Hand-Trimmed vs. the Machine

The number of active Michigan cultivation licenses has exploded since legalization, climbing from just 13 in late 2019 to more than 1,000 by mid-2024. At the same time, retail flower prices collapsed 88%, falling from about $516 an ounce to just $63 as of June 2025. With oversupply squeezing margins and competition intensifying, many growers turned to machine trimming as the fastest way to stay afloat, even at the expense of quality.

Machines like the Twister T-Zero can replace dozens of workers, trimming up to 125 pounds dry—or 600 pounds wet—per hour, nonstop. For operators, it's cheaper and faster. For consumers, the real cost shows up in lost quality and compromised safety.

Wet machine trimming dominates high-volume grows because it's fast and greatly reduces labor costs. But violently tumbling delicate wet flowers through slotted stainless-steel drums destroys trichomes, reshapes calyxes, strips terpenes, and leaves buds vulnerable to mold—often requiring irradiation or other remediation before sale.

To keep machines running, trimming machine manufacturers recommend applying cooking oils, food-grade lubricants, and constant sprays of water or soap solution directly onto blades and drum brushes. These substances inevitably coat the flower as it passes through, raising real questions about purity and what ends up in the final product. The Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency does not currently require flower to be tested for oils or other lubricants.

Dry machine trimming avoids some sanitation issues but still sacrifices bud integrity. The process shaves buds into uniform, "pebble-shaped" nuggets while dulling aroma and flavor, reducing potency, and flattening natural structure.

By contrast, dry hand trimming is precise and protective. Scissor work preserves resin glands, terpenes, and bud architecture. Machines can strip 20–30% of trichomes; hand trimming might lose only ~5%. That difference is potency, aroma, and flavor you can taste.

Wet machine-trimmed flower is especially prone to microbial failure—mold and bacteria thrive on buds that have been wounded while wet, dried flat on screens, and exposed to poor airflow. To salvage these batches and get them to pass compliance testing, many producers turn to remediation methods such as gamma or X-ray irradiation, RF pasteurization, or ozone treatment.

While these processes can neutralize microbes and make flower test-compliant, they also strip terpenes, degrade cannabinoids, and diminish smoke quality. In the case of X-ray irradiation, spores may be "killed," but the dead mold remains in the flower, meaning consumers still inhale the remnants.

"At the end of the day, remediation safeguards profits, not consumers."

Machine-trimmed buds often look unnaturally round and overly uniform, with broken calyxes and shaved-off trichomes, while hand-trimmed buds retain their natural shape and frosty texture. Price can also be a giveaway. In Michigan, hand-trimmed indoor flower costs more to produce, so any ounces selling for under about $65 are almost certainly machine-trimmed or outdoor-grown. Cheaper weed often comes with stripped trichomes, muted flavor, and in many instances, remediated flower.

Knowing how to spot machine-trimmed weed empowers you to choose craft.

At Weedys, hand trimming is non-negotiable. We slow-dry whole plants in darkness, then trim only after moisture, chlorophyll, and trichomes are stable. Our trimmers carefully remove leaves while preserving each bud's natural architecture and catching flaws machines would miss, ensuring only the best reaches shelves. Cannabis is too beautiful and too intricate to be shaved into uniform pellets.

Hand-trimmed flower carries the fingerprints of its strain and retains the full spectrum of cannabinoids and terpenes, while machine trimming doesn't just change the look—it strips the soul from the plant. In a market racing to the bottom at the expense of quality, Weedys refuses to compromise. Every bud we produce is hand-trimmed, because protecting trichomes, terpenes, and Michigan jobs matters more than chasing shortcuts—and that's the Weedys difference.