Trichomes: How Do They Affect Your Cannabis

Trichomes are found on cannabis flowers, lower stalks, and even in leaves. When looking at the trichomes with your naked eye, the resin glands come with a width from 10 to 100 micrometers. They look like shiny crystals that make the cannabis buds a frosty look.

When the Trichomes Begins To Appear

Each cannabis buds are loaded with resin, and when the trichomes splints, they lose the oil they have. This oil is what gives marijuana buds become stickier. With more amount of trichomes, the more resin will release when held harshly.

How the Trichomes Affect Cannabis

The trichomes have many benefits to offer not just to marijuana plant itself but also to many consumers that appreciate the compounds that play an important role in the effects, smell, and taste of cannabis. Work as the defense mechanism in cannabis. 

Here’s how trichomes affect cannabis:

• When the female cannabis plants started to produce flowers, they most likely become at risk against insects, animals, and even non-living elements like the UV rays. 
• Trichomes work as an obstacle against animals due to their pungent taste and fragrance that make the cannabis flowers unappealing in animals.
• They also work as protection to the cannabis plants from strong winds and some common molds during the growth stage. Trichomes consider as the secret power that every plant needs to have in order to survive. As the trichomes make the cannabis plants stickier, this can be used as a trap in any insects that possibly occur. 
• When the insect lands in the leaf, they can be stuck with the sticky trichomes. This sticky trichome plays an important role in the well being of the female cannabis plant and to other kinds of plants that have it.

Three Basic Types of Trichome on Cannabis

Trichome is a cannabis plant that comes with three different types of physical structures have different shapes and sizes, but they still produce the same terpenes, cannabinoids, and all other chemical compounds of cannabis. 

But, keep in mind that each cannabis variety produces a different combination of such compounds depends on what is the genetics of such strain. 

Check the following trichomes that layered every cannabis flower.

1. Bulbous Trichomes

They’re considered the smallest type that appears on the whole surface of a plant that measures about 10 to 30 micrometers in length, and it is hardly visible by the naked eye. 

Here are the good-to-know facts about this trichome:

• Being so small, have only consisted of a handful of cells that do not have a stalk. 
• Result of resin being produce by head cells. 
• As they reach the maturity stage and become soaked, grow like a pointed shape and will be scattered to the whole cannabis plant. 
• As the cannabis gland swells, it can be more likely to form a tiny bulbous protrusion on the upper membrane part.

2. Capitate Sessile Trichomes

They’re medium-sized glands that layered the cannabis plants more compare to the first kind of trichomes. Capitates Sessile is a little bit bigger than usually appears before the flowering phase of the cannabis plants begins. 

In an immature plant, like lying flat against the plant’s stalk. The rounded shaped glands of Capitates Sessile commonly measures about 25 to 100 micrometers in length.

3. Capitate Stalked Trichome

This type of trichome has the biggest glands that range from 50 to 100 micrometers in length and can actually be seen with the naked eye. 

Here are the good-to-know facts about this trichome:

• Layered the buds, flowers, and even the small foliage that is seen near the buds. 
• Developed and contains the largest Cannabinoids making it the trichomes to determine the ideal time to harvest. 
• They form in the cannabis stalk and combines with the hypodermic and epidermal cells that develop to the basal cell. 
• Holds a sticky cuticle layer that acts as the epicenter of terpenoid synthesis.

All the mentioned basic kind of trichomes develops cannabinoids. However, the capitate stalked happens to produce large in and around the calyxes of the cannabis flowers. Develops the highest concentration to produce essential oils, thanks to its bigger bulb-like size.

Why are the Trichomes Considered as Essential to Cannabis?

Even the cannabis plant has an enticing cannabinoid. It still within the cannabis plant’s trichomes that the compounds are very undiluted. The cells in trichomes become the parent to over 100 million cannabinoids that the cannabis plant develops. Unlike the other cannabis plant, trichomes have a much bigger concentration of terpenes, cannabinoids, and even flavonoids.

How the Trichomes Use for the Ideal Harvesting Period

Considered the most efficient method to know when the ideal timing is to harvest the cannabis plant, being you definitely detecting the CBD and THC content of your cannabis plant. 

For instance, the Sativa plant that already harvested was full of THC potent will contain a pungent high. It was a similar plant that will be harvested later when the trichomes begin to degenerate. By this period, the CBD content may become higher than likely gives a chilling effect.