Testing THC Content

[SirLancelot]

So I have been searching for an answer to this. How could someone such as myself test the THC content of my buds? Im sure you need some expensive technical equipment but I am still curious to know. Because I am about certain that half of the percentages that companys are givin are slightly flawed.

 

[cannawizard]

So I have been searching for an answer to this. How could someone such as myself test the THC content of my buds? Im sure you need some expensive technical equipment but I am still curious to know. Because I am about certain that half of the percentages that companys are givin are slightly flawed.

*testing for THC is gonna cost ya.. (nothing around going) to a place who does testing, just doesnt seem right to drop 70-100k for one of those machines/testers.spectroma.somethings' in your house?

--cheers

 

[Kaptain Kron]

how can you be so certain that the percentages are flawed sir, people pay good money to labs to have their stuff tested by people who went to school for chemistry and know how to extract the stuff and tell you what percentage of the bud THC was. So im not exactly sure what your reasoning is behind its flawed, are you saying a breeder or somting started a test company and is giving phony results on their strains to sell em? I mean what advantage would there be to fudging those numbers for those companys.

 

[SirLancelot]

Your right, I can't be certain they are flawed which is why I stated it would be cool to be able to check myself. Don't just read something, find something you disagree with and blurt it out, I asked a solid question. What is the equipment used, and how is it used. Why are you commenting if your not putting anything positive to the conversation? anyways maybe you haven't came across any companys that market their products better than it actually is but in my business I have. I wish I could be as trusting as you with no facts to back it up but I understand the concepts of marketing and business... I simply just want to know WHAT equipment is used, and HOW it's used. Maybe their is different methods to finding the THC content IDK and apparently neither do you. Ok so they pay big bucks to have labs check them,(still curious to how you know this for a fact) but they don't all send them to the same labs, so were not sure if their being tested the same or even if their using the same equipment.

Example: Say you want to take the average of a group of raw data points. Now you can go about several different ways to find an average and some will actually give you different answers even with using the same numbers. (Ayrthmetic mean, Weighted average, geometric mean, etc...)

So let me reiterate what I am asking; What is the equipment used and how? Im sure it costs out the ass and Im not really gonna purchase one, Guess it's just curiousity how the whole process works.

Thanks for the positive info cannawizard.

 

[cannawizard]

*heres some links you might find useful

http://fullspectrumlabs.com//
http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/
http://pureanalytics.net/
http://steephilllab.com/
http://thewercshop.com/
http://projectcbd.org/


--cheers

 

[suTraGrow]

http://steephilllab.com/



--cheers[/QUOTE]
That's who i used and use. They do it on the spot and you even get a cool info card with your strain

 

[cannawizard]

http://steephilllab.com/



--cheers

That's who i used and use. They do it on the spot and you even get a cool info card with your strain [/QUOTE]

*yup, i'd go with steephills good company.

 

[tommyo3000]

Oh jeez.. They use GC/MS, or Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry.. It is very precise. There is no reason to think breeders are making numbers up or that labs are using some high tech shit.. they use the same machine to do piss tests and a million other analyses..

 

[racerboy71]

how can you be so certain that the percentages are flawed sir, people pay good money to labs to have their stuff tested by people who went to school for chemistry and know how to extract the stuff and tell you what percentage of the bud THC was. So im not exactly sure what your reasoning is behind its flawed, are you saying a breeder or somting started a test company and is giving phony results on their strains to sell em? I mean what advantage would there be to fudging those numbers for those companys.

are you kidding me here?? what reason would a company use to post fake numbers?? hmm, let me think about that for about half a second or so.. maybe because some people think that those numbers actually mean anything important and judge strains according to what percentage of thc that a company says it has or doesn't have maybe??
or course a lot of these numbers are way of base.. not to say that a gs/ ms aren't accurate, of course they are extremely accurate, but who is to say that these co's are actually paying to have their buds go through the tests and they aren't just making up their own numbers.. i've never seen any reports from company's who do this type of testing to show where they get these numbers from..
i take the percent of thc that the co's put up to be about as worthless as they estimates on yields and maturity rates... not worth a damn in most cases imo..

 

[Felder]

Have someone test it, it is not even remotely plausible to buy your own equipment, nor run a GC-MS, they don't just come with instruction manuals.

They are typically built to order and take months to receive and shipping a several hundred pound machine isn't cheap. Plus all of the standards you have to have to calibrate them, as well as the gas they operate on isn't very cheap, plus the chemicals it takes to extract the compound into an analytically viable sample. All of this also requires space and permits/certifications to set up, operate, and store. Takes about a month to get all the software working with the standards dialed in. Plus the cost of the machines is ~250k for a new one.

Labs, regardless of what it is they are testing are audited, by both internal and external entities, for safety, procedure, and data integrity. The cardinal sin in a lab is to submit knowingly false data and it can get a lab shut down extremely quickly. Plus the fact that most lab workers sign a confidence statement that basically makes any bad data the fault of the analyst-i.e. customers who have been cheated don't sue the company, they sue you and you end up in prison, and when you get out of prison plan on a new career, bad data will get you blackballed from a very large majority of any available laboratory jobs.

In short I am sure that the labs in operation submit quality data for their samples and are a much cheaper solution, I am sure they are accurate in their analysis. If you have questions about their accuracy most of them have certifications that they have to make available to the customer and are most likely visible on their website. http://fullspectrumlabs.com/validation/ is the method validation for Full Spectrum Labs, basically a written and approved method for the determination of the cannabinoid chemicals found in marijuana as well as the numbers to back it up, just grabbed that at a few second perusal of their site, I am sure their accreditation is there somewhere as well, by the way looking through their method validation these guys are on top of things. As to accuracy of the GC-MS, to borrow from Samuel L Jackson in Jackie Brown a bit-"When you absolutely have to analyze every fuckin chemical in the room...accept no substitute." These machines measure in ppt or parts per trillion, they are extremely sensitive and extremely accurate. At my lab you aren't even allowed to wear your labcoat from outside the GC lab into the GC lab because you can contaminate blanks just by being in the room with chemicals they analyze for on your coat across the room. Samples for GC analysis are not allowed to leave the GC lab due to the ability to pick up contaminants just from being around them. Plus the machines are calibrated whenever your quality control standards fail and the samples are rerun until you get passing results.

Sorry for the wall of text, just something I have a bit of experience with.

 

[cranker]

I'm just curious how you know the % is off because of the company not the way you grew it?

 

[tommyo3000]

are you kidding me here?? what reason would a company use to post fake numbers?? hmm, let me think about that for about half a second or so.. maybe because some people think that those numbers actually mean anything important and judge strains according to what percentage of thc that a company says it has or doesn't have maybe??
or course a lot of these numbers are way of base.. not to say that a gs/ ms aren't accurate, of course they are extremely accurate, but who is to say that these co's are actually paying to have their buds go through the tests and they aren't just making up their own numbers.. i've never seen any reports from company's who do this type of testing to show where they get these numbers from..
i take the percent of thc that the co's put up to be about as worthless as they estimates on yields and maturity rates... not worth a damn in most cases imo..

Your fears are purely speculative. You cannot prove one instance of a seed company or breeder paying for fake numbers or changing their reports from the testing lab. With this kind of reasoning, how can you even be sure that these unscrupulous breeders don't stop at faking reports - why do you trust them to even send the strain you want? Why aren't they selling mexican schwag seeds?

I like seeds from South Humboldt Seed Collective which tells you that Cannalyse does the testing and will provide proof.

Any seed company should provide a report to you if you ask. If they don't, THEN you should be concerned..

 

[Kaptain Kron]

are u that fucking retarded that you cant go to google and type in thc testing equipment i found everything i need to test in five minutes, can i afford it fuck no. But i will tell you something whatever business your in is different that the testing they do. When you TEST someting your lookin for something thats there you dont fudge results it doesnt make them profit to say that every nug they test has a higher thc ratio than this company or the other. The only advantage a business like that has over any other in his field is the quality of his scientists or workers and the equipment you use thinking otherwise is ignorant. How do i know it costs a lot to have nug tested? BECAUSE I"VE HAD NUG TESTED MAN, that was a fairly weak response.

You say your CERTAIN that test results are flawed. You can't be certain, just as i cannot be certain they are not but i will tell you from personal experience and having the same nug tested at two different labs, i got the same numbers so believe they are flawed if you like and ill continue to waste my money testing my most quality nug so i know how much thc im pulling out so ill know when im comfortable enough to go enter into the california cup. Bye now imma go do something usefull like grow some herb for sick people.

Your right, I can't be certain they are flawed which is why I stated it would be cool to be able to check myself. Don't just read something, find something you disagree with and blurt it out, I asked a solid question. What is the equipment used, and how is it used. Why are you commenting if your not putting anything positive to the conversation? anyways maybe you haven't came across any companys that market their products better than it actually is but in my business I have. I wish I could be as trusting as you with no facts to back it up but I understand the concepts of marketing and business... I simply just want to know WHAT equipment is used, and HOW it's used. Maybe their is different methods to finding the THC content IDK and apparently neither do you. Ok so they pay big bucks to have labs check them,(still curious to how you know this for a fact) but they don't all send them to the same labs, so were not sure if their being tested the same or even if their using the same equipment.

Example: Say you want to take the average of a group of raw data points. Now you can go about several different ways to find an average and some will actually give you different answers even with using the same numbers. (Ayrthmetic mean, Weighted average, geometric mean, etc...)

So let me reiterate what I am asking; What is the equipment used and how? Im sure it costs out the ass and Im not really gonna purchase one, Guess it's just curiousity how the whole process works.

Thanks for the positive info cannawizard.

 

[Kaptain Kron]

ignorance im not talking about the breeders man what advantage is a company like steephill going to get from saying this querkle has 29% thc when it really only has 10% see what im saying the testing companies dont fudge numbers they give it to you like it is, the seed companys dont believe a damn word they say. The only company i trust with numbers like that is TGA

are you kidding me here?? what reason would a company use to post fake numbers?? hmm, let me think about that for about half a second or so.. maybe because some people think that those numbers actually mean anything important and judge strains according to what percentage of thc that a company says it has or doesn't have maybe??
or course a lot of these numbers are way of base.. not to say that a gs/ ms aren't accurate, of course they are extremely accurate, but who is to say that these co's are actually paying to have their buds go through the tests and they aren't just making up their own numbers.. i've never seen any reports from company's who do this type of testing to show where they get these numbers from..
i take the percent of thc that the co's put up to be about as worthless as they estimates on yields and maturity rates... not worth a damn in most cases imo..

 

[Kaptain Kron]

thank you for setting the record straight for these noobs who know nothing about lab sciences and have the absolute gall to suggest that s1 in that field would fudge numbers. I mean go talk to one of the scientists and suggest it you might as well have punched dood in the balls they take it very personally and seriously. Just the same way we do growing our nug.

Have someone test it, it is not even remotely plausible to buy your own equipment, nor run a GC-MS, they don't just come with instruction manuals.

They are typically built to order and take months to receive and shipping a several hundred pound machine isn't cheap. Plus all of the standards you have to have to calibrate them, as well as the gas they operate on isn't very cheap, plus the chemicals it takes to extract the compound into an analytically viable sample. All of this also requires space and permits/certifications to set up, operate, and store. Takes about a month to get all the software working with the standards dialed in. Plus the cost of the machines is ~250k for a new one.

Labs, regardless of what it is they are testing are audited, by both internal and external entities, for safety, procedure, and data integrity. The cardinal sin in a lab is to submit knowingly false data and it can get a lab shut down extremely quickly. Plus the fact that most lab workers sign a confidence statement that basically makes any bad data the fault of the analyst-i.e. customers who have been cheated don't sue the company, they sue you and you end up in prison, and when you get out of prison plan on a new career, bad data will get you blackballed from a very large majority of any available laboratory jobs.

In short I am sure that the labs in operation submit quality data for their samples and are a much cheaper solution, I am sure they are accurate in their analysis. If you have questions about their accuracy most of them have certifications that they have to make available to the customer and are most likely visible on their website. http://fullspectrumlabs.com/validation/ is the method validation for Full Spectrum Labs, basically a written and approved method for the determination of the cannabinoid chemicals found in marijuana as well as the numbers to back it up, just grabbed that at a few second perusal of their site, I am sure their accreditation is there somewhere as well, by the way looking through their method validation these guys are on top of things. As to accuracy of the GC-MS, to borrow from Samuel L Jackson in Jackie Brown a bit-"When you absolutely have to analyze every fuckin chemical in the room...accept no substitute." These machines measure in ppt or parts per trillion, they are extremely sensitive and extremely accurate. At my lab you aren't even allowed to wear your labcoat from outside the GC lab into the GC lab because you can contaminate blanks just by being in the room with chemicals they analyze for on your coat across the room. Samples for GC analysis are not allowed to leave the GC lab due to the ability to pick up contaminants just from being around them. Plus the machines are calibrated whenever your quality control standards fail and the samples are rerun until you get passing results.

Sorry for the wall of text, just something I have a bit of experience with.

 

[Felder]

I am not saying that dishonesty cannot happen at a lab, it can happen like it can anywhere else, BUT the likelihood of it happening is far less because any accredited lab will have procedures in place to root it out before it becomes a problem. Most scientists recognize that the beauty of science is the truth. The data is there and is interpreted. Also the beauty of science is that we don't have to care if you like your results or not, our job is done and is there for you to see. We are not there to give you the answer that you want, we are there to give you the scientific truth of the matter. Not saying that there aren't bad apples in the bunch, just stating that in a laboratory setting we tend to find the bad apples before they spoil the whole lot.

And yes, by and large suggesting to 99% of the scientists that there data is not sound, somehow flawed or outright dishonest is the equivalent of stepping on their marbles. It is just fine to wonder how accurate their data is, but most if not all labs will put it right out their how their data is evaluated and how their methods are tested so that people, companies, etc. will see that accuracy is something that is valued above all else in the lab setting.

Alot of people are unfamiliar with procedures and alot of scientific principles and methods. Ignorance is not a crime, it is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity....well there is just no excuse for that. I think the original poster was just unaware as labs are a bit of an anomally to the normal world, people in white coats tend to be a bit of a mystery to people, but underneath...we are all just like everyone else. We like our smoke, our drinks and our plants...we just play with lasers at work.

 

[SirLancelot]

wow when did i say the scientist or labs lied? I am talking about the people who make money off of the sales. Yes even in the Marijuana Industry people have the mindset of making money, It's a business (very lucrative one at that!)

Don't worry either brother, I understand good and well the principles of "scientific principles and methods" but i'm not here to show you my college credits. What i'm simply doing is asking a question that was answered (thanks guys) I never once attacked scientist or labs IDK how that got in here. Im simply saying it would be good to test.

And ofcourse it wouldn't benifit the scientist or labs to lie because they get paid the same either way Im not a dumbass but why would a certain breeder claim a strain carries X amount more to charge a higher price? So your going to sit there and tell me when the average person is surfing sites to buy seeds they don't look at the THC content? I Bet most people do and even some base there purchasing decision on this.So why wouldn't they? I think it could be obvious. Now I hope that your right, and Im an idiot for even questioning breeders. But since history has a tendicy to repeat itself and history tells us how business works then I feel my question of the THC content isn't too much of a big deal. I love that some places show the certificate from where it was done which makes it way more believable. That's not even my concern I just wanted to know how it was done!

Btw man chill, were all here doing the same thing. why are you getting so worked up, If your so much more informed an intelligent than me why waste your time here fucking with me a "noob" and i will gladly take that name even after over 5 yrs of growing because one thing that is for sure is I am always learning.

 

[SirLancelot]

ignorance im not talking about the breeders man what advantage is a company like steephill going to get from saying this querkle has 29% thc when it really only has 10% see what im saying the testing companies dont fudge numbers they give it to you like it is,

See brother I just read back through and I think your trying to fight with me and were talking about two different topics. It seems your fighting with me that labs don't lie which I agree with you, I was questioning the credibility of the breeders which you state above you are not talking about. So what are you talking about then?

 

[Kaptain Kron]

maybe you should go re read what you posted because the way you posted it you made claims the labs were fudgin numbers man, thats how this all got started if you would have stated that breeder numbers for thc ratings are BS then i would have agreed with you about 99% of the breeders but that was not the case you stated something differnt and that is why you were responded to in that way. Oh and as said above there is no excuse for stupidity believeing anything most breeders say falls under that category. theres very few honest breeders, subcool and shanti being 2 of them.

That should answer your question as to how that came up in here, now as for my hostility im sorry todays been a bad day.

 

[Kaptain Kron]

this to me does not say breeders it says the testing companys that are testing our buds are wrong please tell me how this is not worded that way im not trying to fight im stating facts and i happen to be ina bad mood and its coming out in my typing.

So I have been searching for an answer to this. How could someone such as myself test the THC content of my buds? Im sure you need some expensive technical equipment but I am still curious to know. Because I am about certain that half of the percentages that companys are givin are slightly flawed.