When your cannabis plant is very dense, a lot of cannabis growers usually cut the branches and leaves to stunt its growth or reduce its size. Though it’s confusing to do this, you have no choice but to cut it to cope up with the standard size of your grow room or if you are growing outdoors, to prevent it from further exposing to the neighborhood.
Thus, trimming is an essential process that any cannabis grower will bound to experience. Take the case during harvest. There will always a point that you’ll use some scissors and cut or trim some portions of the plant. Nevertheless, trimming should be done carefully. The plant could get sick if it’s improperly treated.
In this article, we will look at some basic things and guidelines that one should remember upon trimming cannabis plants. This could be simple as you think it is but there are a lot of growers who have failed to follow this process.
The Purpose of Trimming your Cannabis Plant
Trimming is a technique referring to the removal of leaves, buds, or branches into the cannabis plant. This process is a necessity during the harvest of buds into the cannabis plant. Aside from that, this process is also done for multiple purposes. At this point of this article, we will be pointing out some other reasons why a lot of growers trim their cannabis plants. Respectively, this includes the following;
Improve appearance
Growers always want their cannabis plant to look good in front of other people. That is why a lot tend to cut around their plant in such a way to look attractive as it should be. Somewhat, it is more appealing for a grower to smoke around into a bud coming from a well clean and cut cannabis plant.
Safety and Security
Aside from that, there are growers who tend to cut their cannabis plants in such a way to prevent the risks of exposure to authorities or nosy neighbors. There are those who intentionally decorate their cannabis plants in such a way that it will not be obvious to other people. Some people camouflaged it among other plants and make it look like the other as needed.
Expand Ventilation
Maintaining the airflow and ventilation around the cannabis plant is important for it to grow well. Thus, a lot of cannabis growers tend to cut and trim some parts of the plant to accommodate some space for it to breathe. Though in most cases, a grower just easily transfers and transplant it, there are cases that it leaves no choice for growers but to trim it. This trimming process is done most specifically through indoor growing.
Enhance the Potency
There are a lot of growers who trims their cannabis plants to improve the potency of it. Nevertheless, this technique is often employed to various methods like ScrOg (Screen of Green) and L.S.T (Low-Stress Training) for which trims around few portions of the cannabis plant to improve taste and yields of the cannabis plants.
Prevent Exposure to Diseases
There are times that growers cut around a particular portion of the cannabis plant to prevent the spread of a certain disease into the plant. This usually happens when the plant is infested with fungi such as molds who easily disperse around the plant.
When should you trim cannabis plants It depends when it requires to. There are those who do it during an early flowering stage or even before depending on the circumstances. If you are talking of buds, then trimming is usually done few days before harvesting the cannabis plants. Though there are growers who trim cannabis plant after harvesting or pre-curing process, it is important to realize that it’s still a matter of convenience to the grower.
Cannabis Trimming Techniques
Basically, trimming is done by using a scissor to cut few portions of the plant. Consequently, there are few methods that you could utilize in order to make sure that the trimming job will be perfectly enacted.
- Invest in Trimming Machines
If you are cultivating cannabis on a large scale process, there is a necessity that you have to buy trimming machines. Though having its own imperfections, these machines are fabricated to do harvesting easier as to any cannabis grower. But nevertheless, this method is not recommended especially for growers who have been growing multiple varieties of cannabis plants. Aside from the device is very expensive, the equipment is only specifically friendly to particular strains of cannabis plants. There are users who have complaints of damage trichomes or buds upon undergoing it into a trimming machine. - Hand Trimming
If you are planning to trim your cannabis buds for harvest, then be careful about cutting it over. There are instances that you’ll be removing some important parts of the bud. Thus, it is essential to stay on the track. Generally, there are two types of trimming technique that you could employ to make things simpler yet efficient. - Wet Trimming
This refers to the process of trimming the cannabis plants during the harvest. Basically, this is the most primitive way of harvesting cannabis plants. This process is easier as compared to the other one. You could recognize readily all the portions of the plant as needed. - Dry Trimming
This is a trimming technique that is usually done after drying. Thus, the whole plant will be dried over for a few days and then, trim when the plant is completely dried out with very minimal moisture on it. Few users prefer this especially that you’ll not need very sharp scissors to cut portions of the plant.
Whatever method it is, things depend on the convenience and comfort of the grower
Topping Cannabis Plants
Unrelated during harvest, this process refers to trimming of cannabis plants to improve its yield or enhance the potency. When you are topping, it is important to cut only the newly shoot tips to inflict minimal damage to the plant.
