light bleach or rot?

i think light bleaching? although, it only seemed to have impacted lower branches. Never saw this before in my environment. Maybe just Barney's Farm strains are sensitive to a lot of LED wattage?

Not light bleaching. That’s only on tops or tops.

Looks like bud rot too me

fuck. adding more pictures. this is post harvest, so it is all just trash? one shot of dried trimmed bud the other still drying on stem.

Looks fine to me in the last pics. Not beautiful but smokeable.

so what am i seeing here? not mold... not bleach. it wasn't an ideal grow, for sure. but this is new/odd to me.

I could be wrong but I see that in buds that the plant got too dry. Possible cause?

Is that larf?

Its the beginning stadium of fungal infection. Can't say if it is bortrytis or fusarium. Light bleach does occur on the very top notch of the headbud in the most intense light, not on the inside towards a stem.

Sure this often happens because the drought stress was too high while the ventilation of that inner steam zone is hard to maintain and so is low.

When temperature and co² is high, than the stomata widen up and vapor must leave, even though no or few light is entering those surfaces, they must evaporate, so they do it.

When there is too few water in the soil now at the same time and the ventilation of the inner bud is low, then those inner bud-surfaces are getting wet on the outside towards the stem while the stomatas are wide open and the inner plant getting dryer and dryer, you can't see it on the light-up side.

This is the time of the fungus entering the plant EASILY! Doors open, plant weak, spreading outside on the wet surface to more and more "doors".... like a "siege".

I conquer this with reducing temps in the last 2 weeks, maximising ventilation througput and keep the circulating ventilation up at night... making sure there always is enough water for the light phase! Also make sure to check every day for dead leaves that start rotting somewhere in between. These could be a starting point for a fungus to infest your buds. So remove them always regularly!

I never dry big buds hanging at the stem.... i always cut them down, check the inner site for fongus and dry them in a net, to prevent further rotting without noticing at all, losing much more.

It's not ok to smoke it, could be aspergillus... WHO KNOWS!?.... at least cut away anythis that looks strangely brownish or with greyish looking stigmas out the calix, thats a bad sign.... stigmas are never greyish... also you could check with a 100-200x microscope if there's already mycellium spreading through the ok looking parts - they look just like similar to trichomes just thinner and longer, thats mycellium... spores are yellowish whitish greshish (depends on type) dots, bigger than trichome-heads, use particle filter when smoking to not inhale spores from unburned material upfront.... if it would be aspergillus or fusarium, those are already danger! Take care! In case of mycotoxins in the mycellium, there is nothing you could do to remove them.... the chances to hit those are low, but I dont gamble with my life!

Nobody can tell from a picture what it is, without chemical analysis, even not experts. Most people take this serious first when they got hit or had a friend or family-member beeing hit be such! It's no fun! Smoking such is on your own risk!

Could be trichoderma too.... btw... nothing special, some might call it "noble mold" ... but who knows.... who knows.
Edit: Well, trichoderma subtype longibrachiatum is not ok....thats the problem there is SO MUCH diversity in the fungal-kingdom, nobody can tell the hell what it really actually is, without detailed analysis of the compounds in it! One can only say, the chance to hit a bad type is maybe 1:500 or 1:1000 even 1:2000......from the ration of known bad types (few hundreds) to known non-problematic types (hundred thousands)..... the problem is: We only have 1 life, no 1ups! You hit one in your life high likely only one times at all... because if you do hit one, medicine has barely nothing to help you.... we have only 5 different antimycoticas worldwide! Thats nothing! The death rate for aspergillus lung infections is fracking high! And theres other fungus beeing problematic... look what candida auris did to canada and is now spreading worldwide!

Candida auris: Worldwide fatalities from resistant infections are estimated at 700,000 per year!!!


Dont underestimate the health risk from smoking cannabis with infected fungus! Most of the time "nothing happens", but if something happens, then you are in very deep trouble! Its's hard to remove a systemic resistant fungus from your inside body.... and there's no "antidote" against mycotoxines that are troublesome in tiny tiny doses.... usually if the imune systeme cannot compete and the medicine cant help, thats it... you're done quickly :/

This is light bleach, you would have noticed before..... this is BT 46

Check out this great info material about pathogen fungus problems in the world:

Check the data on how many people have serious fungus infections, check the death rate.... it's amazing.

• Invasive aspergillosis – 50% mortality treated, 100% if not. >100,000 deaths • Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis – 15% annual mortality, 450,000 deaths.

Click to expand...

More than half a million deaths alone to aspergillus via lung infection each year

Aspergillus is one of the most severe threats that growers face, since the product is smoked and inhaled, therefore also unburned parts going to be inhaled, especially lose spores on the material going to be inhaled with the toke, but also burning doesn't disable mycotoxins.

I would not recommend smoking any infested material, even if you are sure that it is not aspergillus, because theres always a slight chance your imune-system overreacts, could lead to autoimune-syndromes or cause allergics, even if it is "harmless" species.

You would not catch me smoking that shit, as its not even cooked yet. I would make a tinture but decarb first.

Damn, that sucks. I do not want to risk it; straight into the trash.

I didn't mean to freak anyone out, just to consider the possibilities about what could happen.

Usually a healthy person with a functioning imune system inhales spores of all kind - including aspergillus - all day long, especially indoors in human housing, where it is warm and where it can find lots of niches.

They can become handy and are known for co-morbitity when the imune-system is busy with another threat, for example influenza-flu or covid-pneumonia. The imune system still has to fight the fungal-spores and others like pneumococcus.... it cannot just stop defeating them just because atm you are sick with something else.... theres constant pressure on our immune system, that stuff gets it's chance, if you are weakened, like the plant....

So the spores are only great danger if you inhale a) great masses or b) you have suppressed imune system for any reason. Than they get systemic, they entered your system, and the fight gets "harder", without medicine, you would die 100%... with good medicine, early detection your chances better than 50%

Still small amounts of generous fungal spores for healthy person are not a great danger.

But exceptions exists, candida auris is perfect example, it resists the human imune system of healthy people.... it is imune against us, and it kills us! We have no good medicine against it...boyaa, its real. Just catch a few spores in the wild and face what the survival of the fittest really means.

I personally think.... theres more exceptions.... 1% is what we know, and 99% is what we dont know.... and the funny thing is: The more we get to know about the world, the more the mountain 'unknown' rises higher and higher.

SO creating brownies from it makes the mycotoxins enter your body-system via your gut! No great difference... in the end... the sh*t from the fungus gets in your blood! Into your liver trying to deconstruct them => Cancer. Thats the route, thats why they are called toxins, because our body cant handle them..... most of the times you are just lucky having NO myco-TOXINS in your "bud-grown-friend"

If you grew your buds, you can afford with trash it.... leave this loot to the fungus, it earned it... dont use it! Respect it!

not catch me smoking that shit, as its not even cooked yet. I would make a tinture but decarb first.

Click to expand...

The problem is that neither burning, nor alcohol deactivates problematic mycotoxins. If they polluted a bud, it is impossible to divide them from the THC again... those mycellium-web goes through the trichomes, those compounds got INSIDE the resin.

Thats 2 different aspects a) Spores... b) Mycotoxins in the Mycellium-Web.
Thats 2 reasons for trashing them!

I dont say trash the HOLE harvest.... but cut anything inappropriate out.... plus 1cm into the OK-buds.... then CHECK there (1cm deeper into the ok bud) with the microscope, if you find mycellium, then cut more.... or just live with a tiny little remaining risk of harm, but then dont cry if you got lucky... if you did that to somebody else, not good for you, but good enough for sale... god be with you... in jail!


Just imagine the rotten bud is a revolver with one bullet in it.... does it matter if the revolver has 200, 500 or 1000 chambers?
Or does it only matter, that's there's a freaking bullet in it, and that it is actually REAL threat, each time? Legit comparison!
Do you wanna play... for a product that not worth 50cent a gram when you grew it on your own?

I say no! Safety first! If this is the result of high yield through growing skills... find the skill to prevent those first! Or simply dont grow such big buds with high intense light, co² etc.... grow smaller, and they be fine without mold! If you encounter such problems every time or most of the times, over long duration you put yourself at high risk. Work it out!

Great response.

Only one of the plants in the tent appears bad, but I do not want to risk it. I already improved the airflow in the tent and I ordered a 3m respirator for bleach and mold; I will be going to town this weekend.

I may add a dimmer to my LED, so the plants do not get so massive and dense. I fell into the trap of "bigger is better." These ladies were trich coated DENSE giants. My VPD was on point the entire grow and humidity never really got over 50%, so I did not think I would have any issues. However, I will do thorough inspections throughout the grow henceforth.

This was my first use of a trellis. I probably should have used the netting to spread and weave a bit cleaner, leaving more room between nodes. It is kind of tough to tell how big they will be when they are only a few weeks into flower. That is when I started to weave branches through the trellis net. I did a real thorough defoliation weekly until about wk3 of flower. They were grown using the 4way lst technique.

Back to the drawing board. A lot of things to think about and tweak moving forward. Maybe I will ditch the 4way LST next time. I will definitely ensure my airflow has a better cross ventilation pattern moving forward. I got lazy...

Thanks again for the feedback. Much appreciated.

Thx. I heard of a technique, to cut a hole in the top main bud, to allow much better ventilation of the inner stems, if they grew such big, but i never tried it.
"bigger is better". Ha, yes, sure it is. Everyone loves big and compact buds. By increasing your growing skills and if you leave the high-efficient at low- temperatures low-intensity light-region (500-700ppfd) for more higher yielding intensities (800-1000ppfd) when the LST and Ambient are high enough to have linear yield increase resulting.... doing so increases evaporation greatly, for sure.

Like I said, I deal with it the way, that when the bud-shootsgrew to a compact state and blocking the stems at about week 7-8 of the flowering:
1. exhaust vent 100% day and night
2. circulation vent 100% day and night
3. decrease the temperature by decreasing the light intensity again.

Basically i just lower the light-intensity from ~1000ppfd to ~700ppf in the last two to three weeks, depending on how thick the buds are, and having air at max till the end. That makes ambient temperature go -1°K and "leave surface temperature/ bud surface temperature" decrease also from +1°K to 0°K and so having greatly reduced evaporation.

Thats makes it hard for the fungus and strengthens the plants to withstand... while usually mass is accumulating week 1-8... last two weeks only gain few percents!

Works out for me. Keeeping the Room/Groomroom clean and hygiene is another aspect... if that anteroom has the walls full of aspergillus behind the wallpapers, guess what, no measure can protect (except deep-hepa-filtering/uvc cleanrooms), you need to check the room before the growroom too, of cause!

Regarding UVC or hepa-filter,I dont think that is neccessary if you adjust the ambient in the last the weeksto make it easier for the plants to withstand the fungus.

Pasteur said: " The germ is nothing, the terrain is everything! "
keep that in mind, Pasteur was a genius!

BTW beginners are teached to learn at low light intensities because it is a lot easier.... they are also teached to not over-water the plants, because beginners often damm-up water in the pots.

On a more advanced scale, with higher intensities, higher running evaporation, driving great drought-stress, you should recognise, that these health-problems in general - not only on the inner stems - occur when the water runs out, while the high intense light is on. It is different to low-intense light. Plants can withstand low-intense light without water... but not high-intense!

In case of water run-out under high intense lighting LST rise to +5-8°K, even under LEDs, even with good circulating ventilation.
Plants manage those shortages by giving up parts to consolidate that water. This occurs physically passive by plant-inner physical water pressure deficits... the parts under the intense light suck the water out of the parts in shade..... still the shaded parts evaporats and get disfunctional with open stomata.

Know, when the pots are empty! It'ok having them just run empty when the light goes out for the night, they can handle that. But they can't handle no water with the high intense lights on. It burnes the top leaves and it dries out the hole plant (shaded bottom first), getting weak and beeing openly accesible via stomata for spores.

So on a high intense grow, keep an eye on the water in the pots, not only in the air! There must be water! This is where the O² they are gassing-out comes from.... not from the CO² from the air, but from the water, they split the hydrogene with the light... lol most people dont understand that at all, but it's true If the light cannot split the hydrogene from the water.... then the light gets thermically absorbet as HEAT, baking a plant... well baking is heating wet stuff... this is more like "roasting" dry stuff

Plants contain about 76-82% water (little less or more, whatever, depending how much resin they secreted themselves in )... they need that minimum water in the living biomass. When they drop lower... they die, or lets say, they cannot function or operate propperly! Still theres enough water for the fungus to enter open stomata and eat that dying disfunctioning plant parts, especially when theres wetness-film outside a plant surface where it settled and germed! The fungus is ok with only 10% water in the medium (the plant) at all and eats it all up! Sneaky little mo....f.....s!

Managed yield?!... here's your next deciple! You never stop progressing better!

The first thing is simply to switch from high intense grow (1000ppfd@25-30°C) in week 1-7/8 to low intense grow (700ppfd@22-24°C) in week 7/8 up to the end. This still gives a high AND power-efficient yield per square and lowers the risks of the high intense grow greatly. Try that, it's simple! Works for me!

Btw... if you din't already recognise yourself: Try more colas on the same square. The more colas, the smaller the colas. On a high intense grow... they still going to be "big compacts buds"..... just instead such big monsters, you have more smaller monsters... that are easier to ventilate.... and evaporate less on the inside.

If you combine that with reducing intensity of the light and maximising air ventilation in the final phase, you hardly ever see those problems again.

Another hint is to strengthen the plants imune system against fungus and increase water retention capacity....
1. use mycorhizza- and bacterial-complex when re-poting.
2. use chitosan once in the veg, both soil and leaf application to elicit resistance against pathogene-fungus of the plants.
3. re-inocculate after with mycorhizza- and bacterial-complex again*
*because chitosan reduces mycorhizzation-rate in the root zone too, so do it again.

Theres is another new tech, to reapeatingly spray hypochlorides at any plant surface, to kill germs, espacially for cannabis, seems not to affects trichome-composition, but still I dont recommend it (considering the price of buying it all the time) and so i dont tell the name of this co's product. Desinfection is not the solution to the problem of growing germs in the growroom on the plants.... thats a problem of the TERRAIN! So changing the terrain is the solution!

Damn dude thank you so much. You gave me a lot to think about. I feel like I need to enroll in whatever college course you're teaching lol.

I'm going to get a dimmer for my DIY LED. It makes sense that the intensity is much lower towards the end, as the seasons are changing and the plant is further away from the sun. I'll also research chitosan. I never heard of it before. I try to keep it 100% organic, so basically all the products claim to benefit mycorrhiza network. I will also go with more topping and stay the course with LST, but I need to do a better job of keeping the colas further apart with ties. I did a bad job this time around and there was cola crowding towards the end.

All of that watering advice is a lot to take in. To summarize... Water in the morning when the lights go on, don't over-water (let the pots dry out), never water before dark period as they can withstand being dry at night. But check every morning because if they are during periods of intense light it may be curtains for them. Also, continually intake, circulate, and exhaust, even during dark periods.

Does that about sum it up?

Thanks again. This is why I love the old school forums.

Yes. A good quick way knowing when to need to water the pots is to know the approximate "empty weight" of your pots and lift them up when the light goes on, to check it. Some pots have higher own vaporation, like airpots, pouches-bags or ceramique-pots.

For me, making sure the pots have enough water, lifting them up, a day before it should be about time, saved me a lot of leaveburns, growth-inhibition, budrot. Still sometimes again, I wonder, how fast they are able to drink and evaporate in the last weeks...

Your welcome.

PS: you already enrolled my college. it's just that at this college you dont get marks, you have no concurrency and it's ok if you don't wanna learn anything, be lazy and waste the time with entertaining yourself to get the time given past, your free in decision about what to do and if to learn something, assuming you have internet conenction. You decide what you spend your time with in this college called life, my friend. I can't tell you what happens with "graduation"... i can only tell you that I love to seek knowledge, I am a complete different person each time something changes and enhances my view of the world, expanding my consciousness, so I actively look for stuff I still need to understand, nothing else to do Preparing for alzheimer-to-never-catch-me..... Weed aids me to not loose my mind while progressing at that high-rate of neuronal activity and recomposition. Theres good aiding fungal compounds regarding that skirmishing sluggish brainery to grow and enlighten you, but this is not the right forum for details regarding that and if you believe in fairytales or anunaki or whatever, better dont try any of those delicates, its only for "grounded" people, and i dont mean barefoot esoterians. ^^

The brain is so mysterious.... the more information you put into it, the more space for information you gather in it. It simply grows denser neurons the more neurons you take use of It's so amazing! Never lose the hunger and the ability to wonder! You got a quantum-computer with deep-learning neuronal-net between your ears that is driven by electrical impulse that we call consciousness, dont you ever wonder what that is supposed to be useful for when survival is beeing reduced to go shopping, visit the doctors and obey the laws, which not requires intelligence at all.... yeah study, study this, study that, what you wanna know, what you wanna improve on.... isn't there a lot? This is my world....pretty much ADHD

We are no genius ourselfs anymore, the genius lays in the vast collection of information in our extrernal lymbic system. With the words of Elon: "We are already cyborgs!" The smartphone is our first dispatchable enhancement connecting our brain to all knowledge of mankind anytime anwhere.... everyone takes use of it, gathering intelligence about our surroundings all day and all night, and actively enhancing their brain with functions and feeding information from the pool.... some others, most of us, only do some netflix, or some audibles... haha, cyborgs but still we are apes! Some climb just higher on the tree... haha, the college of the planet of the apes ... while ingestin' psychoactive, nootropic and psychodelic herbs and stuff, wohoo.... let me sum up with recommendation: DONT LISTEN TO ME... IM RIDICULE!