Grow Room Air Flow: The Forgotten Bud Stopper

Botrytis. Also called “bud rot,” this term can sound like a curse word for the cannabis cultivator. Because this moldy disease begins inside the bud, it can be difficult to identify during a routine inspection. But once it’s present, the bud can take on a brown-grey color, and then the mold quickly works its way outward to all other plant parts, and then, devastatingly, through the rest of your crop.

“There are always going to be spores of different molds and diseases,” says John Pratt of Quest Dehumidifiers. “Even at low humidity levels, if you have no air flow and your grow room is stagnant, bud rot can proliferate fairly easily. To break the cycle of mold growth, you want to break up that environment.”

When it comes to air flow, the motto should be, “more is better,” Pratt says, meaning: provide as much air flow as possible without actually damaging the plant. While too much air movement can cause steam breakage, leaf tearing and growth in different directions, Quest’s recommendation is you should always have a steady air flow in your grow up to that threshold.

Quest Dehumidifiers can be placed in both indoor and greenhouse grows to prevent stagnant air. But Pratt says there are a few dehumidification-regulating tips you’ll want to follow:

For more information on Quest Dehumidifiers' air mover products, please follow this link.

Photo at top: A Quest dehumidifier mounted near the ceiling at a Rhode Island cultivation center.