Sowing The Seed
by Chet Tucker
Now that you’ve completed your wet/dry trim, we’re down to the final stage of the grow- ing process. Before your flower heads to market, the goal is to properly cure your flower. It’s important that the cannabis not dry or cure too quickly as the plant is still producing The THC should continue to catalyze during the process for peak results. On the flip side of the coin, you don’t want your flower to cure too slowly and increase chances for fungal germination. Properly cured cannabis can last for several years so let’s take a peek at some common best practices.
We’re at the stage of retaining as much of the terpenes as possible by properly caring for your flower. Keeping a room temperature at 60 degrees is common and allows the plant to remain below temperatures that can sway the volatile of the curing process. Next, you want your relative humidity (RH) to remain consistent at around 50%. You don’t want it too dry because we want to optimize the accumulation of THC during the post-harvest timeline. Most will dry cure for a week to 10 days but it’s ideal to stretch a bit longer if you can manage the monetary turn times necessary to keep your productivity rolling.
You’ll know that it’s fully cured when the stems snap and the bud has a bit of a “crunch” to it and many master growers won’t cure less than 6-8 weeks.
Whether you use steel, glass, or plastic tubs, your buds will need to be “burped”. In the early stages, you’ll want to burp a few times a day, giving them enough oxygen to aid in the sugar me stabilization. After the first several days, moving to every 24-28 hours during the curing timeline is adequate. You want to give them some oxygen by opening the container fully and gently moving/shaking the buds around. Once you’ve reached the desirable results, it’s time to pack and label your flower for market! There are many different bags that you can use but ensure that you’re not going on the cheap with bags that won’t stay properly sealed during the time frame that you’re shopping your flower for sale. Note: It’s critical that the flower is tested and passes all required labs before it’s taken to market.
Finally, some good practices for moving your flower is to en- sure you are being transparent with your retail dispensaries. Have your full labs on hand and share what process you used to grow, trim, and cure your flower. A website and social media will strengthen your validity and confidence in the marketplace. Dispensaries and consumers like to know where their flower is coming from and having transparent methods for communicating your flower is ideal. If you are new to the marketplace, start local and expand from there. If you prefer to stick tot he grow- ing and let someone else peddle your end product, you have a few options. You can look to hire someone for a fee or percentage per pound or find a wholesale broker/processor to partner with to either display at a fixed market location for incoming dispensary buyers and/or they’ll work their existing buyer base and expand beyond them to get your flower to market.
Be proud of your results but never too proud to outpace the end quality. Get a few professional opinions and flow with the season of the market. Keep your patience and consistent growing process in line and strive to keep strong genetics and a trustworthy brand/name.
Next month we’ll dive into other methods of processing your flower and conclude the Sowing the Seed series.
We’ll catch you next month!