URL: https://postharvestreport.com/glossary

Cannabis Post-Harvest Glossary | Keirton

Definitions for cannabis post-harvest terms — recovery rate, value recovery, water activity, A/B-grade, scarring, lean hybrid, stream separation, and more.

Reference

Cannabis post-harvest glossary.

Definitions for the operational and economic terms used across the Post-Harvest Benchmark Report and field notes.

Post-harvest: The stages between cut-down and packaged sellable flower: drying, bucking, trimming, sorting, grading, and curing. The stage where most of cannabis's already-spent value is either preserved or destroyed.
Recovery rate: The percentage of harvested cannabis biomass that leaves post-harvest as A-grade or B-grade sellable flower. Typically 65%–80% for hand-trim, 45%–70% for typical hybrid configurations.
Value recovery: Capturing more of the value already grown by preventing flower from being miscategorized as trim or as a lower grade. Distinct from yield gains, which require growing more cannabis.
Bucking: Removing flower from the main stem before trimming. Heavily automated in commercial operations.
Trimming: Removing fan and sugar leaves from the flower. The largest single source of recovery-rate variance in most facilities.
Sorting / grading: Separating flower by size and quality into commercial grade tiers (A-grade, B-grade, smalls, downgraded).
A-grade flower: Strong visual appearance, intact bud structure, clean trim, minimal scarring, size generally above 5/8 inch.
B-grade flower: Smaller or visually less premium flower (often below 5/8 inch).
Water activity (aw): A measure of unbound moisture available to support microbial growth. ASTM standards flag higher microbial risk above 0.63 aw; conservative line for premium dense flower is below 0.60 aw.
Curing: Controlled post-drying period (typically 7–14 days) that develops aroma, smoke quality, and shelf stability.
Visible scarring: Flower damage from over-trimming or aggressive tumbling. Best-in-class automated systems keep scarring under 2%.
Trichome degradation: Disturbance or loss of resin heads on flower surface. Did not produce meaningful potency loss versus hand-trim controls in commercial testing (within ±1% potency variance).
Lean hybrid: Post-harvest configuration combining automation with minimal QC labor. Lower cost than typical hybrid; lower yield (45%–65%).
Intelligent stream separation: AI-driven routing of post-trim flower into multiple destinations based on real-time vision grading.
Defoliation: Removing fan leaves during flowering. Aggressive defoliation cleans material at the trim line and improves recovery.