by Nebula Haze
Table of Contents
Why Do Growers Trim Cannabis Buds?
- Trimming buds gives you a higher-quality final product.
Best Time to Trim (“Wet Trim” vs “Dry Trim”)
- Should you trim buds before or after drying? It depends on your drying environment.
- Get step-by-step instructions from start to finish.
Cannabis Trimming Gadgets & Tools
- Learn about specialty equipment to help trim cannabis buds.
This trimming tutorial is part of our “how to harvest cannabis” series:
Flushing > Harvest > Trimming > Drying & Curing
Why do growers trim cannabis buds in the first place?
Harvest time has come! You are cutting down your homegrown cannabis buds, with plans to dry and cure them. But do growers need to trim their cannabis buds? When is the best time to trim, and why do growers trim buds in the first place? Get the answers today!
Trimming cannabis buds – before & after
Here are some reasons to trim buds:
- “Top Shelf” Appearance – Trimmed buds are often considered higher quality. Most buds are completely manicured (or at least somewhat trimmed) when you see them in magazines, at the dispensary, and online. This is the appearance we’ve come to associate with “good weed” and so untrimmed buds may look less appealing to some people.
- Better Smell – Buds that are trimmed before being going into jars tend to gain a stronger and more pleasant “weed” smell over time. On the flip side, untrimmed buds sometimes take on a “planty” hay smell if they’re stored in an airtight container for too long with all their leaves intact (several weeks to months).
- Easier on Your Throat – Leaves are more “harsh” on your throat/lungs than flowers when vaping or smoking. Trimming off extra leaf matter makes buds more “smooth” to smoke or vaporize by removing unnecessary leafy matter.
- Higher THC Concentration – Buds from modern strains can be 20-30+% THC by dry weight, while fan leaves have much lower THC (1-4%, depending on strain). Even trichome-encrusted sugar leaves have a significantly lower concentration of THC and other cannabinoids than the flowers/buds. That means trimmed buds tend to have higher levels of THC gram-for-gram, so you can smoke or vape less to get the same effects.
Many growers want trimmed buds but don’t want to waste any THC, so they process the trimmed material (their “trim”) to extract the THC in the leaves separately. You have endless options for getting the good stuff out of your leaves and other trimmings. My favorite ways to extract THC from leaves include making dry ice hash, weed butter or canna caps. I sprinkle dry ice hash on top of bowls to skyrocket their potency, I use butter for edibles, and I love canna caps for the ability to easily dose edibles on the go.
An example of well-trimmed cannabis buds. You can barely see any leaves.
Perfectly manicured buds tend to smoke the smoothest.
These next examples of untrimmed cannabis buds are beautiful and the sugar leaves are covered in THC-filled trichomes. However, the buds may still be more “harsh” than if all the sugar leaves had been trimmed away. Even the most sparkly untrimmed cannabis buds tend to be more harsh to smoke due to the extra leafy matter.
Untrimmed cannabis buds with leaves intact tend to be more harsh to smoke – pic by psychonaught
If sugar leaves are covered in trichomes, it’s more common for growers to leave them.
In general, trimmed buds are perceived as “higher quality” or more aesthetically pleasing. Yet on the flip side, many growers prefer seeing trichome-encrusted sugar leaves on their buds. I personally always trim buds. but in the end, it’s a matter of personal preference. I suggest you try it both ways on the same harvest and see what you think. As long as you’re happy, there’s no right or wrong way about it!
Should Cannabis Growers Trim Buds Before or After Drying? (“Wet Trim” vs “Dry Trim”)
When I first started growing cannabis, I didn’t know anything about trimming. I knew you could do it before or after drying buds, but I didn’t know the pros and cons of each method. From reading online, I could see that growers successfully use both methods, so there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to trim your buds. As long as you’re happy with the results, you did a good trimming job.
But what do cannabis cultivation experts say about the best timing to trim buds?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to trimming cannabis:
- Trim before drying (“wet trim”) – Some growers trim their cannabis buds before drying them. This is best done when high humidity is an issue and you’re afraid of getting mold.
- Trim after drying (“dry trim”) – Some growers trim their cannabis after buds have already dried. This is best done in low to moderate humidity, and helps buds dry slow and evenly.
These buds were dried with the leaves on and still need to be trimmed.
Why are they called “wet trim” and “dry trim”?
Trimming your cannabis before drying is known as a “wet trim” because the leaves still contain all their moisture during the trimming process. Trimming after the cannabis buds have already dried is known as a “dry trim” since your buds and leaves will already be completely dry before you trim off the leaves.
Most cannabis growers will at least remove all or most of the big fan leaves with their fingers before drying, though some growers will hang the whole plant upside down without any type of trim whatsoever.
Wet Trim Example (fully trimmed before drying) – All leaves are removed before buds are allowed to dry. These buds are still full of moisture.
Dry Trim Example (light trim before drying) – Only the biggest leaves were removed before the buds were dried. Most leaves are still there for the dry process. This seems to be the most common way to dry cannabis buds.
Dry Trim Example (no trim before drying) – Full branches were hung without any trimming. Not even fan leaves were removed before drying.
Trim before drying (“wet trim”) when…
- You’re worried about mold.
- You have high humidity (above 60% RH).
- There is poor air circulation and little air movement.
- There’s a lot of buds drying in a small space.
- Any time you want buds to dry more quickly.
If you struggle with high humidity and mold, it may be a good idea to trim buds before drying.
Trim after drying (“dry trim”) when…
- You’re not worried about mold.
- You have low or moderate humidity (under 55% RH).
- You want buds to be “tighter” or more dense.
- You want buds to dry more slowly (buds that dry too fast can smoke unevenly).
Buds dry more slowly and evenly with their leaves intact.
Sometimes it’s hard to get all the leaves when buds are dried first before trimming.
In practice, I’ve seen a huge variation between growers as far as when they trim. Some cannabis growers trim plants immediately after harvest, some trim partway through drying, some wait to trim until after buds are totally dry, and some never trim at all. It can also vary with the local weather and even the particular plant. For example, if I had an extremely leafy plant and the humidity was high right as I was harvesting, I may opt to trim that plant before drying to prevent the chance of mold, even though I might normally prefer to trim after buds dry.
Check out the complete tutorial: Wet Trim vs. Dry Trim: Which Makes Better Cannabis?
How to trim your cannabis buds like a pro!
What You’ll Need
Sharp scissors (for trimming buds)
Fiskars scissors are our weapon of choice. The blades are thin and sharp, which makes it easier to get your bud looking perfectly manicured. They also have a built-in spring to automatically open the blades after each snip. That ends up saving a lot of work for your hands by the time you’re done trimming.
Any “bonsai scissors” usually work well for trimming. These bonsai pruning shears are popular because they’re cheap, sharp, and spring-loaded.
Big pruning shears, or tough scissors you don’t mind destroying (for cutting though thick stems).
These will be used to actually cut down thick branches as you harvest colas to be trimmed.
If possible, try to use pruning shears to cut through big branches, and not the same sharp scissors you plan to use for trimming buds. Some thick branches are tough enough to destroy a pair of nice scissors in a single harvest. Shears slice through branches easily without getting dulle. You want sharp scissors for trimming your buds; it will save you so much time!
Remember: Growers save a lot of time and effort by using the right tool for the job!
Disposable gloves help protect your hands from your bud. Handling bud without gloves will make your hands sticky to the point where it becomes a constant problem. Plus, hands covered in resin are difficult to clean.
Disposable gloves keep the resin off your hands, and hand particulates off your weed!
3 Trays or Cookie Sheets
Separation helps make you more efficient during the cannabis trimming process. You should have a tray to hold your untrimmed buds, one to hold your newly trimmed buds, and the last one to hold your ‘trim’ (the plant matter you cut off the buds).
Use cookie sheets or any clean sizable containers to keep your trimmed weed, untrimmed weed, and trim separate.
Of course, you can use anything to keep your separate piles in, but cookie sheets have worked really well for me. Baking sheets work nicely and are cheap, but honestly, any non-absorbent flat surface will work. I like cookie sheets and other wide cooking pans because they are easy to clean and have a lip around the edges to help keep everything contained.
Once you have all of your gear assembled, move onto the steps below when you feel ready. Keep in mind that this can be a lengthy process depending on how much bud you’ve grown. However, any negative feelings you get from the labor of trimming will be far outweighed by all the bud you’ll be drying soon!
One last thing… Don’t forget to save all your leaves and other trim. You can use the extra leaves you cut off to make edibles or hash. If you can see trichomes (“glitter”) on the leaves, that means they have good stuff to extract. If a bud is very small or wispy, sometimes I’ll throw that in the trim pile as well.
Learn how to turn your trim into…
1.) Set Up Your Trimming Area
Before you start trimming your cannabis plants, you should set up a nice, comfortable place to trim your bud-laden branches. Trimming can take longer than it might seem at first, and it’s a good idea to dedicate at least an afternoon to trimming. I usually try to start trimming in the morning on a day I have off with no other plans in case it goes on longer than expected.
As far as where to do your trimming, a large, clean and cleared table on a non-carpeted floor works great. You will be getting little pieces of leaves everywhere, even if you’re careful, so try to trim in a spot that’s easy to clean. If you have to trim on carpeting, put down a sheet or tarp so spare your poor carpet from trichome stickiness.
I like to get set up in front of a TV, so I can watch movies or shows in the background while I’m trimming. Music or radio can be nice too. In order to stay as comfortable as possible while trimming, I believe it’s important to make sure you get up at least once an hour, even if just to walk around the house or move to a different chair. Take a second to stretch your arms, shoulders and neck. Sometimes you can get in the zone while trimming and not move for a while, so making a point to make breaks will help keep your back, neck and hands from getting cramped up.
Put out your trays as you’ll be using them in just a moment. You’ll be using one tray to hold your untrimmed buds, one to hold your trimmed buds, and one to hold your leaves/trim. You want to keep it all separate if you can, though some spillover is inevitable.
Smell Control: The trimming of buds creates a great deal of odor, especially if you’re trimming fresh buds that have not dried yet. The room that you trim in (and any adjoining rooms) will smell like a cannabis farm. The smell is actually stronger than in the flowering stage when trimming fresh buds. Make sure to contain the smell and try to mitigate the odor if you can. I like to run an exhaust fan on a carbon scrubber (the same one I use in my tent) while I trim. While it doesn’t completely cancel out the smell, it does get pretty close. Here’s a little more info about that, with a picture.
One trick to clear a room of smell that I’ve learned will work in an emergency is to put an exhaust fan on top of a carbon filter, and place it wherever the smell is strongest. In addition to trimming, I’ve done this when I’m cooking cannabis in the oven (which can smell up the house) or if I’ve been smoking and suddenly realized I have guests coming. It looks like this:
You don’t even have to attach the fan to anything, you can just let the scrubbed air go back into the room. It’s pretty amazing how fast this can clear up a smelly area! I learned this from a dispensary owner. Here is an example of a fan/carbon filter combo.
Now that you’ve set up your space, it’s time to start harvesting!
2.) Wash your hands and put on a pair of gloves
I prefer latex gloves as they’re sturdy and it feels easier for me to change into a new pair. But any gloves you like will do the trick.
These gloves will soon be sticky with resin.
If you don’t use gloves, get some rubbing alcohol ready, because you’ll need it to get all the resin off your fingers once you’re done trimming. Soap and water usually won’t cut it. You can also save the resin and smoke it – it’s basically hash. I sprinkle it on top of weed to smoke as a “thank you for trimming” gift to myself.
3.) Using your tough scissors, cut a branch off your cannabis plant
You may want to cut just one branch down the first time so you can get a feel for trimming, instead of cutting everything down at once. That way you can get an idea of how big of a branch you want to work with at a time.
If trimming immediately after harvest, this also allows you to harvest the plant in stages. If you have to stop halfway through for whatever reason, the buds will be fine for an extra day or two on the cannabis plant (even if the rest of the plant is completely hacked up).
When cutting off branches to trim, remember to cut them to a comfortable working size. No larger than these two or you’ll probably have a hard time handling them!
4.) Remove Large Fan Leaves with Your Fingers
Even if you’re going to dry your buds first, I highly recommend removing the big fan leaves to help reduce the chance of mold, especially if you have very leafy plants.
What are fan leaves? These are the leaves that are easily pulled off by their long stem. Put these fan leaves in a pile to be disposed of later.
Here’s a pile of colas that still have their fan leaves
This is what buds look like after most of the fan leaves have been removed by hand
Sometimes you’ll have a big fan leaf that “goes into” the bud and you can’t easily reach the base with your fingers. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to snip those leaves off easily in the next step.
Many fan leaves do not have a usable amount of trichomes on them. If you plan to save your trimmings to make hash you may want to put these bigger fan leaves in a separate pile so you can throw them directly away, instead of mixing them in with your “trim pile”. The big fan leaves add a lot of plant matter that you have to process, but without adding much THC (big fan leaves are as little as 1% THC in some strains).
Note: If you’re going to dry your buds before trimming, now is the time to do it.
I personally like to hang my buds upside down by their branches to dry. I usually dry my buds in the same grow tent I grew the plants, since it’s a contained environment with good airflow and built-in smell filtering, but you have lots of options to dry your plants.
Read the complete cannabis drying tutorial here.
If you plan to dry buds after, or if you have already finished drying, go to the next step.
5.) Trim Off the Sugar Leaves
Make a note of the small leaves that stick out of the buds; you will be able to see the leaf tips, but usually not the stems. These are typically referred to as “sugar leaves” and don’t need to be removed, only trimmed with your scissors if they stick out.
Before & After – Trimming Sugar Leaves (“wet trim”)
Another example of trimmed vs untrimmed weed (“dry trim”)
If the sugar leaves are covered in a lot of trichomes, some growers will leave them on instead of trimming them. I personally don’t recommend doing that if you plan to smoke or vaporize because any extra leaf matter tends to make buds harsher on your lungs. You want as close to pure bud as possible for the best smoking or vaping experience. They don’t have to go to waste. Save them in your separate trim pile and you’ll be able to extract the trichomes off the leaves later to make extracts like hash, caps or weed butter, This means you’re still getting all the THC, but without the added harshness of extra leaf matter. That’s why I recommend trimming all the sugar leaves until they are flush with the buds.
Sugar leaves are cut so they are flush with the bud, giving it a round, almost smooth appearance.
Some buds will always have sugar leaves you can see, even if you cut them flush with the outsides of the bud. This is just the way that some cannabis buds grow and is normal genetic variation.
When it’s difficult to determine where buds stop and sugar leaves begin, just try to use your best judgment.
You should be left with a branch with trimmed bud on it. Now that you’ve got the hang of it, repeat this process on the remainder of the branches on your cannabis plant.
Do your best to make sure that all the ‘trim’ (the leaves trimmed from your bud) falls onto the tray designated for it. Not only does that let you save more trim for hash, it will help you with cleanup later. Try not to cut off any of the actual buds, but if you do by accident, throw it in the trim pile.
The whole trimming process can take a while depending on how much you ended up with, but if it’s more than you can do at once, it’s perfectly okay to harvest your plant in stages over a few days.
If the buds are already dried but you didn’t have enough time to trim them all, put them in jars or a turkey bag to prevent them from drying further, even if they’re untrimmed. You can come back to trim them later. Just don’t leave them stored like that for too long or the buds take on a hay smell.
Problem: Buds are dry but you don’t have enough time to trim today.
Solution: Store them in oven bags (also called turkey bags) until you can trim. Just don’t leave them like this for too long.
Trimmed and ready
After trimming, your scissors (and fingers) will be covered in hash. Don’t throw that stuff away – it’s concentrated cannabis resin! You can vape, smoke or consume hash just like cannabis flowers.
Don’t toss out all your leaves! Learn how to turn your trim into…
6.) Dispose of your plant
If you haven’t yet, it’s time to securely dispose of the remainder of the plant.
Cut your plant up into pieces and double bag all the plant matter left over after harvest. Do not throw this bag away until the day your trash is picked up. This means there is less time where someone could go through your trash and find it.
Gadgets, tools & shortcuts to help you trim your cannabis better!
For Standard Trimming Cannabis by Hand
Other Easy Ways to Trim Cannabis
Sharp Scissors – Any “bonsai scissors” work great, too!
Fiskars scissors are one of the most popular scissors for trimming buds by hand. They are thin and sharp with a spring to automatically open after each snip. That saves your hands a lot of work over the course of a trim session. These are what I use to trim my buds 🙂
Any “bonsai scissors” usually work well for trimming. These bonsai pruning shears are popular because they’re cheap, sharp, and spring-loaded.
To actually cut off branches from your plant you want something stronger, like these big pruning shears. If you use your Fiskars scissor to cut through stems they will become dull quickly!
Disposable gloves
Disposable gloves keep the resin off your hands, and hand particulates off your weed!
3 Trays or Cookie Sheets
Use cookie sheets or any clean sizable containers to keep your trimmed weed, untrimmed weed, and trim separate. You can use the 4th pan (or a trashcan) to capture the big fan leaves that don’t have trichomes and are often tossed.
Electric Handheld Scissors
There are a few different types of these to make trimming easier. The Bonsai Hero electric trimmer used to be the most common option, but it’s now been discontinued. There are similar options like the SereneLife Battery Grass Cutter (cheap) or the Trim Daddy (expensive).
The cool thing about electric trimmers is they let you trim far faster than if you were doing it with regular scissors. They are also easy on your hands since the scissors do all the opening and closing themselves – you just guide them!
The downside is you just can’t get as close a trim job with electric pruning shears compared to regular scissors. They’re just not precise enough. It’s common for growers to use them quickly to trim off most of the leaves and use scissors to tidy the buds up afterward. The other downside to electric scissors is you will end up cutting off more bud by accident than if you were hand scissoring.
However, sometimes the time savings is worth losing a little bud and leaving a little extra leaf matter. In large-scale growing operations, it’s common to give buds a rough cut with electric trimmers and just sell them that way. It gets 90% of the work done in half the time!
Be warned, these are expensive. Stick to Fiskars if cost is a concern!
Lichamp 2-in-1 Electric Hand-Held Trimmer ($35) – I haven’t tried this one yet, but I just ordered a pair to test next harvest since the price is so much better than the alternatives.
Trim Daddy electric bud trimmer ($135)
Bowl Leaf Trimmers
These have many of the same pros and cons of electric hand trimmers, but there are differences.
First off, they’re quick! With a bowl leaf trimmer, you will be done trimming faster than with pretty much any other trimming method. But on the flip side, you will also lose more bud matter (it will be trimmed away) than other methods, because these basically work by “smoothing” out the outsides of the bud, whether it’s taking off leaf or bud.
Bowl trimmers tend to take off more leaves than hand-trimming. However, if you have a whole lot of bud to trim, the ease and quickness of the bowl trimmer ($170) method may be worth the reduced flower yield.
One thing about bowl trimmers that makes them unique is you have to remove the buds from the branches before using the machine. Always read the instructions that come with a bowl trimmer!
Now that you have trimmed your buds, it’s time to dry buds if they haven’t been dried yet. If they’re already dry, it’s time for the cure. You’re almost there!
Continue to the next article to learn about curing your cannabis buds.
This trimming tutorial is part of our “how to harvest cannabis” series:
Flushing > Harvest > Trimming > Dry & Cure
You are now an expert on trimming weed!
