If you love cannabis, you already know that the plant’s dense flowers are rich with terpenes and cannabinoids. What you might not realize is that the stems and leaves are also full of useful chemical compounds. Extract manufacturers take advantage of the entire plant.
Once the plant has been harvested, expert trimmers remove the flowers. The rest of the plant is carefully collected. The best use for the excess trim is to make extracts.
According to Cannabis Now: “A properly-harvested and trimmed plant leaves a large amount of trimmings. These are the water leaves, sugar leaves and unformed nugs left on the stems and stocks that have been harvested for nugs. This product now needs to be trimmed again and sorted through, stem-by-stem, in order to clean the stems and stalks out, which can be discarded.”
When extract artists use a “trim run” to create the products, the result is just as potent as if only cannabis nuggets were used. There are multiple different ways to extract compounds from trim, and they all work wonderfully.
If you’re growing cannabis at home, you can use your trim as well. You might not be able to take advantage of the expensive methods used by real laboratories, but you can make your own rosin or kief.
Using trim to create concentrates helps to control the price. The medicinal benefits of cannabis aren’t recognized by the federal government, so insurance companies don’t cover the cost. Anything that helps to bring the price down is useful.
Cannabis sativa is an incredible plant. Almost every single part of it is useful. The pretty nugs seen on dispensary shelves are just the beginning. The entire plant should be celebrated.
