A Trimmer for Every Harvest

No two cannabis growers are alike. They range from hobby growers raising only one or two plants in their closet, industrial hemp farmers raising cannabis for fiber or flower, medicinal producers, to those who cultivate hundreds or more acres of cannabis. At each level of the production scale there are myriad challenges that all growers face; every single one of them must somehow manage to trim their flowers.

Trimmers for Small-Scale Growers

Automatic trimming machines that are made for small-scale growers have made dramatic improvements in recent years. It took a long time for the industry to create a machine that could match the look and quality of a hand-trimmed flower. This is no longer the case with many of them producing a trimmed flower indistinguishable from those trimmed by a skilled hand.

This has led some of even the smallest home growers to start machine trimming instead of trimming by hand. Handheld bud trimmers can help speed up the trimming process for hobby and small-scale growers. There are several options on the market. Some have a single blade that vibrates back and forth like an electric meat carving knife; others use shearing blades. There are other handheld models with a cone that goes over top of your buds to do the trimming. Many handheld electric tools originally designed for the pruning and shaping of bonsai can also be used for trimming buds.

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These small but powerful trimming machines will trim in hours, what might typically take a grower days to do by hand. This dramatic time savings allows these machines to pay for themselves in just a few harvests and can provide many years of trimming if taken care of properly.

Trimmers for Medium-Sized Operations

A large portion of the cannabis industry is occupied by medium-sized growing operations. This is often the case since it is more common for a small-scale operation to expand into a medium-sized one, than for a medium-sized one to balloon into a large-scale operation. In 2019, Canadian officials reported that 46 licensed cannabis producers grew their crops on 800 acres of combined indoor and outdoor field and production space. This means that the average size of a cannabis operation in Canada that year was just over 17 acres per grower. For comparison, in 2016, the total number of conventional (non-cannabis) acreage farmed in Canada was 93.4 million acres as reported by Statistics Canada and the average farm size was 820 acres. A similar trend is evident among US cannabis growers as well.

The broadest variety and range of styles are found in the machine trimmers developed for the medium-sized growing operation. Many producers at this level are indoor growers; either in greenhouses, hoop houses, or high tunnels, but not always. This size operation is often where one finds hemp producers and those growing to capitalize on the CBD market. At this level of production, having an automated trimmer is not exactly a choice, unless time and labor are of no consequence.

Trimmers for medium-sized operations range from bowl type trimmers that are like having 20 or more scissors working on your buds at one time to tabletop machines that can handle upwards of 20 pounds of trimmed bud per hour. Machines at this scale vary between a few hundred dollars to over one thousand dollars.

Trimmers for Large-Scale Operations

In recent years, large, commercial cannabis producers had a difficult time sourcing trimming machines on a scale that made logistical sense. Where there is a void though, manufacturers will surely fill it responding to the needs of the market. Industry stepped up and there are now scores of large-scale trimming machines on the marketplace for those who need to process thousands of plants at a time.

These machines utilize a range of technology much like the medium-sized trimmers but have a much wider variation in price. These machines start at a few thousand dollars but can easily get up to the fifty-thousand-dollar mark for the most highly technical and advanced operations.

This class of machines ranges in size from a backyard grill, up to a large generator. These are often designed so that they can be run in series for increased trimming production for many dozens of pounds of trimmed buds at a time.

Trimmers for the World’s Largest Operations

For growers looking to harvest many hundreds to thousands of pounds per hour of trimmed bud, these are the machines to use. Vehicle-sized trimmers in this category are often set up in warehouse processing rooms connected to conveyor belts before they get packaged, boxed and shipped out all over the world. These are not for basement operations, but major players in the medical and major commercial cultivators. Expect to shell out up to half a million dollars for the biggest on the market, though there are many competitively priced options starting under 100,000 dollars.

A Trimmer for Every Harvest

Any size of trimming machine should be seen as an investment to your operation. Though they can be quite costly, there is very little doubt that they more than pay for themselves in very little time and should be considered a must for growers of any size.

Make sure to consider planned expansions to the growing operations in future seasons to not make a “penny-wise, but pound-foolish” decision on which trimmer to buy for this year’s harvests. With the technology continuing to improve and new machines coming out onto the market every month, there is truly a trimmer out there for each individual operation, no matter the size.