Im about to harvest again and Im concerned about having loose/airy buds.

I took a small sample of a popcorn bud about 2 weeks ago. Dried it for over a week, and it came out very, very undense and loose. I didnt do anything special, just laid it down on a shelf in the garage (where its generally really hot with no circulation)

Is there anything I can do during the chopping/drying/curing phases to increase the density of buds?

Thanks.

...........bump............

I usually dry in a dark cool room with circulating air for about a week, then straight to jars for curing. never had airy buds before.

If you have dense dried and cured buds then you dried and cured dense buds. If you have fluffy dried and cured buds then you dried and cured fluffy buds.
　
If you want to read about drying and curing .. and more .. follow the link below.

http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/mj009.htm

__________________
Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible cunt... me.

If I put blue paint on a canvas and let it dry it will be a blue picture.

If I put yellow paint on a canvas and let it dry it will be a yellow picture.

If I add some yellow to the blue paint right before it dries I will get a green picture.

what hes trying to say is that drying/curing will do nothing to make your buds more dense. your buds are what they are and dryind and curing will do nothing to change that. Loose buds are due to not enough lighting, not improper drying LOL.

the only suggestion i could make about making your buds denser is to compress them somehow maybe? That would make them more dense for sure haha.

I know exactly what brick top was trying to say, a simple "no" from him would have sufficed.

I dont think light is an issue considering this is an outdoor grow with 100% full sunlight.

To me its logical to think that "drying" pretty much anything could definitely have an effect on the consistency of it.

What if you dried bud standing straight up, rather than upside down? Would that not make it less compact?

Quote:

I know exactly what brick top was trying to say, a simple "no" from him would have sufficed.

　
　
　
I am sorry if my penchant for attempting to make things totally clear by utterly obscuring them with as much unnecessary verbiage as could possibly be used rubbed you the wrong way.
　
I certainly would not have attempted to have intentionally rubbed you the wrong way but now that I think about it the odds were likely in favor that I would rub you the wrong way because since there are so many ways one could be rubbed and then there is only one right way I guess the only one that knows for sure how you most like to be rubbed would be you yourself.
　
I am of course only talking about what types of emotional reactions might be brought on in regards to how things are said or worded or phrased and of course nothing more than that in any way.
　
　
　

Quote:

What if you dried bud standing straight up, rather than upside down? Would that not make it less compact?

　
　
If it made a difference it should be marginal at most. There might be an ever so slight spreading of the upper edges of the outer new growth of buds … maybe.
　
If you consider that the plants are genetically coded to grow against gravity and as they grow larger each new bit has to be strong enough to not flop but instead grow as upwards as its conditions will allow it is irrational to believe that same amount of strength to hold together would be lost during drying if hung opposite of normal.
　
As they dry they will still retain most of the same shape that grew against gravity and as they grow drier there is less pulling down on them to spread them out. It is not as if the drying buds themselves would open up like an aging rose. Possibly where the buds connect to the stem/branch there may be some slight droop/spreading at first but that would not alter actual bud density, just bud location/position in relation to where it would otherwise have been had it been dried the other end down.
　
I think if there would be a difference it would be negligible at most.

__________________
Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible cunt... me.

dont listen to Prick Top. shes a tool ive read her posts. well ive read like the first sentence of most of them because theyre so boring and pointless, and half the time just copy n pasted from another site ha.

after you cut and trim the buds let them hang up or sit out like you did the first time, only do this for a couple days
then trim all the nuggets off all the larger stems so youve got no stems showing for the most part.
when the stems inside the buds still bend, and the buds feel slightly dry but still kind of sticky, put them in a paper bag and GENTLY push them together.
you wana be sure to check them for mold often but they should get more dense if you keep doing it over time. if they start drying too fast, use a plastic bag
they might lose some of thier sparkly crystalyness but they should be more compact.
density and compactness are different IMO, theres really no way to get airy buds "more dense" but pressing them together a little like this can achieve the effect.

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TW,

You didn't initially state that you were growing outdoors.

Full sunlight makes no difference. What parallel you live in
does make a difference; Unless you are on the equator, now
is entirely TOO EARLY to harvest. You will continue to get airy
buds because the plant has not finished it's outdoor cycle.

Get a farmers almanac and estimate the first frost in your
area, again if you are not on or near the equator, then you
can expect to harvest within a +/- 3 week period of that
time. I've done to work for you as well...

Provided you live in the US, go here and click on your state...
Then find the closest city to you, and it will give the first and
last frost dates. Try it out.

I live on the 37th parallel and my specific frost date is around 10/15/09.

If you live near the 37th parallel you can expect to wait another
three weeks before harvest.

You asked a question, got a correct answer, and then dissed the
person for not answering it your way. I am expecting my answer
to not be what you wanted... but lucky for us all, these are the
facts. Outdoor plants are worlds apart from indoor plants.

Curing and drying will never make early buds look like finished buds.

Good luck.