If you’re harvesting plants, you’ll need a bud trimmer. Hand pruning is the worst. Bring your life back to life — and keep your hands free from carpal tunnel syndrome (and all that sticky resin that won’t wash off).

Whether you’re an outdoor grower or growing indoors with the best LED grow lights, use this guide to find the best bud trimmer for your operation.

How to trim your buds?

Pruning involves removing excess plant material such as leaves and sometimes excess pistils to keep the buds looking nice and attractive. During pruning, aim to remove all trichomes that are not fully covered. Try to create a uniform surface area around the buds, and this involves removing the pistils all the way to the leaves. The trichomes of the pistil are very few, and they are long just for aesthetics.

How you prune depends on the goals of that batch of flowers. It may vary if you are making extracts, foods or if you are smoking. Generally, if you’re smoking flowers, you’ll want to trim off the buds as much as possible, removing as much excess as possible. When using flower buds to make foods or extracts, you want to trim less so that you can extract all the trichomes as possible, this is because you won’t see the flowers in the final product.

DL Wholesale 18" Stand Up Leaf Trimmer

Features:

The DL Wholesale 18" Stand Up Trimmer is a great way to increase your harvest efficiency and save you from the frustrating, painfully slow process of trimming by hand. This motorized trimming machine is incredibly cost-effective, much cheaper than any other machine trimmer. An extra sharp blade makes clean cuts, preserving your flower and preventing damage. Built-in fan blows trim down into the collection bag, separating from flower and preserving for extraction. Two different speeds to meet whatever type of trimming needs you have.

Pro-Cut P2X Leaf Trimmer

Features:

Pro-Cut P2X is an easy to use trimmer that provides you with the benefit of trimming through all of your plants that need trimming. The Pro-Cut P2X leaf trimming machine can trim yields in minutes. With this leaf trimmer separating excess leaves and twigs from a mess of plants and flowers becomes easy. So you don’t have to worry about sorting things here. Alongside, the Pro-Cut P2X garden machine can also trim plants and small bushes like oregano, basil, rosemary, mint, lavender, coriander and parsley. Once the leaves are trimmed, you can then use it for multiple purposes. And the best part: it works quietly which means no more headaches!

Why Should You Trim Buds?

If it’s harvest time, you’re probably cutting down your homegrown buds to dry and cure it.

But is it necessary to trim your buds? If so, when’s the best time to do it, and why should you do it in the first place?

These are basically all of the questions that go through a first-time grower’s mind.

Ultimately, there are lots of logical answers to the above-mentioned questions, so let’s take a closer look at them.

Appearance
Whenever you look at the magazine, have a look inside the dispensary or at online pictures, the plants you see look completely and perfectly manicured or at least trimmed.

The good plant is associated with this type of appearance, and unruly buds basically look less appealing to most people.

Harshness
Leaves are harsher on your throat and lungs than flowers when smoking plants.

So when you trim off the extra matter, ultimately, you alter or enhance the smoothness of the plants you smoke.

THC Concentration
The sugar leaves on your buds inherently have a lower concentration of THC inherently.

So ultimately, what this means is you are getting less THC gram for gram from the leaves than from the bud.

Many growers would love to have trimmed buds without wasting any THC.

So ultimately, they adjust their trim to extract the THC in the leaves separately.

So there are lots of good options when it comes to trimming a tree.

“Wet Trim” vs “Dry Trim”

If you never trimmed plants before, then you probably don’t know much about the process.

Lots of people are confused about when to trim their plants and also the advantages and disadvantages of trimming.

Ultimately they are two different types of methods of trimming your plant.

While some people choose to trim their buds before drying them, others wait until the buds have dried to trim the trees.

If you choose to trim your plants before drying it out, it is referred to as a wet trim.

This is because leaves are still wet during the trimming process.

Trimming your buds after they have dried out is a dry trim because the buds have dried out before trimming off the sugar leaves.

In most cases, growers will remove the big fan leaves with their fingers before drying.

Some growers actually choose to forgo the trim entirely and hang the entire plant upside down

So when you should use the two different types of trims and why?

Wet Trimming Should Be Done If:
You’re concerned about mold
There are many buds drying in a small area
You have high humidity
You want buds to dry quickly
Dry Trimming Should Be Done When Or If :
You’re not concerned about mold
You have low humidity
You want your buds to be more dense or tighter
You want your buds to dry slowly
You don’t mind buds losing their vibrant color

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter how your buds look as long as you don’t have any mold issues or your buds smell like hay. There is no right way to trim, and how you trim is almost entirely up to you, as long as you follow the basic guidelines. Pruning shouldn’t be a tedious activity, listen to the music, have fun, and soon you’ll be experimenting with newly picked flowers.