| Yield | Yield is a subjective measure that aims to calculate the amount of production in a cultivation. Popular units of measure are grams per square foot, pounds per light, and grams per watt. Many yield calculations are considered "vanity metrics" because they don't indicate anything useful about the cultivation's actual output. Additionally, this term is very ambigulous and it's important to be clear about your intended goals and definitive criteria before having effective conversations and planning about yield. | — |
| Fresh Frozen | Cannabis buds that were bucked from the stock and quickly frozen. The intended use of fresh frozen material is for "live" products including variants of live rosin and live resin - solventless concentrates and hydrocarbon concentrates, respectively. | — |
| Trim | The waste product from trimming buds. It includes mostly large leaves and "sugar leaves" - sugar referring to trichomes. Trim often contains stems which may be sifted out later if the intended use case is to fill pre-rolls or sell as grind. Shake and trim are generally indistiguishable, the difference between the two being that trim is created intentionally. | Shake/trim |
| Shake | Leaves and other plant material that fall off dried flower and find their way to the bottoms of storage. Shake and trim are generally indistiguishable, the difference between the two being that shake is created unintentionally. | Shake/trim |
| Useable Waste | Biomass that contains cannabinoids which is not suitable for smoking in its raw form. The physical products this encompasses depends on the facility as many companies have specific criteria for what they will sell. For example, a cultivation may consider any flower below 18% total THC as usable waste because it will not sell at a retail. Other companies may package this as smokeable flower. Additionally, some facilities may make trim into pre-rolls, others may not. Most of the time useable waste will go to extraction. | UW |
| Wet Weight | The full weight of harvested plants before any drying, bucking, or any other action has been performed on them. | Harvest Weight |
| Buck Weight | The weight of flower buds after they have been removed from the stalk. Fresh frozen material can be considered to be buck weight, but in most contexts the term refers to dried material. This is one of the most important metrics for a cultivation department as it has not been altered by other operations. | Dry Weight |
| Grow Cycle | A single iteration of plant batches grown in the same room, under the same conditions, and at the same time. It can consist of multiple strains and multiple grow benches. Most often a grow cycle is harvested at the same time, but sometimes it can be staggered. For example, if a grow cycle is split into dried cannabis and fresh frozen, the fresh frozen might be harvested earlier, but both harvests are part of the same grow cycle. | Growth Cycle, Crop Cycle, Generation, Run |
| Batch | A group of plants consisting of the same strain, grown in the same Grow Cycle. For clarification - a Grow Cycle is a group of batches. If a Grow Cycle consists of a single strain, the Batch is the Grow cycle | Harvest Batch |
| Canopy | Biologically, it is the coverage of leaves from a birds-eye view, often measured in square feet or square meters. In a cultivation, it is not just the leaf coverage, but the total birds-eye view area in which plants are grown. Most yield calculations factor Canopy in their formula. For example, in "grams per square feet," the "square feet" is a measurement of canopy. This term has many nuances that can lead to gross variations between facilities. The three common measurements of Canopy are room area - the total area of the room which the plants are growing in, bench area - the total area of grow bench area, and potential canopy - the total area where plants are intended to grow. Potential canopy includes spaces between benches, as the plant leaves are able to hang over the benches. Using bench space is problematic because different cultivations have different space between benches. | Potential Canopy |
Terminology
A shared vocabulary for the cannabis industry. Find a term, understand its meaning, and bring clarity to the conversation.