Hand-trimming has been compared to potato peeling: A rite of passage for entry-level employees and integral to product success.
Long days and tedious work that results in sticky hands make trimming one of the cannabis industry’s least favorite jobs. While machines exist to automate the process, many of the contraptions trim a bit more than excess leaves. According to Barry Schroeder, inventor of the Ultra Trimmer, that’s a crime against nature.
Trichomes are more than just tiny, glossy, Instagram-able balls found on the ends of cannabis buds. They protect the plant’s precious cargo—cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids—from environmental threats that can destroy “the good stuff” that makes strains unique and popular. Though tedious, hand-trimming preserves most of a bud’s trichomes and, consequently, potency and flavor.
“Other machines out there destroy trichomes,” Schroeder said. “Trichomes are the product. That little ball of oil is the product, and if you destroy that little ball of oil, you destroy the product.”
To say Schroeder is obsessed with trichome preservation would not be hyperbolic. But obsession is a hallmark of the farmer and serial inventor. Prior to the Ultra Trimmer, he invented another agricultural device to do less harm: the patented Varmitgetter. Remote-controlled and designed to eliminate pests instantly, the device does not prolong crop vermin’s suffering or rely on poisons that can seep into drinking water. Ironically, for a product that stamps out animals, Schroeder was recognized and thanked by the Humane Society at a business conference, he said.
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