I want to open up the discussion of growing for Extraction. The only financially feasible reason to grow full flower for distillate extraction is by increasing the resin production. Im thinking this can be done in a few different ways. Picking the right strains. Manipulating the light spectrum. Manipulating the plants nutrients at certain stages. I would like to hear anyones input on strains or technics they have tested. We are going to be testing this all year at our new location.
Take a look at what strains large scale commercial extract companies are growing/processing. That will usually give you an idea of what strains tend to do well.
Like who? I would like to think im a mid sized extractor. We have 3.5 acres of light dep cultivation and 8k sqft extraction facilty. All licensed. This year we are testing everything under the sun to find the right combo. I just never see anyone talking about it.
if you’re growing for distillate, you can take advantage of the fact that you get higher cannabinoids & lower terpenes at elevated growing temps. I don’t have a reference for you, but I have seen it published. above 80f is the number I have, but I would explore the range 70-100f if you can’t find the original publication.
Cannabinoid production appears to be hooked into the stress response system, and abiotic stress such as UV will also increase cannabinoids.
Terpene farmers need to baby their plants. Cannabinoid farmers might want to do the opposite.
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I’ve actually patented a technique and formulas that increase terpenes and cannabinoid yields by 30% on average. I’ve done first round tests on a variety of plants such as lavender and seen similar results. It’s been great for helping indoor grows express a fuller terpene profile. There are definitely temperature, light, nutrient and other hacks to turn up oil production. Adding UV into your cultivation is a pretty simple and easy one that most people don’t utilize. Outdoor is typically closed in greenhouse or under tarping which reduces UV that reaches the crop. Several studies also point to the UV reducing fungal infections such as mildew. Both of these are things I’ve seen first hand.
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I’ve actually got a study that shows higher temps reduced potency of every variety they tried it on. Lower temperatures increased THC content and higher temps reduced it. Higher elevations have more UV and less temp and thats why they typically produce the strongest landrace varieties. The equator has high UV which explains many tropical varieties potency IMO…
Full text on temperature affect on Cannabis potency in varieties from Nepal, Illinois, Jamaica and Panama.
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Oh Bother!
Guess I need to go find the paper I was referring to.
It’s possible I was misremembering this excerpt from DJ Potter’s thesis.
…where these clones were grown in a growth room in identical conditions apart from contrasting growth temperature of 15ºC and 25ºC, the cooler temperature significantly increased the proportion of CBD within the cannabinoid profile. A possible explanation is that in cooler conditions the CBD synthase within these plants is able to compete more favorably than THC synthase for the common precursor CBGA. No previous reports could be found describing this temperature effect.
Certainly that’s all I could dig up out of my email archives in the 10 min I gave it. However, I recall the UV connection being mentioned in the same paper, and 80f as the “high” temp.
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Cool thanks for sharing!
Average of 30% increases… that seems a little crazy. Care to elaborate on what the technique has to do with? Is this by use of PGRs or other nutritional additives?
I do agree with you about increased UVA and UVB spectrums increasing resin production. I like to use a 10,000K spectrum globe to finish plants for the last 2 weeks to help boost the resin content.
Keep in mind that temperature dictates the plants rate of metabolism and can have a large effect on the plants demand for inputs (water, nutes, co2 and light). The most common limiting factor for plant growth is co2 and this is why plants experience temp stress above ~26C. If the grow room is doped with co2 the warmer temps (upto ~30C) will give a much faster growth rate.
The point of all this being that I don’t think that any useful information can be extracted from studies that vary only temperature without considering the correlating adjustment in co2 necessary to satisfy the plants demands. Unless the data is used for temps effects on outdoor crops where the co2 levels are always very stable.
So I would not necessarily believe that higher temps gives lower THC yield. Stressed plants give lower yields and hot plants without extra co2 are stressed! That’s my opinion atleast; sorry for the complete lack of literature to back up anything I said too 
sometimes you just got to tell it
I’ve consulted with guys who found they could turn LED lights up higher than HIDs if they tuned the spectrum so as not to destroy the antenna complex with frequencies that it wasn’t designed to absorb. They asked if they should.
“YES, as high as you can without breaking it! or dial it back up to 10% if you have to for cost reasons…”
I believe I reminded them to include UV or a UV option in their arrays.
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