Spokane Cultivators Find Way to Shorten the Marijuana Curing Process

A typical curing process takes between 30 and 60 days. In Washington, retailers sell product fast, so cutting the curing process safely is ideal to maintain supply. Cultivators need to move product, and a Spokane cultivation company – Grow Op Farms, is working on a way to cut the curing process to just 10 days.

Grow Op Farms grows roughly 2,000-pounds of marijuana monthly at an indoor cultivation facility, Marijuana Business Daily reports. Morelli says that marijuana isn’t necessarily better after that 30 or 60-day curing process. Some growers, including Morelli, believe that high-quality marijuana can be achieved with a proper strategy with a curing process of a couple of weeks.

Mojave Morelli of Grow Op Farms said, “We’re moving product so fast that we really don’t’ have time to do a 30- or a 60-day cure. Ultimately, what everybody should be looking for is flower that’s good 10 days after harvest.”

Corey Barnette of District Growers in Washington D.C. said, “What we’re trying to do is achieve the kind of terpene and cannabinoid profile that we want. We’re going in and we’re examining that, and we’re letting that happen naturally.”

Grow Op Farms starts preparing its plants two days before harvest. The process starts by lowing the temperature in the grow room to 65-degrees so the growing medium is able to dry out. The drying process starts then since less humidity is in the room. The plants spend 24 to 48-hours in the dark, which aids in ripening the flowers and further developing resin glands.

After that process, the harvest begins. At Grow Op, they don’t cut the whole plant – they cut branches that would be the length from the elbow to fingertip of the arm. Once cut, it’s off to the drying rooms to be hung.  The drying rooms maintain a specific amount of air circulation and continuous air movement. The movement remains gentle to not “rock” the drying branches.

This process takes between 7 and 10 days, while District Growers says their branches dry in three to five days. The humidity is regulated and properly lowered until the moisture level in the flower is at 12-13-percent.

Then the flower gets put into a bin and is off to testing. Following testing, the one day to two-week “quarantine” process begins. The burping process takes place in the quarantine phase where the lids of the containers are lifted for no more than 20-seconds to let gasses out. Burping typically occurs every other day.

Once the burping process is complete, the flowers go to the trim area and are then placed into glass jars to be prepared for their retail customers. Flowers can continue to cure in the jars. The flower should remain in the jars for 20-30 days max at no more than 55-percent humidity.

Morelli said, “If you’re growing right, your bud should be ready to smoke in a couple weeks after you harvest it. But if you can wait, 30 days is prefect.”