Growing For Hash: Episode #5, Jar-Tests/Leafing/staggered Harvests

Yo, family! While I haven't been as active on the social-evil feeds lately, we have been working hard behind the scenes to bring you up close with the plant and my favorite farm in Humboldt County. It's truly been a pleasure working with Eric of Humboldt Kine Farms, as I'd fallen in love with his flavors before moving up to Humboldt County and being introduced. Anyways, Episode 5 is up and linked here, but I wanted to go in depth a bit more on discussions behind the scenes and add some context to items discussed in episode 5.

Growing For Hash Episode #5. Click Photo For Link

Maybe its just me, but it's the practicality of things, basic layouts & operations, that have always interested me about the plant. How is it achieved? What sort of unthinkable or unknowable dangers loom right around the corner, risking to ruin my plants? It only took two or three small scale indoor grows to know these unexpected events often occur, and can quickly ruin an entire harvest (Ask, Brandon 😹). Where do you get your genetics from? How many people does it take to run a legal cannabis farm? Etc. Etc.

Staggering Harvests

How do you harvest an entire field of AAA fresh-frozen cannabis, making sure each plant comes down at peak optimal ripeness? You stagger your harvests, pulling the light-deprivation tarps at staggered intervals, leaving time to harvest one row at a time. It takes roughly a day to harvest one of the full outdoor rows, plus each cultivar varies in the length until maturation. Assuming each of the rows will be harvested 8 weeks after flowering begins, even a day or two longer in the VEG stage, will lead to "maximum optimal ripeness," to quote the homie. Just some of the ins and outs of supplying many of the Cali hash makers with award winning material.

Jar Test Optimal Results

Jar Test

In case anyone is as curious as myself, Eric shows us how the jar test is done as well as the kind of results to be on the lookout for. It really is just an eyeball test (despite the possibility of spooning the hash right from the jar and turning to coffee filters & pizza boxes to help dry it like a decade prior 😵‍💫). Eric does give us a good idea of what it should look like, as these cuts are proven hash dumpers.

Jar Test Optimal Results

Terroir of the Century

What sets Humboldt Kine's farm apart from the rest? And not just quality-wise, but the crops ability to yield ice water hash, while dripping with terp-drenched flavor? Terroir, terroir, & a secret. And working together to put these YouTube flicks out there has allowed me to slowly but surely identify major reasons for this success.

"Light Depping"

I've inquired upon the topic of plant size in the past, not realizing my question provided a partial answer to hash making glory. Venture an hour inland, where plants thrive in 90-100+ degree heat and you will find the kinds of plants that look like mid-sized trees.

Full-Term Cannabis Growing an Hour Inland From the Coast

When you see shots of giants like this one I took below, they're full-term plants that have been growing all season further inland and away from the coast. At Humboldt Kine Farms they're running deps, leading to two harvests per summer instead of one big harvest in the Fall. But this is only a slice of the story.

Full Term Plant. Grab a Copy of the Hashish Manifesto on Amazon to support our work!

The location of his farm, being close to the coast, keeps his plants the optimal size for hash yields. The huge plants and massive bud-swell made popular by greedy growers and the uninformed, often fails to dump hash like smaller plants. In addition, the massive buds are prone to rot, beginning to mold from the inside out, while still growing on the plant. I've seen this first-hand (repeatedly), plaguing entire greenhouses and their massive canopies. Growing healthy and thriving quality cannabis without all the bud-swelling and bud-densening nutrients and additives, along with a coastal terroir, is where we find ourselves with optimal quality cannabis for hash-making.

Conclusion

A lot of strange trends grew over the last decade, heavily favoring the grower over the smoker, making it super frustrating to see the demand that often followed. Ice water hash is the Acid Test to finding the top quality cannabis in a region and like all the other benefits of solventless methods, they award peak quality and healthy plants with big hash yields.

Thanks for reading, be sure to subscribe and hit the link to see EPISODE #5 of Growing for Hash with @Humboldtkinefarms.

Questions? Grab a copy of The Hashish Manifesto today, available on Amazon!

---