Sticky describes flower that leaves resin on fingers, gloves and scissors. It comes from heavy coverage of glandular trichomes and from resin that has not been oxidised or knocked off.
In practice
Wet trimming is famously sticky: scissors gum up within minutes and need cleaning with alcohol. Dry flower that stays sticky after a proper dry and cure is usually resin-rich and well handled. Over-dried or old flower loses stickiness as resin hardens and aroma fades.
Excessively soft, spongy or damp-feeling buds are a different thing: that is too much moisture, and a mould risk. Check moisture by the stem snap and by an equilibrated hygrometer reading in a sealed jar, not by how sticky it feels.
Don't confuse with
- Wet or spongy: under-dried flower, which can mould in the jar.
- Frosty: how resin looks; sticky is how it feels.
One of the separate serrated blades that make up a palmate cannabis leaf; a mature fan leaf typically has five to eleven leaflets.A hair-like outgrowth of the plant's skin; in cannabis the glandular types make and store the resin holding cannabinoids and terpenes.Trimming sugar leaves from buds immediately after harvest, while the plant is still fresh, before drying.The programmed ageing and breakdown of leaves and other tissues, in which the plant recycles nutrients (especially nitrogen) from old leaves to developing flowers and seeds.A drying check: when small stems snap cleanly rather than bend, buds are usually dry enough to trim or jar for curing.Bag appeal is how good flower looks in the bag or jar, frost, colour, density and trim, which sells cannabis but does not measure its quality.Frosty describes flower densely covered in glandular trichomes, so it looks sugared or snow-dusted; it signals resin coverage, not exact potency.
