also help maintain the perfect humidity in jars over time so you usually don’t even need a hygrometer. They work by collecting extra moisture in specialized crystals contained inside the packet. The packets feel soft at first and need to be replaced once they get hard. They’re also handy to rehydrate buds that got overdried.

• • Buds that feel moist are too wet and need to be dried more before being closed up in jars.
  • Monitor humidity with mini hygrometers in your jars to ensure it doesn’t go over 60%
  • Use 58% humidipaks to maintain humidity and help dry out too-wet buds.

Use 58% humidity-control packs to reduce the chance of hay smell developing during curing and storage.

Why do poor drying conditions and too much moisture during storage make cannabis buds smell bad?

When I first started growing cannabis (click here to learn how to grow weed) I learned that hay smell after the drying process was caused by green chlorophyll in the buds that did not break down properly. I was told that drying buds too fast is the cause, and drying buds slow was the solution.

Note: Parts of this are going to get controversial for some growers because it goes against common growing wisdom. Please read with an open mind and think about whether this matches your experiences with drying. I know some growers will disagree with me but the hay smell problem causes too much pain to home cannabis growers for me to keep this knowledge to myself even if it causes blowback. Please don’t hesitate to contact us and share your thoughts whether you agree or disagree.

What growers said causes cannabis hay smell: Green chlorophyll in the buds that did not break down properly from drying too fast.

What I think causes hay smell: Microorganisms like mold or bacteria (often invisible to the naked eye).

Hear me out. I know this isn’t what anyone wants to hear but let me lay out my evidence. I’ll share exactly how I came to this conclusion.

What’s that hay smell?

They said the solution is to dry buds slow

For my first cannabis harvest, I hung my weed in a closet with a fan pointed at the wall. All the buds were dry and crispy in only a day or two. They didn’t smell like hay but looked bad and were harsh to smoke. Luckily, if you cure buds in jars, especially with a Boveda humidity pack to rehydrate them, it helps resuscitate buds and make them smokable with a better smell.

I was disappointed. I researched online and learned that the reason for my poor results was I dried buds too fast. Makes sense.

For the next cannabis harvest, I dried them in the same closet with the door cracked but no fan. It took them 3 days to dry, so it was taking longer, and this time they had a musty hay smell that was even worse than when they dried the first time.

The next time I tried hanging the entire plant upside down to dry because I read that’s a good way to dry buds slow, and it took a full 7 days before the buds were dry. Still hay smell! Not only that, the buds in the middle were covered in mold 😭 I threw that whole harvest away.

This drove me nuts as I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. I’d spend 4 months growing an incredible harvest that smelled wonderful, and yet after drying I was left with a bunch of weed I was embarrassed to share with my friends, or even worse had to throw away. Curing the buds helped a lot, especially over several weeks, but I wanted weed that smelled good immediately after drying like I knew the professionals were producing.

Then they told me hay smell was caused by heat and low humidity

I kept asking growers what worked and didn’t work for them when it came to drying weed. Some growers had the same issues as me, and others seemed to have no problem drying buds even just in the closet. What was making the difference? Why did some growers get good results and some got bad? I was determined to find out.

Several growers told me the cause of hay smell was drying buds in a hot place or with low humidity. They said that the heat and low humidity reduced chlorophyll breakdown by causing buds to dry too fast. That all made sense to me. I knew it was kind of hot in my closet and I hadn’t tested the humidity so maybe it was dry. I got an AC and actually cooled the whole room to about 62°F/17°C. This time I dried buds in my tent with a slight breeze from the Cloudline exhaust fan on its ultra-gentle first setting. The humidity in the room was about 50% RH.

Voila! That fixed it!

I thought I knew the answer; Cool temperature during drying

My buds took about 10 days to dry. I waited until the small stems snapped instead of bent, and when the buds came out of the tents and into jars they were perfect. They still smelled the same (slightly muted) but had zero hint of hay smell. After curing them for 2 weeks they looked better and smelled better than the weed from the dispensary. These buds smoked smooth and kicked your butt with their effects.

Buds came out perfect when I cooled the room to 62°F/17°C and dried them in a grow tent

But how many growers can do that? I happen to live in a place where it gets sweltering hot in the summer so it makes sense for me to get an AC, but how many people can afford to cool a whole room just to dry their weed? I started searching for alternative effective drying methods that actually made sense for home growers.

Enter the HerbsNow dryer. It seemed to disprove my theory.

I saw a product on Instagram called HerbsNow Dryer ($200). Note: I have no affiliation with this company. I am just sharing my personal experience. It claimed to dry weed in just 4 days. It appeared to be a food dehydrator set on a 96-hour timer. A key difference was the heat was turned down to just 80°F/27°C, while a normal food dehydrator cannot be set below 100°F/37°C.

I actually bought the dryer specifically to prove that it would do a bad job. After the experience I just described, I thought that the secret was for buds to be cool during drying. So how could a dryer that heats them up cause good results? I thought, “This will be great content for GrowWeedEasy.com to show how heat is the real culprit to bad drying results.” Haha I was about to be proven wrong.

In my tests, the HerbsNow dryer produced just as good buds as air-drying. I tested it first with just a few plants. I air-dried some and dried some in the dryer. When they came out I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. I then got the buds lab tested and their THC and terpene percentages were comparable between air drying in a cold room vs drying in the HerbsNow. Huh. That seemed like it must be a fluke. So I tested it on 16 different plants over the next few months, and got all 32 samples tested at the lab. The buds dried in the dryer vs air-dried in the tent tested almost identically. And none of them had hay smell. That’s great for growers who can’t keep a cool drying place, but that put a huge wrench in my theory that the hay smell was caused by heat. Check out my full review of the HerbsNow dryer for pictures, lab reports, plus tips and tricks.

If it wasn’t heat that was causing hay smell, what was it?

And this is where it gets gross. I wanted to figure out what could cause hay smell in heat when air drying, but wouldn’t cause hay smell in a dryer.

I asked myself, what growing environments cause hay smell? I made a list.

Air drying (hanging buds upside down) – What causes hay smell in my experience and from the experience of GrowWeedEasy.com readers

• Warm temperature above 75°F / 23°C increase the chance of bad smells when air drying
• Rarely get hay smell when air-drying in temperatures under 70°F/20°C
• Hay smell is more common with no ventilation, lack of fresh air, and/or no air movement
• Hay smell is more common when buds are spaced close together or some buds are touching
• Hay smell often happens when humidity is above 60% RH, especially when combined with warmth

And then it hit me. It was organisms. Living things. Organisms and mold love growing in hot humid places with stagnant air. Many growers may be familiar with powdery white mildew, which appears on plants in a similar environment. Anyone who’s had a mold problem in their house knows it’s usually concentrated in places with high humidity and moisture. But living things have a hard time growing in an environment with constantly moving air like an air dryer. In fact, that’s part of why food dehydrators are designed the way they are – to prevent bad stuff from growing on your food as it gets dehydrated.

So there you have it, that’s my theory as to what causes hay smell. It’s not proven but seems to explain everything I’ve seen and experienced so far.

What about dryness and over-drying?

I think this is the confounding factor that made it so hard for growers to realize it’s actually been microorganisms causing hay smell. When you over-dry weed, or dry it really fast, or dry it under too much heat, it gets gross. Although it doesn’t take on the same “hay smell” I think it often gets lumped in. But I believe that these are two separate drying problems. Over-drying and low humidity drying is one problem, and hay smell is another one.

• Over-drying and low humidity are real problems that can cause buds to be harsh, crispy, and/or not smell like weed
• “Hay smell” seems to happen most in stagnant air
• I believe hay smell and low humidity/overdrying are two different problems that often get lumped in together

What about trimming buds before drying?

Some growers have noticed that trimming buds before the drying process can contribute to harshness and possibly hay smell. I personally haven’t had that experience, but it’s common for growers to experience this so I need to experiment mroe to try to explain. Perhaps the buds are more likely to dry unevenly when they don’t have the protective covering of leaves. I also wonder if trimming the bud opens the inside of the plant to the outside world and increases the chance of bad organisms to grow at those wounds. I’d love to hear your thoughts and your experiences.

Why does curing help hay smell then?

Ok this is really, really gross. But what if it’s just that the microorganisms go through their life and die as the buds cure in jars? If they’re not living, I wonder if the smell goes away…

Why does high humidity or too much moisture in jars cause hay smell?

You guessed it. Water and high humidity power the growth of microorganisms.

If you have anything to add to this page, please contact me with the following information: how you dried the buds, the temperature, the humidity while drying, and a picture would be greatly appreciated.

All right, I’ve laid out my evidence. I want to know what you think. Share your thoughts. If you disagree, I still want to hear your opinion. We are all here trying to gain knowledge and help home growers grow the best weed possible. We’re in this together.

The post 5 Effective Ways to Prevent Cannabis “Hay Smell” After Harvest appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.