A few things I've learnt about growing (environment, nutrients and drying curing)

I use to grow autos and now I've changed to photos as I'm looking for exotic strains and I've learnt so much talking with very knowledgeable growers, testing things out and seeing results.

I'll start with environment. It is absolute key to keep your environment on point to get the best out of your plants. It's the best nutrient you can give your plants imo. I follow the vpd chart now (vapour pressure deficit) and my humidity doesn't go below 60% during flowering. I keep the humidity at 75-70% whole of veg 70-65% until week 5 of flower then drop its to 65-60 for the rest. I use to ramp mine down to 40% that's the worst thing you can do. If your humidity is as low as that your plants will transpire at a faster rate therefore they will drink more and won't use up the nutrients your giving them resulting in a deficiency. That's why I think a lot of autos to get a calcium OR magnesium deficiency because humidity is too low. (also longer periods of light might cause that) you might think having your humidity too high during flowering is gonna cause bud rot or Pm. Bud rot is 100% caused my stagnant air, every leaf should be moving slightly and you should have plenty of extraction and you could go up to 75% RH as long as your air flow/movement is good. Don't take my word for it read up on vpd and try it.

Stop wasting money on expensive nutrient lines. Im switching to jacks hydroponics 5-12-26 with the 321 formula Powder nutrients and it's so so cheap. I use to use advanced and canna nutrients but your paying for 80% water with bottled nutrients. Powder nutrients are the way forward! Jacks 5-12-26 calcium nitrate and Epsom salt is used from seed to finish at 3 gram per gallon of Jacks 2 grams per gallon of calcium nitrate and 1 gram per gallon of epsom salts from start to finish because the element ratios are so finely tuned you don't need to add more or less throughout the growth cycle and there's no bullshit claims saying this will give you massive yeilds and buds dripping in resin. Check out this video on jacks nutrients

If your tired of getting that hay smell with your bud try this..
When I use to grow autos and drying my method was to wet trim and hang, then I tried paper bag method (which was okay) but I was still left with fresh cut grass slightly hay smell and no terps whatsoever.. The best way to dry is to do a whole plant hang with large fan leaves taken off for 10 days at 60% humidity and 17C. THEN trim your bud and jar it up. I guarantee you that your bud will be so much more flavourful and louder compared to wet trim. I changed to dry trimming and I've never looked back and everyone else who has changed to dry trimming has said the same.

Just wanted to give you some info on what I've learnt myself and from other very talented and knowledgeable growers. If I hadn't of learnt this I would still be growing same way producing shit bud. I still have tons to learn but if you just stick with these methods I assure that you will have great results.
 
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hi :smiley1:

i’m new to all this growing stuff, about three weeks in - don’t know too much about what i’m talking about. :toke:

however

i have done a tireless amount of research to enable me to piece together a strategy for my first grow, and your post has challenged my carefully laid plans.

whilst I am new to growing, i’m not new to bud :smoking:
grassy/hay/chlorophyll tasting bud is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night...more so than i would care to admit. i have read through many a debate thread on AFN and elsewhere and whilst there’s plenty of techniques and preferences etc, i came to the conclusion that brown bags were the most reliable method of avoiding grassy odours and flavours and was dead set on going that route.

now i’m back at square one :crying:
 
I"ve been growing out side for some season's now and one thing that I do know,you can"nt go by the fall and winter solstice.It's still 80 degrees here.It seems that it stay's hot or warm for that period of time when the solstice has changed.Even though I started growing in april this time and it came too the point that my plants were ready in September,so I had to force them into flower and also had some bud rot to take care of,The simply way I can put it you can"nt rely on the (fall begins) to flush and get ready.So too me it seem's clear the global warmth has extended at least another month or two that's what has really took a toll on my out door grow.That's why I am starting too grow inside with a grow tent so I am in control of my temps and humidy I think growing out side seem's to be a guessing game during the winter solstice, these are my own personal thought's and experience with out door grow.I have a lot too learn about auto's one day I"ll get it right.There are a lot of good people here that are excited too help and want you to exceed I really enjoy AFN awesome people and I rely on them a lot for information growing major bud's with AFN my friend, have a good one
 
Excellent advice.
Following VPD guidelines creates a jungle of happy growth.
Bud rot is not an issue either.
Cheap nutes without worthless teas and elixirs is the way to go.

But I'm having trouble understanding why dry trimming is better.
Obviously it's impossible to argue with success, but I'd like to understand the theory behind WHY dry trimming is better before trying it.
Do you have an opinion on why dry trimming is better.
I don't understand the dry trim either. The leaves draw up so tight against the bud you can hardly tell where to snip without trying to pry the leaf away. I can trim 3 times faster when its fresh.
 
Thanks for taking time to post up some knowledge sharing content.

Interesting what you think about RH and flowering. I read that you only need to keep in the VPD greenzone until you hit flowering and then you don't need to. I live in an arid climate so I have to run a big ass full house console humidifier in my tent just to get over 40%. I can go higher but I can't go to high or it will affect the garage my tent is in. So I try to maintain 50% and 20C during sprout/seedling/veg. I was going to reduce the RH during flower though.

And my last couple of harvests have been meh when it comes to dank smell/terps after some curing. I'm going to try the full plant hang to dry and then dry trim it. I have a couple of plants I can do that too right away.

how did you find the hang and dry trim?

I have a Tangie’matic hanging in 18.5 degrees and 60% RH after being underwhelmed with wet trim/paper bag drying on my first round. 2/3 of my strains seemed to dry too quickly resulting in the grassy smell and taste.
 
how did you find the hang and dry trim?

I have a Tangie’matic hanging in 18.5 degrees and 60% RH after being underwhelmed with wet trim/paper bag drying on my first round. 2/3 of my strains seemed to dry too quickly resulting in the grassy smell and taste.

I have 4 plants I just chopped. Wet trimmed. Then hung whole for 2 days. Last night I cut them in to branches to further hang dry for about 5 days. I find hang drying is better than bags. And the longer elapsed time the better. Some recommended hanging whole for 2 days first as a way to make the process longer. Then further chop them in to branches.

Have you hung dry yet? And if so, how many days does it take to dry in your environment?
 
nope, this is my first time drying like this. I’m on day 2 of hanging in 18 degrees, 60% RH. seems to be drying nice and slow right now, at this rate it’ll be a week minimum. only lopped off the biggest fans.

will keep you updated @lunarman thanks for the reply
 
@lunarman

update on my first hang dry!

so i managed to keep the cupboard at 18-19 Celsius and 60% RH very consistently

i trimmed two branches worth last night after 10 days of hanging - only two, because i was not convinced it was ready for the jars yet. anyway, fine trimmed them, smaller buds, popped them in a jar overnight with a gauge and this morning it had settled at 63%!

feels incredibly sticky to handle but the retention of terps has been flawless. even with a bunch of scraggly leaves still on her, she didn't smell grassy/green/chlorophyll-y at all!
the flavour does not match just yet, but it was only chopped 10 days ago so i'm sure it'll catch up in the cure.

but the take away is - i will be hanging whole plant for as slow a dry as possible from now on.

i will note, this was a Tangie'matic strain, which has (mine does, at least) quite sativa looking buds, smaller, more open structure than solid indica nuggs.
for a more dense plant i guess i'll trim more off to begin with and allow to hang as long as possible.
i'll be hanging my next ladies (Ripley's OG, Stilton Special) in the same environment in a few weeks time and i will update here again, because this is important stuff - i near ruined my first harvest by drying in paper bags in a 40-50 rh environment, after tonnes of reading and research said i'd be fine.
 
@lunarman

update on my first hang dry!

so i managed to keep the cupboard at 18-19 Celsius and 60% RH very consistently

i trimmed two branches worth last night after 10 days of hanging - only two, because i was not convinced it was ready for the jars yet. anyway, fine trimmed them, smaller buds, popped them in a jar overnight with a gauge and this morning it had settled at 63%!

feels incredibly sticky to handle but the retention of terps has been flawless. even with a bunch of scraggly leaves still on her, she didn't smell grassy/green/chlorophyll-y at all!
the flavour does not match just yet, but it was only chopped 10 days ago so i'm sure it'll catch up in the cure.

but the take away is - i will be hanging whole plant for as slow a dry as possible from now on.

i will note, this was a Tangie'matic strain, which has (mine does, at least) quite sativa looking buds, smaller, more open structure than solid indica nuggs.
for a more dense plant i guess i'll trim more off to begin with and allow to hang as long as possible.
i'll be hanging my next ladies (Ripley's OG, Stilton Special) in the same environment in a few weeks time and i will update here again, because this is important stuff - i near ruined my first harvest by drying in paper bags in a 40-50 rh environment, after tonnes of reading and research said i'd be fine.

Was that 10 day dry a whole plant hang for the full duration? I have not tried that yet.

This harvest I am staggering the drying of 9 plants to in 3 batches. There are 3 different dries I'm doing. Each one is basically 3 plants at a time, starting with hanging full plants for 2 day. Then I cut branches and hang those until dry, which is about 6-7 additional days. It's def low and slow. About 10 degrees C so its cold and that slows the drying process. RH is about 25% right now. I'm not bothering to add humidity since the temp is so low. It's kind of like finding a good combination of temp and RH like when growing following a VPD chart. I have fully dried and jarred the first batch and I like what I'm seeing/smelling a lot. so def on the right track. As are you. Which is good to see. Time to move past the paper bags! LOL. Just joking. Some people doing it that way. I'm also pressing most of my bud. And another 2 plants worth will be used in a THC/CBD infusion in to coconut oil for edible meds for friends and also a batch of salve I wont to try for topical applications for joint pain treatment. So a lot of my bud doesn't even need to worry about a good dry and long cure because it can be processed the minute its dry. But some flower will be vaped or smoked by friends and family so to me its worth doing it well. Glad to hear you find something that works for you!
 
Was that 10 day dry a whole plant hang for the full duration? I have not tried that yet.

first 3/4 days i just hung it as it came out the pot - then after i was satisfied it wasn't going to instantly dry and spoil over night, i took off all the scabby fan leaves. they could have stayed on and not interfered i think. then on day 8, i'd already pinched a sample (and was happy) so i divided the plant up in to branches and removed the main stem and allowed them to finish like that - again, if i had more typically dense buds in there, this would have been better at the start.

i think the paper bags would work for me just fine as long as the environment those bags was in was correct. they didn't compensate for the higher temp and lower RH in my original environment as i had read they would help with. that's where i went wrong and it takes some experimentation with the environments you have available to you for drying to find what works for you...but that is very stressful when you've just harvested 80+ days of hard work :smoking:

once i can grow consistently enough to keep jars filled, i will also move on to pressing a lot of my flowers. but me and the missus currently smoke more than i can grow :crying:
 
Lol. How many plants do you grow at a time?

I strung up two clotheslines lines in the garage and here's a picture of hanging CBD branches across the entire width of my garage from two plants that's kind of hard to see the other branches at the end of the line. You can't miss the nice chubby buds in the foreground of the picture though.
 
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