If you’ve used weed before, you probably know how to differentiate a high-quality product from a subpar one. But if you’re just beginning to use weed, identifying a quality one may be difficult. Fortunately, with the right knowledge of identification, you’ll be able to determine whether the cannabis you’ve bought is of high-quality or not. This article explains some things to look out for while determining weed quality.
- Smell
High-quality marijuana buds should have a strong, distinct smell that’s identifiable even in weed stores. That strong smell is a sign of high terpene content. On the other hand, poor-quality buds may lack a distinct smell or smell like hay. That’s a sign that’s it’s cured cannabis, or it was poorly grown. If the buds smell like chocolate or coffee, they’re probably from the Indica strain, while those that smell like citrus fruits are from the Sativa strains. High breed strains have a distinct smell.
- Color
Quality marijuana buds are either brown or green. Other shades may be forest green, dark green, and frosty green with either rosy or purple undertones. Before buying a cannabis product, you need to ask yourself whether the bud was plucked from a healthy plant.
Most quality buds will have hints of blue, pink, and purple. But if a majority are yellow, rusty red, tan, or brown, they came from an unhealthy plant. Also, buds that seem bleached white could be light burn victims and may indicate an unfavourable growing condition. You should avoid such buds because they won’t give you the optimum vaping and smoking experience you desire.
- Trimming
During harvesting, cannabis buds are trimmed to get rid of the surrounding leaves. High-quality buds are those that are hand-trimmed and not machine-trimmed. Trimming buds using machines disrupts trichomes. You should also avoid buds that are untrimmed or trimmed but have many leaves because they indicate a rushed cultivation process.
- Trichomes
The aim of growing quality cannabis is to produce buds that have dense and ripe trichomes. That’s because trichomes are the careers of terpenes and cannabinoids in a marijuana plant. You can easily identify the trichome density of cannabis by checking how frosty the bud is.
Quality buds have trichomes that shine like crystals, while poor-quality buds don’t have trichome coverage. Though it’s easy to determine trichome density, it’s challenging to know trichome ripeness. You Need a jeweller’s loop or magnifying glass to assess it. These devices will help you know whether the plant was grown to maturity or harvested prematurely.
Buds that are harvested prematurely tend to have lengthened flowering periods and are common in states where marijuana cultivation is illegal, and cultivators seek to complete many flower cycles to maximize profits.
The trichome head color can help you to know its ripeness. Ripe heads should have either a white or amber color. Trichome heads with clear colors indicate that the plant was harvested before time, while predominantly amber heads indicate that the plant was harvested way after maturity.
Summing Up
Identifying quality cannabis plants from poor-quality ones is simple if you know what to look at. These are but a few of the ways of identifying high-quality buds.
