Standardized Grading Of Marijuana

[Dr. Bob]

I need some help here.

 

One thing I am interested in is developing a standard grading system for the visual inspection of marijuana. In order to do some research and publish some papers on the medical use of marijuana, I am trying to figure out a way to standardize some things- granted doing gas chromatography gives me one measure of potency, but can the 'quality' of the material be determined against a standard?

 

When evaluating marijuana many things are examined, trichrome maturity, mite damage, mold spores, odor, etc. Has anyone developed or is aware of a grading system to come up with a 'standardized score'?

 

Example-

1-5 scale, 1 being low quality/minimum to accept, 5 being high quality- top of the line grade.

 

for trichromes, we could say grade 1 would be more than 50 immature per high powered field, grade 5 could be less than 5 per high powered field. Note, I don't know anything about this, so I just tossed numbers out and they have no meaning.

 

When accepting medication, you visually look for things, tell me what they are.

 

Dr. Bob

[solabeirtan]

Great idea Doc !

 

After initial check for mold, mildew, or other obvious negative conditions. Then, for me the 'bouquet' [smell] is a very important factor. 2nd Bud structure ie density etc. 3rd Trichromes quantity, appearance...

[+kurt klaas]

This is a project I too would be interested in pursuing. This just occurred to me: in all my research on mj I have never run across any kind of grading scale. From my own experience, I have learned that growing the highest grade mmj is a very difficult challenge, the standards for which the top notch growers I know keep demanding of me. And I am not there yet, after almost 3 years of growing, learning and getting better. As I have time, I am going to make this a project and will post on the MMMA as it moves forward. Many criteria come to mind immediately: the content of thc and cbd, whether mold or bugs can be discovered under 60 power magnification, the number of seeds and stems present, manicuring quality, labeling of strain, whether or not the mj was flushed, chemicals used for bug control etc, growing medium, harvest timing/trichome coloring and the list goes on. To be sure, it wouldn't be easy for just anyone to objectively discover the results of each category upon examining a sample, but perhaps that could be added into the mix too, how well documented a sample is by its grower. Anyway, this sounds like an interesting project I am going to follow up on, as I have time.

 

Perhaps something like this does indeed already exist, but I don't know of it.

 

Good suggestion, Dr. Bob.

 

Kurt

[asignman]

For me it is always bouquet. bud density is also important. Visually looks are important but some folks are really barbarians and can beat the hell out of buds.

[Dr. Bob]

OK, here is a suggestion....

 

Those of you that have video scopes to look at bud.

 

Let's look at trichromes 1-5 (acceptable to top grade)

 

Take 10 or so photos of different samples, grade them 1 to 5 and have your friends grade them. Let's get a photo album together. Do the same for mite damage, mold spores, etc.

 

Here are what I am looking at for basic categories

 

Cure/Moisture

Trichrome density

Mite damage

mold spores

trim/preparation

 

Dr. Bob

[treehugger]

The only grading system is on the "street" level, with various wide grades noted, such as; brick (brown & green), loose commercial OD (brown & green, again), connoisseur OD and commercial INDO, and then the really good stuff. lol

 

Connoisseur level visual inspection (no microscope) normally consists of a gross initial inspection for "disqualifiers" like mold, insects, over-fertilization, poor handling trim or storage, maturity, hormonal disruptions, age, density & structure factors, and so on. If no major detractions are noted, visual focus is applied to relative trichome quality and density, olfactory interpretation of terpene strength and balance, and finally - a small taste can add further interpretive detail.

 

Then, of course you need to process all those quantifiable physical criteria against your own experience and arrive at a final professional value judgement. But that's just me...

[Dr. Bob]

My suggestion is that some of you that know how to do this well get together and standardize some sort of system (kinda like grading diamonds) and see if folks will accept it. Then we can compare apples to apples for research, commercial grading, etc.

 

Dr. Bob

[mike44]

OK, here is a suggestion....

 

Those of you that have video scopes to look at bud.

 

Let's look at trichromes 1-5 (acceptable to top grade)

 

Take 10 or so photos of different samples, grade them 1 to 5 and have your friends grade them. Let's get a photo album together. Do the same for mite damage, mold spores, etc.

 

Here are what I am looking at for basic categories

 

Cure/Moisture

Trichrome density

Mite damage

mold spores

trim/preparation

 

Dr. Bob

 

 

I think it would be very important to put a category for taste, or flavor or palatability in there. You could get 5 stars all the way down, but...... if it tastes like fish poop, those don't count for much.

[shishka]

Oh so many variables. Let's start with trichome (not trichrome) maturity. What would be considered mature? Full bulbous head? Cloudy? Amber? As trichomes develop they will change appearance, how mature one want's them is a personal preference. I would not want meds that were 95% amber(hypothetically as it's not possible) while another patient may find that gives the "knock out" punch they require.

Good idea Doc, just not sure how to standardize it all.

Is taste and smoothness taken into consideration? I grow organic, water only style, and while I have sample many beautiful, and I mean absolutely gorgeous meds, the majority ended up in the garbage as they tasted like a bottle of nutes. Neither the wife or I could choke them down.

Good discussion.

[Dr. Bob]

Good discussion and I am turning it over to you. I would suggest some photos or other definable characteristics. I'll check back in a few weeks and see if anyone comes up with anything usable. I'd suggest publishing some criteria for each category. Come up with something like a 1 to 5 scale, with examples of each level. Submit it to the thread first and then when you have a rough outline, submit it to the forum for comments and suggestions.

 

Dr. Bob

[BlackMesa]

Dr, Bob, this has already been done for you overseas, I would suggest you study and adopt the grading systems that have been in place for some time and tweak as necessary. I'll dig some links up for you and suggest you even make a few call over there if possible.

 

The Cafe's use the letter number system but since they deal with outdoor growing they factor in seed content, you would need to edit the system to better apply it to our seed free indoor version. Here is an example of one such system:

 

Please use the following scale as a guideline when determining the letter rating:

 

A - green, lots of trichomes. no seeds, excellent taste/smell/burn. This is connoisseur type stuff.

 

B - green with very few seeds, if any. ok taste/smell. decent amount of trichomes

 

C - dark green buds with very few seeds (if any) and small stems. tastes/smells bad and is all dried out.. possibly few trichomes

 

D - dark green seedy stemmy buds.

 

E - green/brown seedy stemmy nasty buds

 

F - dirt brown seedy stemmy nasty powder

The number rating is a scale from one to six that represents potency within the strain, with one being the best and 6 being the worst. Only really good cannabis should get a number score of 1, and only really poor cannabis should get a 6.

 

Cannabis with a rating of A1 is excellent cannabis, while F6 is really bad cannabis.

Note that the letter grade would represent per strain density, taste, smell, stem content etc... This seems to be a simple decent system.

[Mememe]

Maybe include ash color, how well the ash holds together, etc. Ashes can tell a lot about a plant.

[Timmahh]

the grade would have to be wide.

 

you have the current scientific test for TCH levels, CBDs, CBNs ect.. these are pretty much the only current standards used, and in essance, can likely be some of the only data able statistics available. along with structure- dense, airy, firm, fluffy ect... humidity level- wet (wont burn), tough- hard to break up, stringy, fiberous, Dry- powdery ie turns to dust or too dry, well cured or ease of burn- does it light and smoke even or does it track/run badly when burned in a joint. How is the ash. is it black and hard indicating over nuted, not well flushed, or does it burn well and typcialy ash out as it should? all have much to do with how i would grade cannabis.

 

aroma, Taste, look, feel, are all subjective to the eye of the beholder, but depending on the person, a discerning eye can indeed filter out a higher quality or grade of cannabis, but the proof as they say is in the pudding, or the effect in this matter, which again is highly subjective to the perception of the user and their requirements of said strain.

 

i would say this would need a 2 fold standard. one for the scientific data, TCH, CBN, CBD Levels, moisture level, purity of pesticides ect..

the 2nd would need to be a gradeing level that is averaged out. this area would need to be fairly decisive and broad in terms of information collected, which would then need to be averaged out between each sub catagory, to then give a final average grade for the main catagory (IE the strain). even then i can grow a BF LSD as can the next guy, hell i can give him a cut off my girl, and we can still end up with a varience of quality.

 

this would be like trying to grade every type and variety of tomoatoe for each and every individual cooking choice. so the 2nd part would require being a general average, where a minimum number of data providers are used before any averages can be tallied, and which will need the ability to adapt and change over time.

1st one is easy, but the 2nd is sure to create some grey hairs.

 

 

the european grading system is just too broad. and way to subjective to the person/company doing the gradeing, and where thier ideals for the need of grading are derived? is it a company being paid by a breeder, or an indipendant person, with minimal formal trainging doing the test? of someone inbetween? 40 eyes are better than 2, just as 2 heads are better at one in this type of situation.

[treehugger]

 

 

the european grading system is just too broad. and way to subjective to the person/company doing the gradeing, and where thier ideals for the need of grading are derived? is it a company being paid by a breeder, or an indipendant person, with minimal formal trainging doing the test? of someone inbetween? 40 eyes are better than 2, just as 2 heads are better at one in this type of situation.

 

There really is no way of avoiding a healthy dose of subjectiveness in any presently feasible grading system. We can recognize and account for many mathematically definable attributes and flaws, but we do not have any practical methodology to discern why otherwise identical samples can still have widely divergent effects. Skunkman has some interesting observations on thc/terpene interaction posted over at IC, for those who want a better idea of the complexities involved.

[Ezrah]

Ah grading,

 

Treehugger I am with you lots of subjective issues here. For me its all about smell, then smoke flavor, and finish. I grow organic in soil and I can smell chemicals from a great distance. For me medicating is all about being natural and herbal and if you pump lots of chemicals into the plant to fatten up the buds or for some other reason well, for me its all about the smell like I said. I also grow a very sticky med across all my lines I think this is due to soil but also my low grow temps from using LED lights.

 

So I think we all agree we are looking for certain things in meds I also know a solid med or grade A when I see it based on my definition and mine is probably different from others...

 

Great discussion.

 

Regards, Ez