It's that time of year again! And what a perfect time for the cannabis sub-forum to arrive!

Thanks so much, Nexus team!

Just thought I'd share a few basic tips I've picked up for increasing yield and reducing your chances of getting bud rot.

A lot of people are familiar with topping plants but I've found that most people are still really attracted to big, tall plants that are shaped kind of like Christmas trees. These kinds of plants usually have massive, thick colas. Big buds and plants are fun to look at, but regular topping can increase yield and decrease your chances of bud rot/powdery mildew.

The plants I've been helping with this summer are still large plants, but they are very wide and shrub-like as opposed to tall and skinny. Having a more "squat" plant might seem counter-intuitive, but each time you top you are creating more bud sites. If you prune enough you will end up with several smaller tops on your plant(s). Just be careful not to overdo it or you'll stress out the plants.

By doing this you end up with smaller buds that are evenly dispersed. Mold thrives in moist/humid conditions, so the fatter and bigger your buds, the higher chance of bud rot. You can end up with a much higher yield by doing this because you aren't ending up with a cola the size of your arm that is entirely moldy in the center. You end up breaking all those huge buds down anyways so you actually save yourself a bit of work when it's time to harvest/trim. This is a method commonly used for indoor growing but works just as well outdoors.

Another trick I've picked up is spacing out harvesting. For example instead of taking down a whole plant at once, take just the biggest tops. Wait a week or so to let the lower buds fill out before taking them, and then wait another week or so before taking the bottoms. It obviously takes longer to harvest but you can end up with a significantly higher yield by spacing out each part of the plant when you decide to take down buds.

And lastly trim wet! Lots and lots of people trim their herb after it has dried which makes sense for many reasons, but if any one of your buds has a tiny bit of mold in it that you cannot see when it is hang drying, the whole thing will turn to white fuzz by the time it is dry. When trimming wet you can pick out mold as you see it and save entire buds from becoming unusable medicine.

This might seem strange to a lot of people, but if you are trimming wet spray your flower with a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide (soak it if you suspect powdery mildew). The spray helps the trichomes stay on the bud and not on your fingers (the difference is remarkable) and the H2O2 helps to disinfect the bud of any potential mold/mildew spores. Here's a video explaining it in more detail (he soaks it to treat powdery mildew, when we tried this we just lightly misted the herb).

I am trying this for the first time in my life with a Girl Scout Cookies plant that was pretty pathetic tbh. I threatened to just harvest her for shake before deciding to go ahead and flower her. Regardless, she has now turned into the first one ready for harvest, but the lower branches look really immature, so I have just taken the top buds, leaving all the vegetative architecture, re-staked her and put her back into the flower room.

Hopefully this will result in a better yield than just the tiny bits of bud that Nemo Amicus calls "bud-oley!"

Very nice! Keep us posted on how it goes! Girl Scout Cookies is a great strain too

The larfy stuff at the bottom can also be used for a very high-grade concentrate if it doesn't fill out quite as much as you'd like.

Hi there

Good post, lots of great tips



I thought I would add my bit on humidity. In the uk humidity is a huge problem, sometimes being 90% outdoors, so mold is or can be a huge problem over here if not tackled.

I agree with what you said, that yes mold does indeed thrive in higher humidity environments, but that is easily fixed by considerably increasing airflow. If you keep your humidity to an ideal of 50% rh, then you should never get any mold at all.... Topping for yeild is an excellent idea, but if you are topping to prevent mold, then I would suggest that airflow could be a problem.

I have had tons of mold in the past .... I have found that all my mold problems went away after I increased air flow, that and not foliar feeding later on, which increase humidity and when the hot lights turn off, the temp drops and the humidity rises even further. Early signs of mold which shows itself on leaves usually before it reaches the buds are grey mold patches on leaves and often brown spotting on the leaves.

Idealy all the leaves on the entire plant, should be gently moving under the power of the circulating fans, this is ideal, but if just enough circulation is going on to gently move the leaves with good intake and outtake empting the room of air at least 20 times an hour, then you should be good to go.

A great way to help keep mold at bay (unintentional rhyme) is with the addition of an air sock or intake filter, so all the air coming into the enclosure is filtered and the amount of spores entering your grow area are greatly reduced.

Peace