What Are Quad Strains? (Updated 2022)

See a lot of different ratings on the weed you’re buying in-store and online these days? Not sure what they mean? It’s understandable as different companies have vastly different ways of rating their bud. Bud Lab uses a system that rates strains A, AA, AAA, and Quad.

It’s important to note that premium and affordable weed are different. The most important aspects that differentiate strains include:

Grown & Dried

This is the most important aspect of a cannabis strain. It’s also the aspect of the strain that effects all of the other categories. How the cannabis plant was grown will play a significant factor to determine whether a strain is premium or not.

Everything under the sun effects the quality of a cannabis plant, including, but not limited to:

• Amount of light the plant receives
• Amount of water the plant is provided
• Fertilizers (whether organic or synthesized)

Look, Shape, and Density of the Finished Bud

The look, shape, and density of a finished bud is an important marker for a cannabis strain when it is being graded. Are the buds dense? Are the buds consistent shape/size? Has the plant been handled, are the trichomes intact? This one is less complicated to grade than others as it’s really all about the look and feel of the bud.

Aroma & Feel

Smell is obviously a very important part of any cannabis strain. Many things can happen to effect the smell however. For example, if the chlorophyll does not break down, then the smell can be like hay. And, if it is not dried properly, wet buds can have a moldy or funky smell.

Remember, cannabis has over 200 compounds that will determine the aroma, physical appearance, and therapeutic aspects of it. Premium Quad strains from Bud Lab guarantee you will get the best of the best. As with any products, it’s important that you understand what high-quality entails before you make the leap from a cheaper option. At budlab.co, we’re very open about what the differences are between our low-graded strains and our highest-rated Quads. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to reach out to us!

Are Quad Strains and Craft Cannabis the Same Thing?

In present day 2022, there has been a lot of chatter around the topic of “craft cannabis”, mostly surrounding its unmatched quality and exotic strain profiles. How do our quad strains differ from craft cannabis, or are they the same thing?

In truth, the 2 nouns basically represent the same ideas with only minor differences.

Quad strain refers directly to the quality of a marijuana nug. A typical quad strain weed, especially here at Bud Lab, is defined by a big, dense, but not machine-trimmed nug that is covered in trichomes and ultra-high in potency. While these are all typical traits we would also expect from craft cannabis, the difference lies in the strain’s heritage and flavour profile. A quad strain won’t necessarily be an exotic or designer strain graded at the connoisseur level, and can exist for even the more common strains such as The Force and Purple Yoda.

On the other hand, craft cannabis refers to the methodologies to which a crop of marijuana is cultivated and the heritage it possesses, rather than being a reflective measure of quality. In this aspect, while rare, a crop of craft cannabis can turn out AA in quality, or sometimes even worse. The only definitive trait of craft cannabis is the strain’s exclusivity and how the crop is raised (grown in living soil, hand trimmed, 0 artificial pesticides or PGR, to name a few).

How Has the Quality of Quad Strains Changed in 2022?

As the Canadian marijuana enthusiast community continues to learn more about cannabis, cultivators have invented many ingenious ways of bettering the quality of weed. This has resulted in the quality of marijuana to improve as a whole over the previous years, while also setting an even higher standard for quad strains in 2022.

Previously, many people categorized quad strains based solely on their size. This essentially made the criteria for quad strains very common and easy to qualify. As long as the mass of a nug was big, it didn’t matter if the flower was dense, or if the whole thing would crumple into a pile of fluff upon a squeeze test.

In the present day, the more avid hobbyists are able to apply a much more stringent set of rules in evaluating the quality of a strain. Below are several criteria to evaluate whether a batch of weed can be graded as a quad strain:

• Size of the nug – the bigger the better
• Amount of trichomes – the more white silky compound, the more potent the flower
• Colour of trichomes – you don’t want it to be yellow
• Flower stickiness – the outer leaves and flower bits should not peel off easily when brushed against your hand
• Smell test – upon taking a whiff, the aroma should be fresh and crisp
• Burn test – when burnt, the strain should take slightly longer to ignite and burn slower, indicating that it has not been aged nor dried

With all this being said, we recommend not using this full list of criteria to judge the quality of your lesser-tier strains. A triple-A bud strain could check most of these boxes but miss out on a few. AA strains would have less boxes ticked, while single A strains and shake & trim bags should not be evaluated with these criteria at all as they’re produced through a completely different procedure.

Where Can I Buy Quad Strains in Canada?

While there are many online dispensaries in Canada to buy weed from, not many of them carry weed as high in quality as ourselves. Most websites will have an AAAA, quad, or “premium flower” section, but the difference between all the tiers are barely noticeable in between.

This is different for us, as we have a clear criteria we adhere by when grading our weed. At Bud Lab, our guests are able to shop for over 50+ strains in varying flavour and quality, all at the most competitive prices. We constantly update and cycle through different strains in our shop to ensure you always get the most potent flower available!