Any part of the cannabis plant removed from a living plant. Typically, plant matter refers to any part that will be discarded or wasted, such as stalks, branches, stems, and fan leaves, which can occur during the processes of topping, pruning, or harvesting.
“I had to compose a ton of plant matter after pruning a whole row of plants.”
What is plant matter?
Plant matter is any part of the cannabis plant that is typically discarded either for the health of a living plant, or because it has little to no trichomes, including stems, branches, stalks, and fan leaves. Plant matter can result from living plants, for example, branches and leaves removed during topping or pruning so a plant can focus its energies on bud production, and most often occurs at harvest.
The term is often used to separate usable parts of the plant, such as buds and trim—which is often used in pre-rolls, edibles, and extracts—and unusable parts, or plant matter.
That being said, entire plants, stalks, branches, stems, fan leaves, and all, is sometimes used in extraction. For example, when fresh frozen plants are used for making live resins, often the entire plant is cut down and frozen and then placed in an extraction machine. This is done to cut down on labor—it saves both the grower and extractor from having to separate out usable parts of the plant.