Did you get calibration fluid and hopefully some storage sol'n for your pen? With proper care a pH pen can last a decade but all will need proper calibration fairly often to make sure you're getting accurate results. Some pens require 2 point calibration to be dead accurate but just calibrating to pH7 is usually enough. I like to do pH4 as well once in a while tho I use pH Perfect AN nutes most of the time so don't bother testing pH with them. My pen has a clear cap and I keep storage sol'n in it when the pen is sitting on the shelf for months at a time. It slowly evaporates but the salts in it are still there so I'll just add a little RO water to it to keep the dilution approximately the same. For long term storage it's best to let it dry out then soak in storage sol'n for at least 24 hours before using it again. I keep a spray bottle of RO water for rinsing off after use or calibration but NEVER let the pen sit in pure water as it will leach the salts out of the glass bulb and destroy the probe.
I never do the dark period before cropping. I take the top colas first then let the plants keep going for a week or more to let the lower, smaller colas ripen up and get fatter before taking them off. With my arthritis I only take as much off at a time that I can trim up in an hour or so in case my hands start cramping up and I'm forced to quit. For drying I put the trimmed buds into doubled up paper bags and keep down in my cool basement dumping out into a tray daily for the first week for maybe 30 - 60 min then back into the bags. If it's nice and cool like 45F during the winter I can take 3 - 5 weeks to get them dry enough tho still moist to put into tobacco cans for burping for another month. The first week or so in cans they need daily dumping out to air dry a bit to prevent mould. Bit of a hassle but the cure is really nice and the bud smokes so smooth.
The actual curing happens during the drying part with the burping more of an aging process like with wine. The pot need to be kept evenly moist for curing to happen. Once any goes dry it won't cure as the biological processes that do the curing stop in the dry portions. You can moisten it again but it's not going to cure anymore. I'm looking for a cheap used bar fridge to have better control over the temp and humidity for more consistent curing. The wife gets annoyed when everything in the fridge smells and tastes like pot.
Inattention to the process can result in mouldy buds and I've had that happen a couple times but it's small batches so not a great loss and a little mould doesn't hurt when it's made into concentrate for my own use. If it's all covered in white fuzz then into the compost or burning barrel it goes!
From this.
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To this. OG#18
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