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OfflineHempapotimus
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Registered: 09/30/18
Posts: 1
Last seen: 5 years, 5 months
Large scale (20 acres) drying and curing problems. Fucked?
    #834198 - 09/30/18 09:20 PM (5 years, 5 months ago)

Hey there, just joined, first post, good to be here.

I was recently put in charge of a large scale drying and curing facility for a new hemp farm in South Carolina. This is the first year they've grown it, as this is the first year SC has issued hemp licenses. The farmer is still learning how to grow it, and they've had some problems due to poor planning and lack of experience, but overall I think they've done an ok job for their first time on such a large scale.

It's all Boax, which is a high CBD cannabis strain with THC levels below the legal limit of .3% to be considered as industrial hemp, grown from clones, 20 acres total, most of it outdoors in 2 large fields fed with a drip system from well water, but also about 250 potted plants in a greenhouse, and 250 potted plants just outside the greenhouse. All of the Field bud is being processed into crude CBD oil to be sold wholesale, but the greenhouse, and pots outside the greenhouse, they plan to sell as flower, some wholesale, and some retail on their own website and local shops.

The farm primarily grows sod, and the hemp is pretty much a side project, so they haven't given it as much thought and planning as they probably should've. They didn't even plant the clones until late June, so the yield is probably not what it could've been. The 250 outside the greenhouse became root bound because they left them in 1 gallon pots for too long and several of them developed root rot so they had to cut them early, and the plants in the greenhouse are a little too crowded and a few of them are developing mold/bud rot but theyre letting them go another week or so till more of the phistles turn orange, but they're antsy to sell it and get a return, and I've had to convince that they need to be patient and harvest, dry, and cure correctly, or they risk ending up with a bunch of garbage they cant sell to anyone. They weren't even going to cure at all, just dry it, dry trim it, and hope for the best.

They hired me because I have some experience with a few small cannabis grows and I have a fairly good understanding of the process, but I've never done anything on this scale. I have a decent budget to work with, but with them not fully understanding the importance of properly drying and curing, they were not prepared in time with an adequate drying facility.

I started about a week ago, and came into a warehouse about 20ft tall, 600ft long, and 200ft wide, steel frame building with a thick plastic tent like material lining the walls and an aluminum roof, set up as their drying facility. Ventilation is limited to two large garage doors about 15x12 each, they have 3 large 4 ft fans pointed upwards  towards the walls for circulation, and 6 large dehumidifiers they've been running constantly. The humidity has been fluctuating between 55% RH and 65% RH, but the temperatures been between 80F and 95F, I realize this is awful, and I've been doing my best to keep temps lower, but its South Carolina in September with no AC and only room fans and open garage doors to keep the temps down.

They're having 2 vent fans being custom built to be installed in walls, but they aren't getting here until October 10th, probably just in time for the harvest of the next section of the field and greenhouse, but they had already hung the 250 plants from outside the greenhouse, and about 400 plants from the field that they harvest early due to root rot, and they'd been hanging for about 10 days at that point. The 250 were still at all around 12% to 15% moisture, but the 400 field plants were at 6% to 8%, already too dry. Had they not hired me they would probably have just left it till they dried out to nothing.

Seeing that the field plants were already basically beyond curing, I stripped all the buds from them using an EZTrim debudder, and stored them in two 200 gallon clear plastic bags inside a 5x5x5ft cardboard box on top of a wooden pallet, and I covered the tops with black garbage bags to block out the light. I figure since they're being processed as oil the appearance and consistency isn't as important, but I still worry the cannabinoids and terpenes have been overly degraded.

They didn't trim before they hung them, and time was limited because they were already so dry, and the heat wasn't doing it any favors, so most of the leaves were left on the bud, I just did my best to crumble off some of the big fan leaves with my hands while I ran it through the bucker. They tell me the lab thats processing it into oil doesn't care that there's so many leaves and stems, but I stressed the importance of trimming them wet in the future, especially the stuff to be sold as bud, so the rest of the harvest we'll be trimming wet, but it's too late for this batch.

By the time I finished the 400 field plants, the 250 potted plants from outside the greenhouse were about 8% to 10% moisture when I started working on them, a few of the smaller buds were as low as 7%, but most above 9%. They were dropping moisture dramatically however, there's too many to trim by hand on my own, and the wet/dry trimmer they ordered wont be here till thursday, so I had to rush and spend my whole weekend chopping the branches off the main stalks so I can fit them in the containers I'm using for curing. So I'm starting curing before I can trim them because I can't let them dry out anymore, and unfortunately with most of the leaves and stem still attached. It's too much to put in glass jars obviously, and the only containers they have for curing are 50 gallon HDPE 2 plastic drums, I'm concerned that they're a little too large, and I realize plastic absorbs trichomes, but that's what I got.

RH in the barrels is already about 55%, I've got them all 3 quarter of the way filled, and I've started dumping them out on a plastic tarp once a day and letting them sit spread out for about 30-45 minutes before stuffing it back in the barrels and sealing them agian. I'm thinking of letting them stay sealed for an extra day to redistribute some of the moisture, but I'm really worried about mold. There were a few plants that already had white mold and bud rot, and I picked out all the plants that I saw with symptoms, but I'm sure theres got to be several infected that just weren't showing visual signs yet.... maybe I'm just being paranoid and the moisture is really low enough that mold wont spread to the rest of the barrels.

They plan on building another greenhouse, and blacking them out so they can control the light and harvest at least some year round. So, this is an amazing opertunity for me, but it's also a half assed mess thats been thrown into my lap to deal with. I'm trying to get some others opinions on how I should go about correcting this nightmare, or is this first batch just a loss and we have to just move on and hope to be able to handle the rest a bit better? Any input is appreciated, especially from anyone that has experience drying and curing on this scale. Any critiques on these methods, anything I'm doing wrong, or links to helpful websites and videos dealing with these specifics are also welcome.

I think basically what this comes down to is "you can't make chicken soup from chicken poop" but hoping I can salvage something.

Sorry for such a long first post, I wanted to get all the details out so you understand what I'm up against. Thanks!

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InvisibleDeadkndys420
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Re: Large scale (20 acres) drying and curing problems. Fucked? [Re: Hempapotimus]
    #834213 - 10/03/18 06:29 PM (5 years, 5 months ago)

Imo it would make more sense to build individual drying rooms in the WH then using one giant area. I'm pretty sure that's how phat panda does it. But they're also in a temperature controlled environment. I would also look into swamp coolers for cooling. Seems like its cheaper then running an ac system. But im not into the HVAC business so i really don't know. Sounds like a fucking headache.

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