6 Steps to Prevent, Identify, and Decontaminate Moldy Weed

A mold outbreak in your cannabis grow can be devastating if gone unnoticed or left untreated. Not only is your entire crop at risk, but if moldy weed makes it out of your grow and onto dispensary shelves, your brand and business are at risk too.

To avoid exposing your customers to the health risks of smoking moldy weed and subjecting your brand to a recall scandal, use this 6-step guide to implement preventative measures, identify potential mold risks and outbreaks, and decontaminate your grow by incorporating a mold remediation process into your standard operating procedures (SOPs).

PREVENT

 1) Monitor Your Humidity Levels

Like your cannabis plants, mold spores need moisture to grow. Maintaining consistent humidity levels that nurture your crops without encouraging pathogen growth is crucial to preventing mold.

Some stages of the cannabis growth cycle require higher humidity levels than others, so finding the sweet spot will depend on where you are in the cycle. Generally, the vegetative and flowering stages—where mold makes itself most known—are dryer than the seedling stage, which gives you a bit of an advantage.

Maintaining consistent, proper humidity levels can help to keep mold at bay in more ways than one because pests also multiply with high humidity levels and/or the presence of standing water. As they buzz around your operation, they can spread mold spores and compound the problem.

2)  Install Compartmentalized Ventilation

Mold spores can attach themselves to insects, clothing, and equipment.

Installing and maintaining compartmentalized ventilation for the different rooms in your operation helps to avoid cross-contamination in case of a mold outbreak, and it also helps to maintain the proper humidity levels in each room as discussed above in step one.

IDENTIFY

3) Inspect Your Bud

Unfortunately, mold on weed is hard to identify until it or its impact on your plants is visible. But once it makes itself known, it’s fairly easy to spot moldy weed.

Look for identifiers like:

  • Dark, near-black spots on the flower
  • Yellow or gray fuzz coating the bud or leaves
  • A white powdery substance on the bud or leaves (don’t confuse your trichomes with this; they may look similar but this mold tends to have more of a sawdust texture)
  • Leaf tips turning yellow and brown
  • The presence of slime on plants

4) Use Different Light Techniques

There are a couple of lighting techniques you can use to identify moldy weed in your grow. If you’re going to try these, we suggest removing one plant from your grow room and testing it in a separate area. This will avoid disrupting the rest of the crop’s growth cycle and can help to stop the spread of mold in case you find some.

First, you can put the plant in a dark room and shine a black light on it. Mold glows under a black light, so if it’s there, you should be able to see it easily.

Second, you can put the plant in a dark room and shine a flashlight beam at it. Tap or shake the plant—if a white, dusty cloud shakes off, it’s likely mold.

DECONTAMINATE

5) Choose Your Cannabis Mold Remediation Process

Discovering moldy weed in your operation does not have to be a death sentence if you have the right mold remediation process in place. There are several options available to cannabis cultivators, though as the legal cannabis market matures across the globe, some are being considered inferior to others.

Ionizing Radiation

Ionizing radiation irradiates cannabis flower, penetrating the bud from the outside with short, high-energy wavelengths. Though effective, ionizing radiation changes the molecular structure of the flower and compromises the plant’s natural chemical makeup. Ionizing radiation options include:

  • Gamma radiation
  • Electronic beam (E-beam) radiation
  • X-ray radiation

Non-Ionizing Radiation

Non-ionizing radiation, on the other hand, does not alter the plant’s molecular or chemical structure and is generally considered a safer decontamination process for moldy weed by regulators and consumers alike.

There are two types of non-ionizing radiation processes available to cannabis:

  • Cold plasma
  • Radio frequency (RF)

Cold plasma kills mold on the surface of the bud by using excess energy to cause oxidative reactions that poke holes in mold spore membranes.

RF uses long, lower-energy wavelengths to decontaminate flower from the inside out by generating friction amongst the plant’s water molecules that creates enough heat to kill mold and pathogens without harming the plant’s sensory compounds.

6) Incorporate Cannabis Remediation Into Your SOPs

Cannabis remediation should not be a strategy deployed only in the instance of moldy weed. It should be a major part of your SOPs.

Consider other agricultural industries, like nuts or dairy. Both must pasteurize their products before they’re sent to market regardless of whether or not mold or pathogens were detected in initial production. In order to be sold, they must be cleaned.

The same holds true for other medicinal products and supplements—both are heavily regulated before they’re allowed to enter the market.

Cannabis decontamination should not be a reactive step taken in response to moldy weed. It should be a proactive step taken to avoid moldy weed ever making it into the hands of a consumer in the first place.

Explore Radio Frequency for Moldy Weed

Although there are several mold remediation processes available to cannabis cultivators, radio frequency mold remediation is proving to be the top choice for operators looking to plan for the future and expand abroad.

RF is so safe for treating mold and pathogens that it’s already an approved technique under the USDA Organic label, and it’s so effective it can guarantee a >99.9% pass rate when it comes to cannabis regulatory compliance.

Ziel’s RFX and APEX 7 radio frequency machines, in particular, are safe for organic operations when that designation becomes available to cannabis, they’re approved for EU GMP-certified operations, and they can be incorporated into an existing operation within a week.

If you’re interested in learning more about radio frequency mold remediation or have questions about preventing or identifying moldy weed, get in touch with us today.