What Are Cannabis Popcorn Buds? | How to Use Them?
In the cannabis industry, many growers put restrictions to avoid popcorn buds in their crops. The reason is no one would want to harvest immature flowers. Sometimes things don’t go your way, but saying that popcorn buds on plants are entirely useless is the complete opposite.
If popcorn buds are correctly handled and trimmed professionally, they can add more value to your crop. For that, you will require more experience and always prepare yourself for unconventional outcomes.
All you need is comprehensible knowledge of buds and how to make use of them. Study our article for encyclopedia A to Z on popcorn flower buds, including the cause of their growth and how to use or avoid them for the reason you don’t want to consider them.
What are Popcorn Buds?
Unlike main flowers, popcorn buds are tiny little flowers that develop at the bottom of your plant. So, why are they called “popcorn”? The reason behind their name is the shape and size of the flowers. They almost look like popcorn.
Basically, popcorn buds on plants are poorly developed flowers that remain at the bottom of the main canopy. These flowers are so small in size and can minimize the weight of your harvest. That’s why most growers don’t want these buds in their crops.
So, what causes the buds that turn them into popcorn? There can be many reasons for that. Stress in plants is the main reason to produce undeveloped buds. Following are some frequent reasons that may trigger popcorn buds:
· Packed Environment
Not enough spacing between the plants or dense vegetative growth (lack of trimming) can limit the light reaching the bottom of the main canopy, resulting in undeveloped buds.
· Excessive Heat/Humidity
Excessive heat or humidity can lead plants to develop popcorn buds and can be the reason for mold and pests.
· Poor Feeding
Every living organism needs proper feeding to survive. Too much or low feeding is never a good option for cannabis plants. Cannabis plants need more care than other plants. They need proper nutrients and water to grow healthy. Too little or too excessive feeding can affect the growth of cannabis plants.
· Careless Training
Different training techniques can improve the development of cannabis plants; Low-Stress Training (LST) and High-Stress Training (LST) can significantly improve the plant’s health. If your timing of the training is not good, then you’ll witness a drastic change in your plant’s growth.
· Pests Problem
Controlling the pests and nutrient deficiencies at the earlier vegetative/flowering phase can give you fruitful results. Otherwise, these can make a huge difference in healthy buds’ formation.
At this point, you are now familiar with the popcorn buds and the reasons that may result in popcorn buds strain. However, there might be some uncertainties that somehow, your crop unexpectedly develops popcorn buds on plants. So, what will you do?
How to Use Popcorn Buds?
If you’ve found a reasonable amount of popcorn buds at reaping time, don’t through them out of your harvest! In fact, make use of them. Following are the ways to make use of these tiny flowers:
· Use Them to Smoke:
Popcorn buds can be tiny but can produce good smoke. In other ways, these buds are precisely the same as the dense flowers but less healthy. They do possess the same potency, flavor, and aroma. Before smoking these buds, make sure to dry and cure them correctly.
· Make Edibles
Popcorn buds for smoke are not the only option left. Indeed, you can make plenty of edibles like oil, butter, and cookies. These buds will give you the exact flavor that you are looking for. You may witness a slightly different favor in edibles than smoking or vaping.
· Play With Your Own Concentrates
Create your own concentrates and enjoy the different flavors and effects of marijuana. To make additional concentrate, you’ll need a good amount of popcorn buds.
So these were some ways you can make the most use of popcorn buds on plants. There are some pros and cons of using popcorn buds. The advantages and disadvantages can vary on the user. Let’s have a look at a few of them:
Pros of Popcorn Buds:
· For new cannabis users, it’s a perfect way to try popcorn flowers for smoking and vaping.
· Popcorn flowers are easy on pockets compared to dense buds. These buds provide almost the same taste and effects that you look for but at a low price.
· It can be used to make multiple edibles at a low cost.
· Provides the freedom to create your own concentrates.
Cons of Popcorn Buds:
· Since these buds contain fewer levels of cannabinoids, only new cannabis users can enjoy the flavors and psychoactive effects of popcorn flowers.
· Decrease the weight of the harvest.
Prevention of Popcorn Buds Indoors
We know there are plenty of uses and advantages of popcorn flowers, but growers don’t like to weigh down their harvest when it comes to harvesting. So if you are one of them who don’t want popcorn buds in your growing space, must follow the prevention steps:
1. Lollipopping:
There are many ways or techniques by which you can avoid the formation of popcorn flowers. Lollipopping is the first and probably the best way to avoid the occurrence of airy buds. This technique aims to remove the unnecessary leaves from the bottom of your plants that reside in the bud area.
The pruning will take place at the final vegetative phase. After lollipopping for quite some time, your plants will look exactly like a lollipop, dense colas up and clean stems down.
2. Mainlining:
Mainlining is an optional training technique that gives promising results with lollipopping. Like any other cannabis training technique, mainlining uses manifold to separate stem into Y-shape.
This divides your plant’s stem into two parts and provides you with two more colas. You can repeat this technique as far as you like. Using both lollipopping and mainlining at the same time will give you healthy and dense buds.
3. Screen of Green (ScrOG):
ScrOG is one of the most advanced and highly used training techniques to tackle the popcorn buds problem. It’s the combination of pruning, LST, defoliation, and mainlining that guides plants with the help of a screen, resulting in creating a uniform canopy.
Anything that is growing under the screen should be chopped off. In this way, your plants will take more energy from the LED grow light. Screen of Green is the most exceptional technique by the growers.
Since this technique uses a good amount of LED light energy n a growing area, it puts a stop to overshadowing and provides you popcorn buds free harvest.
Preventing Popcorn Flowers Outdoors
Indoor growing has lots of benefits while preventing popcorn flowers. Indeed indoors have less probability of occurrence than outdoors. Because everything is done inside indoor growing by the controlled environment, all you have to do is take precautions primarily to get things going.
However, outdoor growing is entirely dependent on climatic conditions. So, controlling the outside environment can be tricky and difficult for growers. It’s challenging but not impossible.
Outdoor growing requires combining all the techniques mentioned above to ensure the availability of sunlight for cannabis plants. Remember, too much heat and humidity can lead to developing popcorn buds. In order to control the moisture and temperature, you must follow the Screen of Green training technique to get better results outdoors.
Are Popcorn Buds Right for Your Harvest?
If you are a cannabis grower and your only concern is to produce healthy and valuable crops, then underdeveloped flowers aren’t ideal for you at all. Because of their flower size, they can minimize the weight of your entire crop.
But saying that popcorn buds are bad and aren’t acceptable at all, you may consider yourself before saying that. Yes, there are other things like pests and mold that can be harmful to your grow. But popcorn buds are far away from a catastrophe like pests and mold.
Still, if you found airy buds in your crop, don’t waste them; try to make use of them by making edibles, smoking, and creating your own concentrates.
Conclusion
Popcorn buds on plants are just poorly developed buds, nothing to worry about more. They keep the same character as the healthy buds except for their size and density. These buds can also sell in dispensaries and can be used in other products as well.
Sometimes there are many situations that we can’t control of our own. Popcorn buds are something that we can or can’t control all the way. If that unfortunate happens to you, don’t judge yourself if you don’t have the upper hand. Just accept the things that are in front of you. Especially in cannabis growing, you’ll face different challenges at different growing stages.
