How to Keep Mold Out of Your Grow Room and Off of Your Cannabis Plants

If you’re a grower, there’s nothing worse than discovering mold in your cannabis crop. Mold can attack your plants when they’re still seedlings, when they’re flowering, and even after harvest. Because the conditions for growing hydroponic weed are the same conditions that allow mold to flourish, keeping your crop safe from mold can be quite a feat. Here are a few tips from the mold experts at My Pure Environment on how to keep your marijuana plants free from mold.

Mold Can Destroy Your Cannabis Crop

Because inhaling moldy weed is an extreme health hazard, selling mold-infested cannabis is out of the question. Whether you’re growing recreational, medical, or CBD buds, your crop won’t meet state regulations if it has any microbial impurities like Aspergillus or other molds. Finding mold in your crop could set your production back by several weeks, besides wasting all the effort and resources you spent growing it.

Common Types of Mold in Grow Rooms

Timed lights, plenty of moisture, and warm temperatures…you work hard to make your grow room the perfect environment for marijuana plants to flourish. Unfortunately, those warm, humid conditions can also encourage mold to grow. Mold often infests grow rooms, and can spread to your plants if you don’t catch it right away.

The most common types of mold found in grow rooms are:

• White Powdery Mildew (Golovinomyces Orontii)
• Bud Rot (Botrytis Cinerea)
• Root Rot (Fusarium Oxysporum)
• Aspergillus (including A. fumigatus, A. flavus, A. terreus, and A. niger)

Identifying Mold, Powdery Mildew, and Bud Rot

Mold spreads quickly, so it’s important to be able to identify it and remove it as soon as possible. Knowing what mold looks like can help you protect your crop and stop infestations before they take hold. Here’s how to spot the most common types of mold:

• Powdery mildew can be gray or white, and looks like powdery dust. It’s typically found on the leaves or stems of plants, but can grow hidden inside the buds as well. You might have to break some of your buds open to check for powdery mildew.
• Bud rot attacks the stems of your plants first, making them look mushy and gray. It then spreads to the buds and makes them look soggy and brown, and it also makes the leaves of the plant wilt and turn yellow. You might also see some gray webbing or powdery white spores.
• Root rot makes your plants’ roots get brown and slimy, whereas healthy roots appear white and stringy. Curled, drooping leaves are another sure sign of root rot.
• Aspergillus mold starts out white, and then turns green, blue, brown, black, or yellow as it grows, depending on the strain. It loves oxygen-rich environments like grow rooms, and can feed on almost any organic material. You’ll most likely find it on your walls, in your growing medium, or on the plants themselves.

Preventing Mold in Your Grow Room

A mold infestation could end up costing you a significant amount of time, money, and resources. Keep your grow room clean and well aerated to make it more difficult for mold to grow. Minimize organic materials like wood, fabric, paper, and soil. Regulate the humidity in your grow room, and choose mold-resistant strains of weed if you’ve had problems with mold before.

How to Get Rid of Mold in Your Grow Room

First, you should remove any infected plants immediately, then quarantine the healthy ones. You can clean surfaces and wash grow tents with a solution of vinegar and water. And before you start your next batch of seedlings, call for professional mold removal services, so you can be certain that all the mold is gone and can’t affect your new plants.

Professional Mold Removal in California

If you ever find mold on your marijuana plants, act immediately! My Pure Environment has been serving the communities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Clara for over twenty years. Our dry fog technology is both safe and effective, and won’t harm your healthy plants. If you’re looking for expert mold removal services for your grow room, contact us today for a free mold inspection.

Photo by CRYSTALWEED cannabis on Unsplash used with permission under the Creative Commons license for commercial use 5/19/2022.