Can cannabis flowers get toxic without proper nutrients?

[ZeroG]

Hey.. I´m a very new grower and I am about 8 weeks into my first grow (3-4 weeks into flowering). Sadly while my equipment seems sufficient I didn´t had the proper preperation in regards to nutrients which my plants needed (my fully organic grow approach didn´t work out as planned) and I´m now in a situation where I got some nice flowers going but the plant is clearly shown very heavy signs of nutrient deficit and at the same time it has some nitrogen toxicity symptoms (imagine half my plant looks yellow, burned, clawed leaves and the other half is dark green) and generally it looks very unhealthy. It is still developing the buds and it is still consuming water at a normal rate.

The current plan is to take my first grow as a learning experience and just let the plant go through all stages including drying/curing to do everything once. It is not unlikely that I get some decent buds out of the plants even when they don´t look super healthy and the plant is not doing so fine. Also I´m hard limited to a 50g dried harvest anyway, rest I would need to throw away (law).

My main question atm why I registered here in the forum. When the cannabis plant is clearly shown signs of nutrient deficit (or even the opposite toxisit / nutrient burn) will the buds become "bad" or "toxic". Like literally "you can´t smoke it cause it would be bad for your health" toxic. It is not about losing taste or that it doesn´t have the potency it would normally have but just more the question if a situation can occur where it is dangerous for your health to smoke the buds. When I think about the topic it seems logical that if the plant has way too much nitrogen that it would put more nitrogen into buds then normally which then in return would cause problems when you consume the bud. But.. like that´s just how I imagine it. Maybe the plant is just "not building buds if it doesn´t have the proper elements for a healthy flower" and even if the plant has toxicity it will not be transferred into the flowers/buds?

I like have no information and I know the US community is probably one of the best sources in regards to questions for cannabis growing. Maybe someone knows something about this topic. Like I said I just want to finish my first grow, learn from it and potentially enjoy a small harvest and it would be helpful if someone could easy my mind with information about this topic. In the end I don´t really want to consume something that would be bad for me ^^

Also sorry for my poor english ^^

Thanks for anyone who potentially knows some answers and can help me out :)

 

[Zill]

Hey Zero,

Look at it this way - Cannabis grown in the wild for centuries is always under a huge amount of stress 100% of the time. It’s a tough life out there in the wild. Never have I heard/ read that stressed out cannabis plants give rise to toxic flowers. I guess if they are really beat up the THC levels may drop off.

Z.

 

[ZeroG]

Hey Zero,

Look at it this way - Cannabis grown in the wild for centuries is always under a huge amount of stress 100% of the time. It’s a tough life out there in the wild. Never have I heard/ read that stressed out cannabis plants give rise to toxic flowers. I guess if they are really beat up the THC levels may drop off.

Z.

Yeah good point. Maybe I´m overthinking the whole thing a bit. It is mostly based on knowledge that bud taste can change with certain nutrients. As example. I did read an article about excess potassium and that the bud can develop a chemical taste. I was just generally thinking if there is a possibility that the bud quality/taste changes if it can go in a direction where the bud is no longer safe for consumption.

 

[Zill]

Never stop thinking.

Also, there are loads of well intentioned members that swear feeding plants fruit juice or performing a thorough root flush as harvest nears somehow affects the flavor, aroma of a mature bud.

Fruit juice and metals don’t affect bud aroma. Flushing is silly.

 

[Galgrows]

Yeah good point. Maybe I´m overthinking the whole thing a bit. It is mostly based on knowledge that bud taste can change with certain nutrients. As example. I did read an article about excess potassium and that the bud can develop a chemical taste. I was just generally thinking if there is a possibility that the bud quality/taste changes if it can go in a direction where the bud is no longer safe for consumption.

The only " toxic " thing i would'nt use from the plant is if it had mold. Like the other poster says, it's been growing for thousand years in the dirt without a helping hand.

 

[Zill]

Good point Gal. Avoid fungal spore laden dusty buds.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

There is something known as hormesis. It's when a plant has an adaptive response in reaction to harm or excessive stress. The idea is the plant will put more resources into fruiting and reproduction because it. That typically works to the farmer's favor. It's thought to be one of the reasons why fruit trees produce better if they're properly pruned.

 

[ZeroG]

There is something known as hormesis. It's when a plant has an adaptive response in reaction to harm or excessive stress. The idea is the plant will put more resources into fruiting and reproduction because it. That typically works to the farmer's favor. It's thought to be one of the reasons why fruit trees produce better if they're properly pruned.

Looking at my plant. It looks like it has a lot of stress

I love it anyway despite looking like a striped tiger.

Thanks for the helpful input. I hope I can do better on my next grow ^^ might even try pruning when I got the nutrient stuff down and then I hopefully don´t have to constantly think about me producing toxic cannabis because I messed massively up ^^

 

[Zill]

Hey Love,

You are absolutely correct. Go into any orchard in the spring during flowering. The trees with the ridiculously huge amount of flowers are the ones on the way out, disease, age, weather damage, etc. you can pick them out.

My only reservation connecting stress to a response with more flowers in a cannabis setting hasn’t been shown. Folks the split stems, inducing stress, that some how makes makes more aromatic flowers doesn’t make sense. 200 year old apple trees are not annual cannabis.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

Looking at my plant. It looks like it has a lot of stress

It's probably about how much stress and when it occurs.

I love it anyway despite looking like a striped tiger.

I love my plants, too.

I hope I can do better on my next grow

I think we all do. I know I do.

 

[ZeroG]

@LoveGrowingIt @Zill

Thanks for all the nice words. Really glad I found this forum

I already have a list of all the mistakes I want to improve for the next time. Can´t wait until the summer heat is over so I can start again.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

You are absolutely correct. Go into any orchard in the spring during flowering. The trees with the ridiculously huge amount of flowers are the ones on the way out, disease, age, weather damage, etc. you can pick them out.

Orchardists intentionally do harm to produce better fruit. It's called pruning. Most folks don't think of pruning as harming plants because it usually helps eventually, but it harms the plant, nevertheless, and thus stresses the plant.

My only reservation connecting stress to a response with more flowers in a cannabis setting hasn’t been shown.

It's true, there isn't much science specifically regarding cannabis, but there is some for other plants (and organisms in general). (If cannabis is reclassified, I suspect there will be much more research. Our corporate overlords are sure to want a piece of that action.)

Producing "more flowers" isn't the only way to show a response. Let's not overlook potency, disease resistance, or perhaps simply a robust plant.

Stress theorists' postulate there are distinct types of stress: distress and eustress. The former is thought to be bad stress and the latter good stress. For example, a little stress can make an individual do better at something, while a lot of stress can cause inferior performance. Underlying those ideas is the idea that every living organism experiences stress as long as they continue to be alive. In common thought, all stress is framed as bad stress, but that isn't the case in stress theory.

My thinking regarding cannabis is there are times during a plant's life when stress could lead to improved fruit production or other benefits, i.e., eustress. Similarly, there may be times when stress is harmful, i.e., distress. Thus, the outcome defines the nature of a stressful event.

Thinking about it from an adaptation point of view, it makes sense that an organism would react to adverse stimuli by doing what it can to improve its species' chances of survival.

Folks the split stems, inducing stress, that some how makes makes more aromatic flowers doesn’t make sense.

Some say broken stems grow back stronger. There was also a thread here a while ago about drilling holes in the stems to improve plants. (Or was it driving nails in the stems? Memory fails me on that one.)

200 year old apple trees are not annual cannabis.

Such a tree would be quite rare. Few live beyond about 50. But maybe if the tree received good care.

 

[Zill]

You understand the comparison, aged vs. annual.