What is the meaning of “bucking?” When material has been dried still on the stem, before it can be trimmed, it must be removed from the stem or bucked. This is the physical task of clipping or ripping each flower from the stems. It is very laborious and time-consuming, as mentioned before. Machines are available that mechanize but do not necessarily improve the process. Any of the machines that have various-sized holes that you stick stems into and then “pull back and strip” are more or less created equal. They are modified cotton gins and are no quicker or better than doing it by hand. In fact, they tend to break apart the cannabis flowers producing too many “smalls,” reducing the overall value of the crop. There are some newer designs that work differently by allowing operators to feed material much faster, essentially a threshing machine. This saves a lot of time compared to hand scale but again breaks the buds into many small pieces. When producing high-grade smokable flowers, the material still must be bucked by hand to preserve the size and shape.
