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Grading your harvest: the A to D class system
When harvest day comes you have a few hours to make decisions that decide what the whole season is worth. The simplest way to keep it under control is to grade everything the moment it comes off the plant, into four classes.
A class is the top colas. The buds that would win a photo. They get dried, cured and kept as flower.
B class is the rest of the solid buds below the colas. Dried, cured, then processed into hydrocarbon extract for vape carts.
C class is the popcorn and larf that the bucker knocks off the stems. Small, airy, still frosty. Dried and cured, then washed into bubble hash.
D class is everything else: the sugar leaves trimmed off the A and B buds, plus the manicure trim. Dried, cured, sieved on a single screen. The kief that falls through goes to a static sift for full-spectrum heads, and the plant matter left on top goes through a quick cold ethanol wash for golden shatter.
Why grade at all? Because the value per gram is different in each pile, and the right process for one pile is the wrong process for another. Grinding a top cola into extract is burning money. Trying to make premium flower out of popcorn is a waste of drying space. The grading system just makes sure each pile goes where it makes the most sense.
Practical notes from our own setup. Strip the big fan leaves a week before harvest, then again the day before. It opens the canopy so the lower buds finish properly, and it keeps leaf out of the drying room. Trim the sugar leaves first thing on harvest day, before anything gets cut. It keeps the trim pile clean and the buds dry faster. Run the stems through the bucker last so the popcorn pile stays separate.
One thing we changed our mind about: fresh frozen. The talk is that live hash and live resin are where the money is, but the yield is low and the process is unforgiving. We dry and cure everything now, including the B and C class. Simpler, and the numbers work better for us.
The full model, with the class split estimates and what each class is worth, is on the processing pipeline page: https://420forums.co.za/processing-pipeline-farmer-economics/
Next in this series: what a plant actually splits into, class by class.