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Mold control, mold protection, mold detection.

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Ok, so many of us know that our favorite herb is an ideal home for all kinds of fungal nasties.

Many of us, especially those who live in ultra high humidity locales are likely interested in mold prevention.

I figured it would be great to start a thread to look into how we might prevent fungal outbreaks (or even treat them if the worst happens, perhaps someone else will have good information on this).

I want to start with talking a bit about botrytis cinerea. Grey mold, bud rot, anyone who uses nugs should know about it. It is not necessarily harmful to individuals if ingested, unless they have a preexisting allergy or are immunosuppressed etc.

However, botrytis can absolutely turn an entire jar of wonderful nugs (and it likes to hit the biggest nugs you have by the way - nature is a cruel mistress isn't she?) into brown goo or similar. Resin is not spared so the nugs are equally spoiled for those of you who vape flowers as for those like me who only consume concentrates.

Here's a couple of ways to control for botrytis:

1. Dehumidification of ALL ROOMS where cannabis is stored:
Your first line of defence is to keep any room and area where cannabis is stored below 55% humidity. Molds, including botrytis do not have much luck thriving in environments with lower relative humidity than this.

2. UVC light treatment (254nm wavelength):
UVC light is well known to prevent botrytis infection. Even if any of the spores survive the treatment, these are rendered unable to cause the infection or decay that makes botrytis the bane of the cannabis patient/enthusiast. These spores are unable to infect or ruin even the most susceptible, maturest of fruits that have been deliberately dosed with spores and then UVC treated (http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/abs/10.1094/PHYTO-09-15-0240-R).

There is of course a flipside; UVC radiation degrades cannabis resin (as does all electromagnetic radiation, from visible light to gamma rays and everywhere in-between). Direct exposure to cannabis flowers should be kept to a minimum and even then only if you notice the beginnings of botrytis (this will usually be first indicated by grey rot starting where each branch comes out of the main stem of the plant, which progresses up the stem and infects and causes rapid decay from the inside of flowers to the outside). UVC is fantastic for sterilizing surfaces and quickly treating a room or area. I would recommend UVC as a preventative treatment for any rooms where cannabis medicine is stored or processed. Please minimize exposure of UVC to your skin and eyes, remember also that very brief exposure is required for anti-fungal UVC treatment of surfaces/biological material, no need to leave a UVC light on all the time.

Does anybody else have any experience with preventing mold problems in ultra long-term storage of cannabis? Any horror stories of beautiful material that got away due to grey mold?

Please keep any discussion of cultivation out of this one, even if it is also a relevant topic when consider botrytis. Remember, this is not the forum for that talk ;)

Thanks for reading!
 
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