Sugar is the biggest factor that dictates how much cannabis you eventually end up harvesting from your plant. If enough sugar is produced, and it is all sent to the right places, then you are likely to grow a lot of fat buds. Knowing how sugar is distributed in the cannabis plant is essential information for growers. Read this article to find out how your cannabis plant uses sugar.
The reason that the distribution of sugars in your cannabis plant is important is because, in order for your buds to grow, they have to produce a lot of sugars. However, the process of converting sunlight to sugar is not an unfamiliar process in the natural world, and it is called photosynthesis. There are ways that you can encourage your cannabis plant to produce more sugars, and as a result produce a greater yield.
Some growing methods suggest that trimming the leaves during the growth process can encourage a greater production of sugars, whereas some advise just leaving the leaves on until they naturally fall off. It is also important that these sugars go to the right place, as they are most useful in certain parts of the plant.
How does weed produce sugar?
Just like all other plants, weed produces sugars through the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which a plant uses sunlight, in conjunction with water and carbon dioxide, into sugars. The dissolution of these initial components allows the plant to absorb all the necessary nutrients that it needs to be a healthy plant.
Sugars are important in a cannabis plant because the amount that is harvested is directly related to how much sugar is produced and whether or not these sugars are directed to the correct places. Sugars are required in the smaller, sprouting leaves during early growth, and they are also important in the larger leaves of the cannabis plant. It is through these larger leaves that the buds receive their sugar, and therefore grow to be larger buds.
The cannabis plant naturally divides the sugars amongst its constituent parts, and will do so well without human interference. However, growers are always looking for ways to make their cannabis plants grow faster and with greater yields, so this article is about finding a way to manipulate this process. Unfortunately, you cannot use carbon dioxide, nutrients, light, or temperature to manipulate the process of photosynthesis. So, it is suggested that the leaves be trimmed in order to redirect the distribution of sugar within the cannabis plant.
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The distribution of sugars within cannabis
Every part of the cannabis plant contains something like a suction, which draws the sugars in. In fact, in all plants, sugars move toward these points which are in various parts of the plant. This part is called the sink. However, not all of the sinks attract sugars with the same strength, and so the sugar is distributed in various amounts around the plant. The buds of your plant will have the strongest sinks compared to any other part of the plant, and therefore are the organ within the plant that is attracting the most sugars. This is especially true when your buds are about halfway grown.
It is this suction process that causes the plant to continue to produce more sugars. With all the constituent parts of the plant battling to consume sugars, all of the sugar that the plant produces is being consumed. It is then constantly continuing to produce more sugar as a result. So how does trimming the leaves affect the distribution of sugars?
The general rule of thumb is that if you are going to be trimming leaves to encourage sugar production, it is only the smaller foliage that needs to be removed. It is actually important to leave the larger, fan leaves attached to the plant, because it is through these leaves that the buds continue to receive sugar. The point is, the younger foliage contains energy that it is not yet using, and if you trim it before it begins using its energy, the plant continues to produce sugars and send them through to the buds. The larger leaves consume more light and more chloroplasts, and as a result produce larger amounts of sugars. This is why it is not recommended that you trim these leaves when trimming your plant.
Make sure that your fan leaves are not shadowed by top leaves clouding them, because this could mean that your plant doesn’t produce enough sugar at all. In this case, it will probably give up producing sugar at all and all the leaves will dry up and fall off on their own.
