Botrytis My Old Friend - My Solution to Bud Rot

OnlyAftrDrk

Active Member
My last three harvests have been disasters, however I think I have finally figured out Botrytis (bud rot) and why it has attacked every grow I have had.

I moved house 1 year ago after having countless effortless successful growths a great little grow room under the stairs in my previous house in a completely different area of my city.

My current house is situated very close to the coast in a wetlands area, very humid and cool. Perfect whether for bud rot. We dont have stairs anymore so my last three grows have been in the garage.

For the last three grows I have been getting hit by but rot in the flowing stage and I have tried all sort of different things to stop it.

Heres what I have been seeing:

Plants get into 2-3 weeks of flowering or later and then start developing red pistles very quickly
Once a pistle turns red it only takes a day or two at the most of the rest of the buds to go the same color
its not a golden Delicious looking red but a grey brown with a hint of red. Greyer at the start, redder as it progresses
I quickly trim the buds as they look good go smell, smell great. I do a quick dry just to make sure. The first day after dry they taste OK but each day after that no matter how crispy dry the bud is they progress worse and worse. Starting from what tastes like a slight perfume chemical taste they progress to dirty socks taste to just plan disgusting.

So what have I been doing so wrong?

For a long time I thought it was 100% environment. Moving house, location and now growing in the garage I thought it must be humidity.

For my last grow I was able to control the environment a little better. I monitored the temp and humidity and yes while it did get cool and humid it wasnt too high or too cool. Just touching the danger zone of 21 degrees Celsius and over rarely went over 60% humidity. Even if it did I have a fan on the room at all times. It was very well ventilated.

So I did some reading and I did some more analysis in what I was doing.

In my old house I used my own designed flood and drain table which seemed to me an amateur affair. Since I moved I upgraded to a bucket hydro system and watering circles.

After reading about the kinds of methods that lead to bud rot I read that over watering and over nuting can lead to bloated tissue and mold/bacteria.

One thing I noticed in all my grows in this house that I didnt pay much attention to at the time was the fact that they the tissue and branches were so soft, much software and engorged then I was used to in the past. Also they were much more mushy and easy to cut. Cutting down my previous stalks almost needed a hacksaw.

I am sure I have figured out the source now.

1. The watering rings and water pump I am using is flushing a much greater amount of water through the plants the before. In fact I never see the coco even remotely dry at all.
2. In the bottom of the buckets there is always an amount of water that doesn't drain in my last few grows I have seen roots grow down to this level.
3. I have been pumping up to .26 EC into these plants in the final stages of flowering in an attempt to get bigger plants.

My solution will be to water less frequently. Maybe even once per day if it stays moist the whole day. Also I will set up some kind of pump system to make sure no water remains in the buckets after watering and third I will go no higher then .22- .24 EC.

Thoughts?
 

mipainpatient

Active Member
Just a fleeting thought:
where are you taking your humidity measurements? Because you will always be closer to 100% above a body of water (moreso the warmer it is). If you have standing water under the plants you may be asking for it.

Could always just rig hoses to the bucket bottoms and have them run somewhere else so you don't have to eff with them every time you water
The harder stems comment kinda made me feel like you were on par with the water conclusion.
Hope you get it turned around, bot is nastiness.
Bleach is your friend too and nothing wrong with getting a dehumidifier, just fan over your buckets towards the humi and you'll just circulate the humidity away?
Hope something useful came from this, im a little....relaxed
MPP
 

OnlyAftrDrk

Active Member
I measure the humidity about halfway up the grow tent. Its usually under 50% but in a number of occasions it gets up to 60-70%. The bad thing over the past months has been those humid days where quite cold and as we have no heating in the garage I suspect those are the days Bot loves.

The way my bucket system works is mostly with gravity, however the last pot in the tent always seems to have a large puddle of stagnant water in it as the gravity cant seem to get it back to the res. I am going install a pump in there to get that water out and keep the tent as dry as possible.

Im moving my gear into a spare bedroom today. I may invest in a dehumidifier as well, but at least if i cant tackle the humidity in the air I can control the temp. Our internal heaters make sure it never gets less then 20 degrees Celsius.

I think the problem is a bad combination. Cool temps, water at the bottom of pots, poor air flow in the garage, over watered and over nuted plants.
 

OnlyAftrDrk

Active Member
Im going to try something new with my nutes..

Starting of at .04 from seedlings I am only going to add more the solution when they start showing me signs they need more.

I can do this by monitoring both the color of new growth and monitoring the res. If it has less nutes then i put in there i need to increase the nutes however if it is a little higher then i put in I need to reduce.
 

mipainpatient

Active Member
Dig, I'm mostly organic so I don't even bother with EC but I def see the advantages. I knew a guy once who said he just left bathroom scales under his plants and used that to tell when to water and how much etc. Based on what they drank he nuted appropriately. Sounds like you got a handle on it, esp with the move + dehumid
 

OnlyAftrDrk

Active Member
I hope so man... its so disappointing to get taste your freshly cut buds slowly develop into what tastes like gym socks...

My wife and I now have a very good nose for that chemically smell. Starts off with a slight aftertaste that we call "Grandmas Stale Perfume" which just has a hint of old spice type chemical aftertaste... from there each day starts tasting worse and worse.

Its amazing that this fungus can keep eating even once the bud is 100% dry.

My guess is my ladies are just getting a hint an infection on the open pistils and as soon as it spreads they all turn red and i think, oh f*ck time to harvest... already?? Its like groundhog day of bad harvests...



Dig, I'm mostly organic so I don't even bother with EC but I def see the advantages. I knew a guy once who said he just left bathroom scales under his plants and used that to tell when to water and how much etc. Based on what they drank he nuted appropriately. Sounds like you got a handle on it, esp with the move + dehumid
 
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