Sugar leaves are the small, usually single to five-leaflet leaves that grow out from among the flowers of a bud. They take their name from the frosty, sugar-dusted look given by the glandular trichomes on their surface. They carry far more resin than fan leaves but less than the bracts.
In practice
Trimming is mostly about sugar leaves. Growers trim them back to the edge of the bud for appearance and a smoother smoke, then often save the trim for processing, because the resin on it is real.
The trade-off between wet and dry trimming is largely about sugar leaves:
- Wet trim: leaves stand out and snip easily, and buds dry faster.
- Dry trim: leaves curl around the bud, protecting it as it dries.
Cultivars with a "high calyx-to-leaf ratio" (more swollen bracts than leaves) have fewer sugar leaves and trim much faster, a trait breeders select for.
Don't confuse with
- Fan leaf: large, long-stalked leaf with few trichomes.
- Bract: the resin-laden flower sheath, part of the bud itself.
- Shake: loose broken bud bits, not leaf.
A hair-like outgrowth of the plant's skin; in cannabis the glandular types make and store the resin holding cannabinoids and terpenes.A large palmate cannabis leaf with several long leaflets on a long petiole; fan leaves do most of the plant's photosynthesis and carry few trichomes.In cannabis, the small leaf-like sheath (perigonal bract) that wraps each female flower's ovary and carries the densest capitate-stalked trichomes.Trimming sugar leaves after buds have dried, leaving the leaves on during the dry to slow it and protect the bud.Trimming sugar leaves from buds immediately after harvest, while the plant is still fresh, before drying.A SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) is a position in the DNA where plants differ by one base letter; thousands of them form the markers used in cannabis genotyping.Botanically, the sepals of a flower; in female cannabis a thin, reduced perianth on the ovary, though growers use the word for the resinous bract.A glandular trichome with a resin head but little or no stalk, sitting close to the surface of leaves and young bracts.
