This morning I bit into a piece of bread that tasted of mold.

With lots of weed talk about the ubiquitous kingdom of fungi lately, I figured I'd rant.

Mold is on everything. As humans, we consume a lot of it. It is everywhere. It is no more frightening than "chemicals".

Heh.

When we see mold on food, we avoid eating it if we can. We don't destroy everything touched by that moldy item. Many who live in poverty consume moldy food anyway.

In most cases, this consumption is more unpleasant than dangerous, though some molds produce toxins.

Mold can devastate crops. With cannabis, growers deal primarily with two types of mold - powdery mildew and grey mold, neither of which produce toxins.

PM doesn't kill crops, but damages them and spreads like crazy.

Grey mold rots buds from the inside, and can destroy a crop.

So, if there is an outbreak of one of these in a grow room, what should be done?

Like most questions in life, the answer is "that depends".

There are treatment options, though they really shouldn't be used near harvest, as they can damage the buds and/or leave a residue.

Is irradiating/pasteurizing post-harvest a solution?

Honestly, I don't know. It stops mold from growing further, but the dead mold remains.

It may be a very regs-focused solution, but it does help shelf stability and prevents mold from spreading (common and useful for produce).

Prevention is the obvious goal, but these are living systems and shit happens.

So, to take the final stroll on the long road to my point, if infection occurs, what then for the consumer?

Again, it depends. On the consumer, what they know of the product, and how bad the mold is.

If some homegrown has a bit of PM, will I still smoke it? Yup.

If there was a couple of spots of budrot in the room? You bet.

Will I eat the rest of the strawberries after pulling out the moldy one? Indeed.

Do I just cut off mold and eat the rest of the cheese? For sure.

If I was immune-compromised, would my perspective change? Probably. I don't know enough to say how.

If there is a ton visible mold on the bud I am considering, I will smoke something else to avoid the unpleasantness.

If it was sprayed with fungicides late, I will also avoid it.

These are all personal choices. When we start producing for wider distribution there are other considerations.

We are selling unseen weed to strangers, thus the need for some kind of regulation.

Unfortunately, once it leaves the cultivator's hands, we lose control.

And this is where the convoluted supply chain becomes the culprit.

Packaging, storage, and transport can all contribute to mold problems.

What temp/humidity do wholesalers, provinces, and packagers store at? In many cases even they don't know and have no requirements.

As an example, a province may ask for product to stay stable at temps as high as 40C, with drastic fluctuations at night, or by season.

Fluctuations are worse than steady high or low temps for risk, and growers can't do anything about it, despite stringent HC microbial regs.

So, as a smoker, I don't worry about a bit of mold here and there when the product is growing. It won't hurt me, and good growers won't release it if it is bad.

But when weed grown in a clean space that passes microbial testing lands at retail with mold, it grew in the package.

One of my fears is that my weed will inevitably degrade once the LDB have their hands on it.

I don't want to deal with value-subtract supply chain links.

Provs must do better, and direct delivery to retail is crucial.

Otherwise, the hard work of talented growers goes to waste.

In conclusion, I encourage smokers to consider repercussions of inefficient, absurd, quality-reducing distro.

With PM or budrot, it is on the grower.

For other molds, fault likely lies elsewhere.

We once delivered fresh.

No more.

Pasteurization is a shitty substitute, IMO.