Newbie grower I'm in Sth East Asia. Have one plant, planted March, late Summer. Only grow one at a time otherwise too risky where i am. Slow grower not too large. Last 3 weeks or so as temp dropped to high 20'sc and dark about half hour earlier, flowers started to form but no buds as you normally know them Now has very strong dope aroma Forecast is for solid rain for whole of next week and about 2dg cooler Should i leave the plant or is the heavy rain not good for it now I was hoping that buds would form but i don't want to leave it too late to get the best from the plant Regards
Cannabis can take cold down to near freezing. It just gets slower. For really wet and humid locations Sativa strains do best as their buds are loose, wispy and spaced further apart then Indica strains. You can remove every other bud site on the main cola to open it up for better air flow. 1/2 a harvest beats no harvest at all. A grower I talk with in Florida USA does that. Air movement. Fans if possible. Shake the plant off when possible to limit how drenched it stays. Pray for less rain and more sun. Early harvested plants are a wasted effort. short lasting, headache causing, Jittery, edge of your seat feeling. I'll pass. BNW
It's not a guarantee you'll get bud rot, I have yet to have it, I'll only move my plants out of the rain if they will be harvested during the rain. Other than that they've always dried for me just fine, I'll also worry about buds getting wet weighing down and snapping limbs so I'll tie those up. If every plant was all but destroyed during rain I don't know if we'd even be using it now, surely weed hasn't been grown indoors but 30 years or so. With how under developed your buds are they have plenty of time to dry out. Earlier this year it rained on mine for basically 2 weeks straight during monsoon season. If the plant was soaking wet at harvest I'd just hang it up outside and put a box fan on them, rotating the limbs every hour or 2 until the moisture is fairly dry then hang and dry as normal.
Patience here is a plus, its a sativa 100% so can handle what you and the weather throw at her, you could help her out with some neem oil applied 2x per week to keep bugs and molds at bay another 8 weeks you'd be happy good luck
Do you have any tips for fighting bud rot. Is there anything that can be done besides covering them during heavy rains?
Excellent points! Cannabis matures in the wild under all conditions and I daresay many of the landrace strains have adapted to monsoon, wind, drought etc 'like a champ' over millennia. Some have become quite resistant to all sorts of 'unfavorable' conditions, which are the norm where they grow. Thanks for your perspective!