A month after California declared a state of emergency, over 6.7 million acres have been burned by unprecedented wildfires across the west. In San Francisco, however, we have been fortunate at least in that our problems are limited to poor air quality and intermittent bouts of ash falling from the sky. While that is significantly more tolerable than the experience many Californians have had over the last month, one question still looms in the minds of many Bay Area cannasseurs: “How the hell am I going to take care of my weed plants?!”
Growing outdoors takes longer than growing indoors, and this season has seen sun-grown pot start flowering later than usual. For many, that means ash became a problem just as their plants began to sprout their sticky, resinous buds. Depending on your luck, you might have already run into a disaster.
How badly your plants are affected depends on your proximity to the fires. If you live in the Bay Area, though, your plants are probably salvageable despite the last few weeks of soot and smoke.
“If you want to be safe, you can send it to a lab,” recommends Erich Pearson, CEO and Founder of the local cannabis dispensary chain, SPARC. He agrees that Bay Area growers don’t need to be too concerned about the health effects of ash, unless you live near where structures were burned, in which case, the ash can carry heavy metals. Labs who cater to non-professionals are hard to find and often require you to send in an ounce or more of your crop to test, though, so this isn’t an option for many home growers.
Read more at sfevergreen.com