Drying Question: How afraid should I be of bud rot if the humidity is 38%?

I have my buds hanging in my ghetto grow closet with the smaller buds on a screen underneath them and a box fan blowing up at them. I also have a small fixed desk fan blowing from a corner down. Can I keep only the small fan blowing on them from the corner and not worry about bud rot, or keep the box fan on them all the time? Im afraid of drying to quickly but also of bud rot.

you should be fine with the air movement

Sorry I meant should I keep both fans on or am I fine with the small one only?

Bud rot usually occurs when the humidity is too high and drying takes to long to wick the moisture out of the buds. But in your case it sounds like the opposite, you have low humidity and you might dry too fast. A proper dry should take 5-7 days @ about 50-60% RH or when your thickest branch hanging can snap when bent and give off a good ~crack~ sound, but still leaving the branch intact, not in 2 pieces. If you think you need to dry for longer though and up your moisture level throw a humidifier in your closet or just a bucket of water, the evaporation of the water should help up the RH in your closet.
Hope this helps a bit.

TheCaptain4200 said:

A proper dry should take 5-7 days @ about 50-60% RH

Click to expand...

A proper dry should take as much as twice that amount of time, temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees and humidity between 45% and 55%

@Brick Top You hang dry for 2 weeks??? That seems like quite a long time.
@bundee1 and unless you have a nice humi-dehumidifier in your room it can be tough to control the humidity, and i don't really think it will make or break your harvest the with a 5-10% RH difference from what BT said and what i said. You can up your RH 10-20% and it won't really hurt anything. Uping your RH can do nothing but help you if you think your room is too dry and you need to push your hang drying out a few more days.

Curing weed is a deep feeling that you get in your gut and you spend as much time as you need looking ,smelling and feeling till you cram them in jars.Then you burp and fart with them until you're sure they won't mold. Then 3 to six months later you will get the herb at the best that you grew/But most of you will have smoked it by then. Peace

@dragnit Haha, ya i wish i had the patience to wait 3-6 months. Maybe i'll throw some nugs in a jar and hide it somewhere in my house, so in 3-6 i'll have some super cured nugs.

You can hide it at my house and I will keep it for you.For sure. MMM new and different bud for my smoking pleasure. Which is fully cured buds turn out to be. HA HA

TheCaptain4200 said:

@Brick Top You hang dry for 2 weeks??? That seems like quite a long time.

Click to expand...

At times, yes. Big thick buds and colas that dry faster than that are dried to fast. If someone has small buds and light fluffy CFL buds, then it would be hard to draw out a dry longer than a week, but the longer you can drag it out, without risking mold problems, the better the bud will be.

The same goes with curing. Last week I found a small jar of Neville's Haze that I had forgotten about. It must have been in it's jar for a year and a quarter to a year and a half. It was better than what I smoked when cured for 3 months or so.

People need to learn patience if they ever want the very best they can get. But if that doesn't matter to them, then dry quickly and hardly jar/cure, if at all.

i like a 8 month cure in a humididor

TheCaptain4200 said:

and i don't really think it will make or break your harvest the with a 5-10% RH difference from what BT said and what i said.

Click to expand...

Well, stranger, when you are in your fourth decade of doing this, then be sure to get back to me and tell me that the humidity range I mentioned is not really at all that critical to having the very best you can have rather than just have decent to good pot. Lower humidity, the crop will dry to quickly for it to be the best it can be. Higher humidity, and you are at risk of mold, even with moving air in the room.

Listen BT, i was responding to BunDee1 because in his original post he said he's growing in a ghetto closet situation. Obviously if he was growing and drying in a ghetto closet then he probably doesn't have a humi-dehumidifier to regulate the RH to exact "MMJ standards". He was asking if he would get bud rot in his closet and he's afraid its drying to fast, my thoughts would be @ 38% RH the answer would probably be no, because the RH is pretty low.
I was originally telling him if he wants to prolong the "hang" drying time, then use a bucket of water in the closet to up the RH a bit.
Obviously if he's growing in a closet, he is a beginner and doesn't have all the expensive tools we all have. I'm trying to give tips for this guy who doesn't have all the tools and nice room setup.
Who are you tring to help?? BunDee1 or yourself my surfing threads trying to find people to argue with. Help this kid.....fuck!! Quit talking to me, i'm fine and grow top shelf all day.
Remember to take into account he's growing in a fucking closet.
Don't worry BunDee1, you'll buds will be fine. Just with every new harvest try to upgrade at least 1 item in your grow each time. In no time you'll have a bitchin' setup.

~ Stranger.........even though i've been on RIU since 2007.

First of all Id like to thank everyone who posted. I can take bits of wisdom from every post. The Captain is correct. I'm pleased with my harvest so far but it was sort of a thrown together, let's learn something project more than a serious grow. Bricktop, I appreciate your dedication to the highest quality but money is tight and I cant afford reupping (and lately the quality has been lacking, too many harsh kushes). After doing it for soo long and perfecting your methods, Im sure you find it hard to go against your better instincts.

I still have to smoke so if I yield even an ounce dry(knock on wood it looks like a lot more) that would hold me over for the month until I find work.
Thanks again everybody.

bundee1 said:

First of all Id like to thank everyone who posted. I can take bits of wisdom from every post. The Captain is correct. I'm pleased with my harvest so far but it was sort of a thrown together, let's learn something project more than a serious grow. Bricktop, I appreciate your dedication to the highest quality but money is tight and I cant afford reupping (and lately the quality has been lacking, too many harsh kushes). After doing it for soo long and perfecting your methods, Im sure you find it hard to go against your better instincts.

I still have to smoke so if I yield even an ounce dry(knock on wood it looks like a lot more) that would hold me over for the month until I find work.
Thanks again everybody.

Click to expand...

38% is way too low, even try putting some moist (not wet) newspaper in your drying area to try up the humidity a little.

As Bricktop said, a proper cure is the difference between friends saying "that's nice stuff" and "I know you don't sell any, but your selling some of that to me today".

Potency, smoothness, consistency, flavour...all these things are the product of a slow dry (minimum 1-2 weeks) and a slower cure (1 month minimum, two if you're not rushing).

Honestly listen to Bricktop, you can grow the best genetics money can buy...with a rushed/bad/improper dry and cure you might aswell just find decent schwag.

Bundee, check this thread out this could really help, lots of great info and takes the guess work out of drying and curing.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=156237