Autumn is already here, and outdoor growers can’t wait for that magical time of year when all their hard work from the past year will finally pay off. The flowers are getting bigger, the leaves are changing color, and the trichomes are filling up with medicine-rich resin that is almost ready. October is called Croptober for a good reason: it’s when people think most about harvesting and chopping.
Whether you have a few plants or hundreds, you need to plan and get ready to make sure your cannabis is in great shape when it gets to the finish line. One part of this is figuring out when the plants are ready to be picked.
Once the flowers have been picked, they can be frozen and used to wash bubble hash, or they can be hung up to dry in the traditional way. Most of the trimming process can be skipped with fresh, frozen cannabis because the trichome-covered trim leaves can be washed along with the buds to make bubble hash.
For air drying, plants are cut down, their fan leaves are taken off, and they are hung upside down in a controlled climate to let the water evaporate slowly and evenly.
So, your plants have dried and are now ready to be put in mason jars to cure. But before they can go into jars, the last few trim leaves need to be taken off. This is one of the hardest parts of being a cannabis farmer: trimming your harvest. Dry flowers can be trimmed before they are cured in one of two ways: by hand or with a machine. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of hand trimming vs machine trimming:
Trimming By Hand
Hand trimming is just what it sounds like: using a pair of scissors to cut away the dead leaves from the buds by hand. Some brands are made with a spring that opens the scissors automatically after each cut. This makes a big difference in solace after hours of trimming. This spring action does help with fatigue, but it’s impossible not to get tired after working for many days on a harvest.
The blades of good scissors are also coated so that they don’t stick together. This makes it so you don’t have to stop as often to clean them. But no matter what, trichomes will stick to the blades and build up over time, so keep ISO alcohol and clean towels or wipes close by. When the blades are clean, the process works better. There are also trimming scissors with curved blades, which are very useful.
To trim flowers by hand, hold the bud by the stem and turn it as you cut off the extra leaves. Some people like to cut off almost all of the trim leaf by poking the tips of the scissors between the flower calyxes and cutting the leaf close to its base. This gives a very neat and well-kept look.
Other growers don’t mind a more natural look, so they trim the leaves just above where they come out from between the calyxes. Your approach will depend on what you like and what the market wants. A more manicured look is often a sign of higher quality, even though the trichomes will still be on the base of the trimmed leaf. In addition to how they look, trimmed leaves have a lot of chlorophyll, which can make the smoke taste bad. This is another thing to think about when judging how well your trim job is done.
When you trim flowers by hand, you can be careful with them and do precise work that can make them look great. When the buds are handled carefully, fewer trichomes are lost, which is an obvious benefit.
Pros:
- Best possible trichome preservation.
- You have more control over how much of the trim leaf is taken off.
- It looks the best.
Cons:
- Taking a long time
- Can be hard on the body
Machine Trimming
Trimming your dried flowers with a machine is an easy way to get the job done. Machine trimmers can quickly and efficiently process a harvest, but they are usually only used for sizable, commercial jobs. Some of the best machines can trim up to 19 pounds of buds per hour.
When the machine is turned on, the flowers are put into a slotted tumbler that turns when the machine is turned on. As the flowers are moved around, a set of blades just below the surface cut off the trim leaves that poke through the slots. As the flowers roll around, the trim leaves are eventually taken off the whole surface. Not much time is needed, but there are other costs.
There isn’t much precision involved, and the blades cut any parts of the flower that stick out through the slots. This includes the calyx and the pistils. Using a machine to trim flowers is the same as shaving them down to a level that is the same over the whole surface. Not only that, but the flower loses trichomes when it is in the tumbler because it is moved around.
Trimming by machine is best for speed and cost, but not for quality.
Pros:
- Much faster than cutting by hand
- saves on the cost of labor
Cons:
- It hurts the trichomes.
- The end product doesn’t look as good.
- Bringing down the quality of the buds as a whole
- Not as good for dried buds; works best for trimming wet buds.
Conclusion
Most home growers trim by hand, but machine trimming saves time when working with weight. Machine trimmers don’t belong in the top-quality playbook.
Machine trimmers can help you finish your harvest quickly. Hand trimming is the best way to preserve the trichomes you worked so hard to grow and give the buds a detailed, aesthetically pleasing look. Hand trimming is always preferable. If you choose machine trimmers, we can still be friends.
