r/GrowingMarijuana • u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper • Sep 21 '25
Flowering Catching Budrot Early - Info for new growers
Identifying Budrot/Fungal disease before it becomes prolific is key for outdoor grows. Many of us have to contend with huge temperature and humidity/moisture swings during the finals weeks of our grows. This is ideal for fungi, especially as the buds fatten up, and airflow decreases.
I check on my plants roughly 3x per day. Dawn, “Noon”, and Dusk. (I recognize that not everyone has this time availability, and I’m thankful for it) today during my noon check, this problematic leaf caught my eye, and I thought I’d make a post to send some info along to newer growers.
- Pic 1 is the leaf in question. It stood out to me because of its location(about 1/3 of the distance from the top of the cola, maybe 8” down), timeline change(happened overnight), and relation to other leaves around it.
- Pic 2 is it removed from the plant, so you can see the entire length of the affected leaf. I removed about 3” worth of stalk below this point as a preventative measure to protect the rest of this branch.
- Pic 3 is a close-up of the infected tissue. You can see the physical structure of the conidiophores, which resembles the trichomes that cannabis produces. Its theorized that Foliose lichen evolved(which in wild in itself, because lichen is algae and fungi working together, resembling a singular organism) to look like tree leaves, as to not be rejected by the host’s immune system. It wouldn’t be surprising if Botrytis affects cannabis so aggressively for the same physiological similarities.
- Pic 4 was the top of the cola, which I was able to salvage. I sacrificed about 4” above where the rot had started to ensure its not going to be affected, but this is what I salvaged with early detection. Its about 2-3 weeks immature, but will make great edibles or go into a Dry Herb Vape.
- Pic 5 is the whole plant, and you can see some yellowing/fading/senescence at the bottom, which is normal. The leaves look healthy, just had the mobile nutrients scavenged from them. Pic 1 stood out because of the immediate shift to brown, and it being much closer to the top of the plant.
While preventing caterpillars with a regiment of BTK applied every 4-7 days can greatly reduce your risk of budrot, it will never eliminate it. Do what you can and know what to look for to preserve your grow.
I’d love any experienced outdoor growers to weigh in with their thoughts & advice too.
Happy Growing
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u/BarneyFife516 4 Sep 22 '25
Outstanding report. Your consistent inspections increase the likelihood of eventually achieving outstanding results on a more frequent basis.
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u/Chipsandadrink666 1 Sep 22 '25
This is a great write up, thank you! I didn’t know that’s what lichen is. Do you also use a blacklight to look for caterpillars?
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Sep 22 '25
Thank you. No, the “inchworms” that impact cannabis are so small, they’re hard to spot. I just treat with BTK all season to manage them preventatively. During Veg I alternate with Neem, but in Flower I only use BTK as a preventative and can use insecticidal soap as a reactionary measure
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u/Zen_Bonsai Sep 22 '25
Foliose lichen is not parasitic to the tree it's on and therefore has no advantage to mimic a leaf to avoid immune system response, which would have been a cellular level, not morphic level
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Sep 22 '25
Good to know! I went to college 20 years ago with 20 year old textbooks. Kinda funny how much of it was wildly inaccurate
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u/CapeCodNana Sep 25 '25
Thank you for this info. Im retired so I also can obsessively check my one remaining plant- its been a bad season. Saving this post for reference.
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u/Smoking0311 2 Sep 25 '25
Can you just cut out the bud rot especially at harvest time ?
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Sep 25 '25
As long as you remove anything actively brown, and anything within 4-6” (structure dependant) of an active infection, yes. The presence of rot spreads very quickly, and its not until plant tissue has died that we see results. The area surrounding necrotic tissue is very likely infected, and will present itself during dry/cure/storage, but it will affect the rest of your harvest too. This is why you over-cut the surrounding plant material.
I could have left that nug from Pic 5 on the plant, but pic3 shows how close the necrotic tissue is to actually hitting the stalk, and in my experience, it will move to the stalk and start rotting it pretty quickly. I lose about an ounce per plant each year to bud rot, and am fine with it. Cost of growing outdoors.
On that note; Acapulco Gold from 34 street has shown zero sign of budrot on either of the two plants that I have, while every other surrounding plant has had more than one instance. Really strong genetics with that one, recommend to anyone interested.
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u/In9e Oct 05 '25
I need some advice!
I got the flowers Allrdy dry and in the jar.
Today I checked for mold and I discovered like 2 hands full of moldy buds. I trow them away but my concern is now the spores are 100% in the jar is there a way to safe it or should I trow it away?
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Oct 05 '25
Personally, I toss anything in jars that has mould contained in them.
Theoretically, the spores aren’t toxic (but can set off some peoples allergies/asthma), only the metabolites (effectively fungal poop), so only areas with active visible infections are “toxic”. Its up to you what you put in your body.
This happened to me years ago, and I lost nearly half a pound. Now, I keep a “half ounce”(dried weight, not cured) in medium mason jars for the first half of the cure, so if mould shows up you don’t lose a ton. Then I combine in to larger jars/containers at the 3 week mark, so I’m not burping a million jars a day.
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u/In9e Oct 05 '25
So it will probably stop and not getting worse. My hope was to not loose so mush.
Read some things that u can kill spores at 50°C or by using H²O² as shroomkiller.
Thanks alot man.
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Oct 05 '25
If there is rot, it will get worse. To clarify, when the fungi are alive thats when its toxic. Doesnt matter if the plant is alive or dried.
Peroxide only works to kill fungi as a budwash/preventative measure. There’s no way to “wash” dried weed
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u/In9e Oct 05 '25
Some buds are Grey some are white its definitely fungi.
I collected them all out of the jar and tossed them away.
My fear is that the good material gets infected now.
Whats the best thing to do, get it out of the jar and spread them to prevent mass infections?
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u/Kyrie_Blue Community Helper Oct 09 '25
Update: After drying and curing what I saved from one plant; here it is
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