SOIL Update (1st grow): Do I water? Feed? Wait longer?

[realhuuuman420]

I tried to do that, it's not really possible. My exhaust fan is too strong for drying this little plant - or rather, the plant is too little. The exhaust creates way too much airflow and it sucks the air so much that the plant is dancing around like crazy. The humidity dropped by like 20% within MINUTES of me turning the exhaust fan on.

The temps are around 26-28C (it is fucking hot here again... cannot wait for the summer to end).
rH: by default, with everything off and closed, it's 40-45%. Humidifier on setting 2 - rH goes to 90% within 15 minutes. Setting 1 - rH goes up to 80% in around 30-35 min.

With my small fan pointed at the ground on lowest setting and the humidifier on setting 2(the high one), rH climbs up again very, very fast, plus although the airflow is minimal, it still makes the plant dance.

It's kind of impossible to balance this. I may have to just hang some wet towels around or something. I cannot set the humidifier on a timer, unfortunately - would be great to just have it turn on for 5 min every hour or so, but not an option.

But the problem is that overnight, rH drops down to 45%. I think that's way too low.. I really don't know what to do about it.

It's like, I can choose either 45% or 90%...

 

[Rootsruler]

What you can do is to use the timer you used to turn your grow lights on and off can now be utilized to turn your internal fan on and off. The exhaust fan can stay off.

As Bluey said, You want just a little air movement to move the moisture and gases away from the flowers. I would have it come on every hour for one or two minutes just to get a decent swirl of air going through the tent move the stale air.

Not sure what your exhaust fan setup is but you can do the same with that if you choose.

It'll take a second to dial in but it would offer the best environment for your dry/cure.

 

[realhuuuman420]

I think I have a problem. Have I overdried it already?

The smell is no longer that ultra potent cannabis smell. It now smells like old dried grassy weed. Is this something to be concerned about?

I do my best to keep the rH at 65%, but at night, it drops to 45% for a couple of hours before I wake up and adjust it again. It has been drying only for two days now.

I think also the volume has shrank a little bit, is this normal? It does not look as puffy as it looked while still in the soil.

Temps are somewhat stable at 25-27C. Thankfully, did not go over 27 despite the heatwave. Just the rH is problematic - I can keep it stable 60-65% during the day, but at least for 3-4 hours it drops down to 45 at night.

EDIT: Reading further about this, it seems like this hay-like smell is normal, and that the normal cannabis-like smell will return during curing.

Just to be clear: I could not care less about smell and taste on my first grow. I only care about potency. Things like smell or taste or harshness is a luxury I will care about when on my second, third, or fourth growth. I was just worried this might destroy the THC contents.

 

[Bluey]

You have wrecked it with uncontrolled appalling drying conditions.

The best grown weed in the world is worthless and disgusting to use if treated like that.

Drying and curing is probably 60% of a weeds outcome quality wise, maybe more.

Next time monitor your dry room and sort it out before you put your weed in it.

 

[Rootsruler]

Put your flowers in a jar and spritz the top with a couple sprays of water. This should rehydrate it somewhat but Bluey is correct. Drying and curing are where you separate the men from the boys.

You can also try to stick a piece of orange peel or lettuce and the moisture from both should also help in rehydrating your flower. When I was buying pillows of mexican weed in the early days it always came overdried. We would separate the pillow into pounds, deseed as best we could and wrap the turkey bag we had the pound in with leaf lettuce then bag the whole thing to keep the lettuce leaves touching the outside of the turkey bag. We'd leave it overnight and by morning the weed would be better hydrated and look better.

The best way I can illustrate the issue you have at hand is cooking. Add to much salt into your pot and you're fucked. Add a little and taste it and adjust is much better and easier to control the flavor. This is why SLOW dry is always recommended. Once you pass the point of no return its more about how much of it you can save. It's not a complete disaster but certainly a hard earned lesson.

 

[Bluey]

Since you are growing indoors you should be able to time your grow so conditions are more suitable to slow drying when the time comes to harvest. In other words ambient temps should be dropping as the plant goes into flower. Temps are key here and 25/26⁰C temps are too high for drying. It destroys the flavour and aroma.

Your issue with RH swinging wildly and quickly is because your dry room is very small for the humidifier you are using. You could offset this with a small AC that will temper the swings in humidity and bring temps down but it' can be difficult to control sometimes unless you have done it before and know how your dry room behaves with the different inputs.

 

[realhuuuman420]

So the suboptimal conditions were 'only' present for around a day, more or less. Afterwards, I found a much better way of keeping the humidity stable - hanging a wet towel inside brings it up to 70%, a little bit of air brings that down to 68%ish and then it takes more than 15 hours for it to drop down to 65 or less. Much, much easier to maintain. You're right, the humidifier that I have sucks.

The temnps are still 25-26, and yeah of course I should have timed it, and it wasn't the best idea to grow during peak summer heatwaves, but here we are.

Bluey Rootsruler should I now jar it up, like Root said, with an orange peel and a bit of sprayed water? Or keep it in the tent?

If the only thing destroyed is flavour and aroma, then that's great! Come on, beggars can't be choosers here. It's a learning experience, and this is just another lesson for me

 

[Rwise]

Even if the taste is gone, BROWNIES!

 

[Rootsruler]

Don't do both. Do one or the other. Orange peel trick would be my second choice. Th peels can bring mold into the jar if you leave it long enough. Better to try the spritz on the lid method.

 

[realhuuuman420]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an entire gram (or perhaps it is even 1.3? hard to tell, my kitchen scale does not see such small numbers. The whole thing including stems, roots, and a bit of string mmeasured at 3 grams, lol) of Speedy Rambo Gonzales!!!

Mixed in with some cat hair for flavor. sigh...

I would like to thank every one of you for helping me along this journey. It has been enlightening, to say the least. I will be planting my next seed in two weeks, and will inevitably make another post, as I'm bound to run into issues. Regardless, I've learned so much. Next one will be an absolute winner.

I will be curing it from now on with spritzing a tiny bit of water on the lid in an attempt to rehydrate it slightly.

But, after sampling a small amount already three times, I can say with confidence, this is the best weed I've ever had in terms of potency. In terms of smell and taste, yeah, it's like that third grade weed offered to you by a sus guy in a hoodie at a train station, or in a dark alley.

Thank you all, I cannot express how much I appreciate all the help I received here.