How to Get the Best Out of Your Bud: The Seed To Harvest Journey

Growing cannabis products is a test of patience and experience. Once bud is ready for harvesting, making sure all the hard work pays off is largely reliant on its packaging. In this article, we’ll break down the basics of the cannabis growing process, how to harvest it, and what your packaging options are to preserve its carefully curated quality.

Growing Cannabis From Seed to Harvest

There are several ways to grow cannabis, the major methods being: indoor, outdoor, or in a greenhouse. Indoor grow is the method many large-scale cannabis producers adopt. They’re able to control environmental conditions with artificial light and hydroponics to create grow cycles all year long. The cons? Indoor grow setups can be pricey and lead to high electricity costs. 

Outdoor grow on the other hand is au naturale, using the sun as its energy source. Some cannabis enthusiasts prefer an outdoor grow because it can be more flavorful and aromatic due to a higher percentage of terpenes. However, some plants grown outdoors can be subjected to pesticides, which consumers surely don’t want in their smoke. The perfect marriage of these two methods is greenhouse growing. Producers use the sun for its natural light cycle and can have better control over environmental conditions such as humidity and pests.

Photo courtesy of Richard T | The CBD (http://www.thecbd.co)

Cannabis Growth Timeline

It can take four to eight months to grow a cannabis plant, plus the time it takes after harvesting to dry and cure the bud. The timeline varies based on your grow method. For example, plants in indoor grows can flower in just a few weeks! There are five growth stages:

1. Germination (1-7 days long): Growers can use seeds and nurture them to sprout small roots. Others can use cuttings from a mother plant—in which the rooting process would be very similar to propagating houseplants. Growers may call these cuttings “clones”.
2. Seedling stage (2-3 weeks long): Careful not to overwater. The seedling has a tiny root system.
3. Vegetative (2-8 weeks long): The cannabis plant should be repotted into a larger pot at this point. This is where your plant will grow its roots, stalk, branches, and leaves. The foundation of a healthy cannabis plant!
4. Pre-flowering (1-2 weeks long): Within 3-6 weeks from germination, you should be able to identify your female plants! Female plants and male plants should be separated, as male plants will try to pollinate your female plants, resulting in more seeds and very few buds.
5. Flowering (6-8 weeks long): This stage happens naturally when the plant receives less than 12 hours of sunlight.

The final step isn’t a growth stage but is equally as important in getting your cannabis from seed to sale: harvesting. For outdoor grows, this usually happens around September, October, and November. Though harvesting is most common in October, hence the popular term in the cannabis business called “Croptober.”

Photo courtesy of Farmer and the Felon Cannabis Co.

Cannabis Harvest & Preparation for Sale

Upon harvesting, cannabis producers have to dry, trim, and cure the plant in order to create consumable buds. If weed isn’t properly dried, it can grow mold overtime, or may be too full of moisture to burn. A proper drying process retains precious terpenes and cannabinoids, contributing to a great, flavorful smoke. This step also diminishes the amount of natural chlorophyll in the plant, potentially causing a “burnt grass” taste, which is definitely not the experience customers pay for.

Once the plants are dried, it’s time to trim. During this phase, the stems and leaves are separated from the buds. Whether you trim by hand, or by machine, the process is laborious, but the end result is the higher-quality product that your customers are expecting. You can trim before drying your plants, too—this is called wet trimming. There are pros and cons to both methods, but trimmers have one goal in mind: protect as many of the bud’s trichomes as possible!

So the buds are dried and trimmed, and now it’s time to cure. Curing is where you can affect the cannabis’ flavor and quality of the weed when smoked. To cure, loosely pack a glass jar with trimmed, dry buds and seal the container within a dark room with a stable temperature and humidity. This will stop the loss of moisture and help draw out even more flavorful terpenes. During the curing process, the moisture inside the jar is circulated to the outermost parts of the cannabis buds, keeping your product well-hydrated and soft. The ideal humidity inside the jars should range from 55%-65% humidity, even after “burping” the jar (opening the container for a few minutes during the first week of curing in order to refresh the oxygen content inside). This process can take anywhere from two weeks to several months based on preference, but it’s well worth the wait. 

Cannabis Packaging Solutions

You’ve waited nearly 11 months. You’ve watered, dried, trimmed, and cured. You’re proud of your buds (who wouldn’t be?). You’re ready to sell and you want to make sure that the terpenes you’ve spent lots of time developing are preserved. Calyx has a unique set of product offerings that will keep your products’ terps and integrity sealed in.

Our plastic Drams are available in four different sizes, making them perfect for flower, edibles, and small pre-roll bundles. They block UV rays to protect your cannabis from the damaging and chemical-altering effects of sunlight. Combined with our resealable lids, our Drams maintain optimal moisture levels and mitigate oxygen ingress so that what you package is always what you sell.

If you’ve gone a step further and turned your buds into concentrate, our concentrate containers will maintain their sticky, saucey, or crumbly integrity. The lid consists of our signature gasket technology combined with our inert FEP liner that prevents your extracts from sticking and leaking.  

We even have tubes so you can package your pre-rolls or oil cartridges properly. They have a proprietary lid with a water-tight gasket seal and rounded internal corners that keeps your product fresh for every sesh. When these tubes ship, they arrive open for efficient inventory filling.

All of these containers are Child-Resistant certified and are ready to ship to you from the United States, providing you with a streamlined packaging solution for your business. Get the best out of your bud and reach out to our team to learn about our premium packaging solutions. 

Contact Calyx Containers

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info@calyxcontainers.com 

(617) 249-6870