After you’ve harvested your marijuana crop, you are very close to finally reaping your reward. Of course, you can’t just immediately roll up a few buds and start toking. More work needs to be done before you can really enjoy the fruits of your labor. The harvested marijuana plants need to be dried and cured before you can really call it a job well done.
If you don’t properly cure your crop, you may be looking at some damaged plants or even an entire crop that becomes useless. For personal growers, it’s also important to cure plants because you can preserve them and make the yield last for an entire year.
The main reason you might cure your plants after harvesting is because mold can infect one plant and spread to the entire yield. Of course, mold thrives in moist conditions and the marijuana plants will generally be rather moist right after harvest. Most growers like to hang their crop upside down to get them dry. They don’t necessarily have to be hung upside down, but it is certainly much more convenient that way.

This drying technique is simply called “air-drying” and is the preferred mode of desiccation. It allows the plants to maintain their flavorful tastes and pleasant aromas while also not exposing them to some harsher drying techniques. Download my free grow bible for more tips about drying and curing marijuana at this link.
When air-drying, it’s important to not let the plants get too dry. If the leaves start to become very dry and crusty then you may have gone too far. For the best smoke, you need to make sure that the plant is just moist enough to be flexible but dry enough to not get any mold. This takes a little practice, but over time you will figure out exactly what buds give you the best taste.
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Of course, air-drying isn’t the only option. If you really want to fast-cure your buds, then microwaves are really the next best option. Although they have a tendency to overheat the bud, microwaves at least give you the ability to sample some of your crop right after it’s been harvested. It’s important to first take any seeds out of the buds to make sure that they don’t explode in the microwave. You also must be aware that the irradiated heat may detract from the pleasantness or the potency of the smoke. In this way, you might be getting a sample of your crop, but it might not be the best sample you could imagine.

When curing your crop, patience is the key. If you can wait long enough for the plants to air-dry, then you’ll be rewarded smooth, delicate, and potent buds that will get you high every time. Other methods for curing the plants are less effective and potentially more risky. For instance, using a conventional oven or a skillet to dry the buds takes longer and potentially reduces the potency of the THC. Whatever method you choose, it’s always important to cure the buds, if only to ensure that you’ll have a supply at least until the next harvest.
Before curing, you have to grow some plants and purchase some seeds. Check out our seedshop for a wide selection of top-quality seeds. We ship all over the United States. If the order doesn’t get to you or the seeds don’t germinate, then you can get new seeds free of charge.
Robert
R.Tillery,
Might be a good idea to research “terpines” That is what produces the smell and flavor. I personally would not handle them as much as you mention but, the only part of your process that I question is “warm air”. I use cool air. Never blowing directly just causing air movement in the room.
Losing the awesome smell just happens sometimes. One must dial in perfect environmental ranges to find out what works best in the region and climate one lives and grows in.
Hope this helps.
Having some trouble keeping the awesome aroma of my “flowers” intact during my curing process. They get a medium manicure to allow for warm air to circulate all through them, get turned twice daily (gently)but 2-3 days in, they lose the awesome aroma they were harvested with & start smelling like a fresh mowed lawn. Where am I failing, or is this typical? not ‘all’ grows do this & they’re the same strain, afghan kush. Any thoughts?
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Robert, never ever microwave bud! It destroys any quality of it dont oven dry it just naturally let it hang in a very low -almost none-humidity place for 7-10 days cuting off all fan leaves and any bigger leafs until the branches snap when u bend them. Then trim all remaining leaves and small sugar leaves from the buds and manicure them into tight good looking buds, next cut all the individual buds from the branches they grew on and place them into glass mason jars about 3/4 full and seal the lid. Now this is very important! Open the jars 2x a day for about 20-25 minutes and gently shake them around a little bit- then seal them back up. Do this for a minimum of 3 weeks, but the longer you do this curing process the better your buds will smell, taste and smoke. This is called sweating the buds it gets the moisture deep inside the buds left from air drying and pulls or “sweats” it out giving the cured flowers a kind of chemical reaction and time to develop flavor terpenes. In my oppinion it is the most important step to properly finishing your harvest along with properly flushing your plants before cutting them down. – hope I could help 🙂
nutrients i believe
I am having a horrible time with my leaves turning yellow, only the ones in buckets/pots, however ones in the ground doing much better.
I have no idea what to do, and a few of my plants have died. I am growing them for my use, I need some help out there on this topic before last of my plants are gone.
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