Question about traditional harvest and curing techniques

[zamalito]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum but I figured the people here would be the most knowledgeable on the topic. I was wondering if anyone could give me info on the girdling and harvest process for columbian gold strains the harvest and cure for the black africans and the harvest and cure for malawi cobs. I have a bit of the proper genetics to experiment doing these the traditional way.

What started me thinking about this is because there was an animal in my garden this year that didn't have any interest in the leaves but chewed on my stalks girdling a few c99 and zamal x parvatis. Though the damage was extensive the plants didn't wilt but nutrient delivery was cutoff completely. It seems that resin production was noticeably increased and the flowers became a very nice golden color. The true kicker was that they produced pure white smoke to a degree I've only seen with bubble hash. Anyway as always any info is greatly appreciated and I'm looking for as much detail as possible.

 

[Orangelazaris]

Hi Zamal,


Ive heard many growers in person and on the web speak of snapped or damaged stalks actally trapping auxins above the snap point which greatly affects the resin and flower production. Also i think that the plant will only be able to use the nutrients in the remaining leaves above the breakage. so i guess the golden color could be from the plant using the chlorophil in the calyxs as last resort. Also lends its self to teh white smoke??! a perfect flush it sounds like to me.. Keep us updated on your experiments.


best

OL

 

[Orangelazaris]

A more direct answer is one your probobly already familiar with:in latin america ive been told about "Sun curring"

Which i believe is the practice of taking a cannabis crop and leaving it out to dry hanging from a tree in the sun for quite some time. It does hell on "bag appeal" but is quick and easy if you have several acres of cannabis to process.


Im probobly horribly mistaken on some of the details and possibly even the name but it might help.


Best,

OL

 

[Elevator Man]

I experimented with girdling plants years ago, with some success. I cut two scores around the base of the plant about an inch apart, all the way round, as deep as the pith layer, and then removed the outer bark, leaving just the white center portion. After ten days or so, the plant did indeed start yellowing all over - this is years before I understood about flowering nutes, flushing, etc., so they were bright green up till that point - and they did cure a lot quicker, as the clorophyll had already broken down somewhat. And I was the only guy in town who had 'gold' weed...

It was a pretty basic test, and a long time ago, but it did work.

 

[Guest]

I've read (not sure if it was on OG or another site) that to achieve the "Columbian Gold" look, one would strip a portion of the main stem, causing the plant to use up the remaining nutrients and chlorophyl. I don't know if it causes extra resin production, but I'm going to try it with the two plants I have growing now. Instead of flushing, I'll attempt to "goldify" them. Columbian Gold was the first herb I ever smoked, and I haven't smoked anything comparable since.

 

[zamalito]

Its hard to flush herb outdoors due to the nature of soil and the large rootball plants develop when in the ground and I'm thinking this is a very viable alternative.. The animals out here love my pot stalks so much that its just a matter of pulling the protective tape (one layer of aluminum foil tape and one layer of black extra tough gorilla brand duct tape) and they'll chew about 30% of the width off of the stem. One advantage of growing in such a strong ecosystem is that serious insect problems are almost nonexistant however the animal population is nuts. Anyone know how malawi cobs or black magic african are made?

 

[muddy waters]

zam i had a really similar effect--golden (not green) buds with a seemingly perfect cure--when i just left some container plants outside and unwatered for several weeks... i think this is basically the 'sun cure' mentioned above. i know they say sun light degrades thc, but the bud seemed plenty potent still.

 

[motaco]

All this stuff will be in my USt eventually, just SOOO much... too much typing for a sitting, sorry.


its a girldling process they use with barbed wire or chicken wire twisted tighter with pliers. its forces plants to flower. many growers in colombia and so forth had plants that never really finish. some parts of the plant are always sporting completely new bud growth like 1st couple weeks when other buds are dying they are so old.

the girlding forces the plant to finish up within a couple weeks and during this time all nutrient uptake is stopped acting like somewhat of a flushing process I suppose, while the plant knows its going to die and starts finishing. the sudden nutrient uptake stops plant functions and the chlorophyll leaves the buds or dies or something, I don't know, but for whatever reason major plant nutrient functions stop and the plant finishes up.

and here is an exerpt from mj botany.

The production of "la mona amarilla" or gold buds is achieved by girdling or removing a strip of bark from the main stem of a nearly mature plant, thereby restricting the flow of water, nutrients, and plant products. Over several days the leaves dry up and fall off as the flowers slowly die and turn yellow. This produces the highly prized "Colombian gold" so prevalent in the early to middle 1970s (Partridge 1973). Trade names such as "punta roja" (red tips [pistils] ), "Cali Hills," "choco," "lowland," "Santa Marta gold," and "purple" give us some idea of the color of older varieties and the location of cultivation.

 

[Harpo]

I think it is a myth that Columbian Gold was done by girdling plants. The American market is huge.
For folks to have Columbian Gold all across America, they would have had to girdle tens of thousands of plants in the "wilds" of Columbia shortly before harvest. Lots of heat, rain, no roads, no electricity, bugs and snakes up the wazo, and so on and so forth. . .
Any idea how labor intensive that would be? Heck, the usual method was to roast huge piles of buds in the sun. Outstanding smoke though. . .
I had a pound of Columbian Gold back in 76. Buds were a beautyful golden color. Even the stems of the buds were golden.
Very much like Greenthumb's Acapulco Gold. This stuff turns gold as it matures. I think the Columbian Gold from the mid seventies is yet another gold strain like Acapulco Gold.
The quantity of Columbian Gold in America make me doubt girdling had anything to do with it. Bleaching curing buds in the sun may have contributed.

 

[Raco]

Hola Zamalito,good to see youre back!
This is a good topic
Well,according to Cherniak,colombian seeds were taken to Morocco to improve the potency of Kif.Also,according to Robert Clarke,afghan seeds and afghan farmers to tend them were taken to "Los LLanos" (Plains) region of Colombia in 1976 (30 years ago!!).
Moroccan kif is dried in the sun (can imagine the moors girdling thousands of hectareas of kif?? lol) and many of the plants turn yellow-gold with brown and green spots,but they look "gold" for the most part.
I´ve seen pics of afghan plants that were quite "gold" too.And they were put to dry in the sun.
The best kif plants I could find also had a very nice euphoric high that wasn´t dissimilar to the colombian "golds".
La Mona Amarilla??
Well,I´ve heard that it comes from afghan genetics.
Some colombian I grew out:
The yellow gold ones were grown outdoors in a terrace.The pale green was done indoors

 

[zamalito]

Good to see you also raco. That makes me wonder about many of the western central africans also. I've seen congolese kenyan and ghanaian plants that also bare a strong resemblance to columbian.

Just being the devils advocate here and I don't know one way or the other but I feel that harvesting and processing plants is much more labor intensive than scraping or tying a piece of wire around the stem. Well, maybe not compared to the lax harvest technique of the moroccans but columbian bud had a large portion of the stem and leaf material removed.

 

[zamalito]

What about hashish? Do afghans or other central asians both cure the material before sieving and and cure the resin powder afterward or do they just cure the resin powder in a root cellar? I've always cured my material before processing but never had the patience to age my resin powder. In Hashish! I think he said something about afghans believeing unaged resin powder that isn't pressed rbefore smoking is supposed to sicken the mind.

 

[motaco]

Just being the devils advocate here and I don't know one way or the other but I feel that harvesting and processing plants is much more labor intensive than scraping or tying a piece of wire around the stem. QUOTE]


my sentiments exactly. I already argue enough though so I just kept my mouth shut.

 

[Raco]

"I think he said something about afghans believeing unaged resin powder that isn't pressed rbefore smoking is supposed to sicken the mind."

Exactlly Zam,
besides of that,they wouldn´t want to smoke the raw plant material(charas tobacco) however well cured...
Moroccans still smoke their kif,but mixed with "taba" (local tobacco,highly illegal as far as I know)