Picking great marijuana can be as easy as visiting a dispensary with a reputation for selling great bud, but sometimes that can be easier said than done. Marijuana is an agricultural product, and just like our fruits and veggies, sometimes the crop isn’t picked at the perfect time and quality suffers. Picking too early or too late can affect the flavor, THC and cannabinoid content and high of the finished product. So how can a marijuana consumer tell if the pot they’re buying was picked at its peak? One way is to take a good hard look at the bud before you buy it. A bud will say a lot about its life in its appearance. In determining if it was picked at the right time there are two main things to look for, red hairs and glitter.
Mentioning hair in pot makes many potheads remember the old days when picking dog hair out of the baggie was a part of rolling a joint. But red hair in marijuana can be a great sign. If a bud is covered in red hair, that is a great indicator that it was left on the plant until it was done developing, which means the percentages of THC and cannabinoids will be higher than if it had been harvested early.
There are a couple of important notes concerning red hair in marijuana. First, not all strains have the ability to produce as much red hair as others. These “hairs” are actually part of the cannabis flower, and just like many flowers, different varieties produce different color variations. Some strains of pot produce these red “hairs” while others have smaller, and harder to see, hair. Second, these hair parts can also indicate a bud that was picked too late and started to lose quality and THC content. If the hairs seem particularly withered or brittle, another strain may be your best bet this time around unless you can grab it on discount, like day old bread.
We are not talking about that movie about the singer. Glitter, as in the sparkly, shiny stuff that envelopes each and every nook and cranny of a good bud. Mother nature’s greatest marketing tool ever – a glittery bud and a few well aimed LED lights, and everyone will come and buy your beautiful and irresistible buds. And if those buds are coated in glitter, then they very well should go and buy those buds!
The glitter on marijuana is actually the trichrome and home to the volatile oils that make the plant what it is - the oils that make up live resin. Get up close and personal with a bud sometime and check these little gems out. Each and every one of those sparkly little dots is really a tiny little bubble of the good stuff. THC, cannabinol, and other active chemicals are carried and housed in these bubbles of oil. When marijuana has lots of these bubbles left on it in the pot shop, this means a couple of things. It means that the bud was allowed to mature to a point where it produced a lot of this oil, which means it should be stronger. It also means that it was not allowed to stand in the field too long and loose vital potency. But lots of glitter left on the bud also means that it was cured and handled with care and that its at least fairly fresh. As pot sits around and dries out, so do these oils, making even the best weed loose quality and glitter if not stored properly.
When shopping for your favorite strains of marijuana at your local dispensary remember to keep one eye open for red hairs and glitter. Better than thumping a melon, these are two tried and true indicators of mature, high quality marijuana that is sure to provide the high you are looking for at great cannasaver prices
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