Four Ways a Dry Trim Machine will Help You Out

The debate over machine trimming your weed versus hand trimming has been around since machine trimmers came on the market. Hand trimmers have long argued that machines will destroy the trichomes and terpenes. With some of the machines on the market, that’s true. However, if you carefully select your dry trim machine, you can increase profits while still getting beautifully trimmed buds. Here are four reasons you should consider using a bud trimmer in your processing.

Minimizing Risks & Improving Flow

As growers know, there are many issues to watch out for near harvest time, including potentially losing your crop due to mold, mildew, or rain damage. It’s important to have an efficient process for bucking, drying, and processing your plants. This becomes even more vital when you’re growing in a light deprivation greenhouse and have continuous cycles of plant growth. Getting off track on one cycle can potentially throw the rest out of whack, too.

When you use a dry trim machine, you’re alleviating these problems in a couple of ways. First, because you’re hanging the crop to dry, you have the time to trim as you go. You don’t need to trim everything as soon as it comes off the plant, as you do when wet trimming. Second, it’s far easier to process large quantities of cannabis, so you’re less likely to fall behind and will find it easier to stay on schedule. A dry trimming machine can bring a whole new level of automation and efficiency to your harvest.

Consistent Results

Some hand trimmers you hire will have an eye for exactly what and how much to trim. They instinctively know how to keep those lovely little crystals of trichomes on the plant. Others will not. Two hand trimmers working side-by-side on the same crop may produce very different results. When using a dry trimmer, all the buds will be treated with the same gentle handling, which means you’ll get consistent results trim after trim.

Smaller Crew

There are some clear benefits to having fewer people in and out of your property. The fewer people working for you, the greater your security. Additionally, it’s common to feed and house trimmers, motivating them with snacks, caffeine, and other goodies. Machines don’t need motivation. Simply flip the switch and they’re ready to work.

Cost Savings

The biggest benefit to a machine trimmer is the savings you’ll realize. Depending on the size of your crop, the machine could pay for itself in the very first harvest.

Consider the following scenario:

You have a harvest of 100 pounds.

Your trimmers earn $200/day to trim a pound of weed. That means you’ll be paying $20,000 in labor costs to process 100 pounds.

A Kairos Cultivator costs $8,000. It can trim between 8 and 16 pounds per hour, depending on the strain. If we take an average of 10 pounds per hour, you’ll need 10 hours of processing time to trim 100 pounds.

You’ll also need to pay someone to operate the machine for those 10 hours, plus another 100 or so hours of hand finishing. That’s $2,750 in labor.

With the Cultivator, your total cost for the machine and labor is roughly $10,750 to harvest 100 pounds. Compare this to $20,000 spent for hand trimming, and you’ve already slashed your cost in half.

And that’s just the very first harvest. Every harvest after that, you’ll be saving more than $17,000.

One person can operate up to five Kairos Cultivator trim machines. This allows you to easily scale the processing of your harvest as your operation grows, and see staggering cost savings.

Final Thoughts

The right dry trimming machine can gently trim your buds at a rate 10 or more times faster than a hand trimmer. This will streamline your operation, increase overall consistency, and maximize profits year-round. We’d love to hear about the benefits you’ve experienced with dry trimming machines like the Kairos Cultivator. Share in the comments below.

Author Bio: Mary Rosebrook works for Kairos Trimmers, Inc, the Oregon-based manufacturer of the Kairos Cultivator, a dry trimmer that helps commercial cannabis growers slash labor and overhead costs by as much as 80%. Ready to grow your cannabiz? Check out www.kairostrimmers.com for more info.