Good morning Dude, Scotty, and Guru.
During my grow “research” aka YouTube searching, I’ve discovered many growers who at harvest time completely dunk and rinse their plants. They cut the plant down and before hanging to dry the plant, they completely rinse the plant in a 5 gallon bucket full of water. The theory is to rinse the plant of any residual foliage or IPM sprays left on the leaves or flower. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the DGC discuss the rinsing theory. Checking to see the DGC’s opinion…..to rinse or not rinse at harvest time? Growers love and stay medicated!
Apparently it doesn’t affect potency and brings out the flavor of the cannabis…but I’ve never done it myself nor would I ever dunk my precious flowers in a bucket of anything.
I’m going to give this a big nope!
I believe what you are referring to is dunking them in a h2o2 water bath. This, I believe was made up and used by Jorge Cervantes to do whatever you can to combat powdery mildew. If you lose the battle to it, you can dunk them and watch the pm float to the top. It’s really gross too lol
I tried it a couple of years ago on an mk ultra plant that was a huge pussy when it came to pm. She had it bad and at harvest I tried doing the dunk bath and it worked but it definitely fucks up your flowers. Some terpenes are water saluable and when dunked in water they wash away essentially. So it hurts your terpene profile a lot. It also gets your buds soaking wet so you have to blast a fan on them for a day or so. Again not a good thing to be doing.
I would say if it’s your only flower and you have no other option but to try it, by all means but if you did everything right with your grow and there’s nothing wrong with them, why bother? You’ll just end up ruining your hard earned harvest.
Had to do the treatment Nodnarb mentions once & would never put water on my bud again unless I was completely desperate. Tastes like bong water after.
I would never recommend any one to dunk there buds in water or any solution. I have seen some Cali growers having to use a similar process due to the massive tragic wild fires recently and all the ash that is in the air. If you have a say a pm issue your better off starting over vs trying to “wash” them. The excess moisture definitely could cause some problems.
Dunked some bud in Jorge’s hydrogen peroxide solution once, when just 1 of 5 plants in our room got PM near harvest.
We had been fighting it the whole life of that plant. Should have pulled her after her second PM outbreak instead of wasting all that time with milk spray, etc. and exposing the other plants to all that PM spore. Rookie mistakes.
Used Jorge’s hydrogen peroxide solution once, when just 1 of 5 plants in our room got PM near harvest.
We had been fighting it the whole life of that plant. Should have pulled her after her second PM outbreak instead of wasting all that time with milk spray, etc. and exposing the other plants to all that PM spore. Rookie mistakes.
I’ve done a “bud wash” before. Read about it on one of the forums.
Those that tried it said it worked great. Had no negative effect on the bud or high, and left a noticible residue left in the buckets.
I figured I’d give it a try. I wasn’t trying to kill any PM or anything, just looked at the junk the prefilter on my scrubber catches and thought the sticky buds were catching the same shit. Besides the foliars i feed too.
Here is the directions they preached and I followed, except I didn’t use RO, well water here.
4 buckets total. (5 gallon buckets are perfect)
Bucket 1: 3 parts RO water to 1 part 3% H202.
Bucket 2: 5 gallons of RO with 1 cup baking soda, 1 cup Lemon Juice
Buckets 3 and 4: RO only.
Take a branch or buds, fresh cut and dunk in bucket 1 for 30 sec. and gently switch around.
Proceed down the line in each bucket and then I hung the on a line I had strung where they would hang to dry before jarring up to cure.
I should have done half the chop, so I could compare the diff.
It did wash off a lot of “pollution”. Buds cured up nice and fresh looking. When you take them out of the last rinse, the bud structure looks plumper, and the color looks bright and,well, clean. Lol
I’m going to try it again and do half the harvest, and compare results.
Peace
Just tried this for the first time his year and I had two of every plant so I got to compare. I would wash one plant and not the other. I have to say after letting both dry and and cure the washed buds is my favorite. It didn’t loose any potency, smell, or flavor and looks amazing. The main reason I wanted to try it was because I had a greenhouse grow and wanted to see what all came off. Well a lot of nasty stuff came off. At the end I saw a couple catapillers and a lot of bugs. The washed buds also smokes a lot smoother. If anyone wants I can post up a side by side comparing my washed buds to unwashed buds.
Thanks for all the great posts! I think I’m going to try bud rinsing this harvest and see how it goes. I will keep you all posted. Thanks again for all the great replies.
I tried the bud wash last year for a large outdoor grow to wash off bugs and dust. I utilized the receipt HD_Chop describes above (with well water). I was amazed with the amount of dust and dead bugs that would float to top of buckets. I do recommend a good minute trying to gently shake dry the buds after the last bucket. The bud turned out great after a slow dry and cure with potency and taste getting praise from all who tried it.
I chose not to do it this outdoor season because my garden was less dusty this year. However, I do regret not washing after running into many many bugs and some dirt and grim during trimming. Potency and flavor seem about the same as last year with the bud wash for the repeat strains. I have a second crop of greenhouse bud that will be washed this week.
I’ve tried the washing process HD_Chop describes in his comment. It worked fine with no issues, just not sure if it was worth the effort in my case. Bud washing doesnt damage the end product as long as you follow the procedure and dry the buds thoroughly afterwards. The washing process does add a good deal of work to harvest day though. (and harvest day is already a pain in the ass without adding any extra work….)
If you are outdoors with lots of bugs and dust or if you spray a lot of stuff during flower its probably not a bad idea to wash your buds before drying. I think the procedure originated with some of the “high brix” gardeners who were using lots of foliar products in late flower that they wanted to make sure got washed off. My grow is indoors, I dont spray anything in flower, and I keep things as clean and dust free as I can, so there really wasnt much to wash off in my case.
So yeah… You can wash your buds. But depending on your situation/growing style it might not be worth the extra effort.
Anybody got pics of their washed vs. u washed? Someone mentioned color & plumpness are better… wondering how much.
Seems like it would make sense if you believed that you were having a residue build up, but I wouldn’t just do it to do it. But I do shy away from busy work. I am too many project behind to add new steps unless there is an indetifiable need and an adequate solution.