Hey All,
I am wondering what you guys are seeing on average for hand trimming speed on a person to person basis for dried flower.
What about machinery? What machines have worked best for you and what kind of productivity are you seeing out of those on an hourly or daily basis?
Thanks,
-Butane
Trimmigrants can do north of 2 pounds of hand trim in an 8-hour shift.
Our machines usually get about 3/4 the rated capacity with tear downs and cleaning in a day.
I can personally rock out about 1.5-2lbs in 8 hrs depending on bud structure.
My wife gets between 1-1.25 in the same time.
Is that “quick and dirty” or manicuring? Huge difference!
If you dry on racks with a quick and dirty trim, before the first burp, you can let the leftover sugar leaves get crispy and it takes care of a lot of them when turned. They still have internal moisture for a good cure.
I trim fan leaves off of branches while harvesting and dry branches to “almost dry”. Then final trim those. After my final trim I let everything dry 24 hours on baking trays or drying rack. Then jar.
I (and 1 helper) can bang out my room in 5hrs or less. We both buck all flower from plants into tubs. As soon as all bucking is done, hes outta here. Then it’s time to fire up the twister t4 trimmer. It literally takes 1hr run time to do all my flower. All dried n cured is 3-3.5lbs. I do a wet trim also.
1.2+gpw on average
Damn I knew you used a trimmer but didn’t know you did it wet. Got any pics of buds post trim and drying?
bucked/sorted flower that’s not excessively leafy, 2 1/2-4 hours per #
I think a lot of this year’s hemp will get dried and then shaken in a paper bag.
I just made a twister t4 setup thread. Head over there. I’m not good at linking threads n such on here
You need the traveling hmongs to come by, theyll knock out 1k a week and come fully stocked with food and shelter.
Trash Can tek. works though…
I remember walking into a friends workshop, and just seeing a whole family of Vietnamese people trimming away. They had a giant rice maker and were all eating some crazy looking soup. They didn’t look at us we didn’t look at them. It was very awkward. But God damn did they get the job done
2lbs is a good day on average OG or cookie buds.
Best ive seen a trimmer do is 5lbs (i did 3 the same day, my record) and it was nice golfball sized gorilla glue indoor buds. Like 4 or 5 snips per bud and it was good and ready to go.
We were manicuring, not just doing a rush job
They only say anything when there yelling for more totes.
I would say 1/10 randomly hired people are suited for harvest/trim work, the rest is wasted labor dollars. Basically if you find someone good try to keep them.
Fastest dude I’ve ever employed can knock out 5 lbs a day (big nuggets totally stripped). I would say the average in general of people who manage to last is 1-3 lbs a day, depending on the material. What it boils down to for me in a hand trim situation is pay them well, and have food available, I’d go as far as to organize a daily lunch/meal. You can’t expect an 18-20 year old dude to remember to eat all the time, well fed people you get far more productivity out of.
As far as machinery goes I only have direct experience with trim bros machines , they do shave brittle material really hard. Honestly forget the productivity because I wasn’t running the show. My flower I wouldn’t ever throw in a trim machine, but I’m not pulling 1000 lb+ harvests. If it’s nice craft, good quality flower my opinion is find good employees, and create an environment that fosters productivity, you don’t have to necessarily pay people $20/hr and/or $150+ a pound (if paying by unit) to get high productivity labor.
Back when i first started they paid 200/lb and provided lunch everyday, home cooked meals most of the time too.
I can say for a fact, its worth paying extra and getting it trimmed really well. Pay got reduced to 150/lb and bring ur own lunch, soon after the shift in pay, we started getting less weight because the trimmers were throwing away more smalls/mediums into the trim/shake bin.
At 200/lb trimmers were willing to sort their trim and pick out all the stems. At 150/lb stems were left in and just pilled up in the trim bin.
On the other hand, theres huge corps paying people 20/hr and its cutthroat, u arent productive enough they can you. Makes sense but they also dont give incentive to do better/faster. That environment is toxic, and doesnt work long run, atleast not consistently.
If u cant pay atleast 150/lb to trim, ur not growing good enough weed 
I’d just like to thank all of the scissor hands out there. Some people have the gift and some don’t. I’ve seen people shoot the brreze with a tornado of green in front of them. Also, seen the opposite. I never had the knack for trimming, but the stars that I’ve seen shine are from another planet! Keep it up! 
Me personally 1.5 lbs per 3 hrs but I know folks that hand trim 4 lbs in 4 hours to. But it’s all matter of how meticulous you can be while not slicing yourself if scissor trimming, but a good quality cure you should be able to know all your undesirables off & clip the crows feet off the bottom then be done.
Also attest to the bud quality mannerisms as I was a trim team manger for multiple facilities with drastically different quality at each one.