Trimming 1500 + plants ... Need Advice & Direction ...

  • Thread starter digging
  • Start date
  • Tagged users None
D

digging

Guest
We have planted just over 1500 plants. We are doing our homework now in advance of harvest season, in how best to trim so many plants, then onto the drying stage.

We were all set to purchase a Twister, but have come to understand the Twister people recommend trimming the plants within two hours after cutting them down.

We intend on cutting down 200 plants a night at harvest time.

There is no way we would be able to trim all 200 plants each night within the recommended 2 hours after being cut down. The twister will only trim 4 lbs an hour, so at this rate the 200 plants we will cut down each night would take 50 hours to trim with the Twister.

We would like to utilize some sort of mechanical device to aid us with our trimming need.

What does everyone suggest we do ???

Thanks so much for your help and guidance !!!
 
N

noone88

726
63
Your time frame makes it impossible. You have to trim all day long, not just during night time. There is another outdoor grower on this forum with a twister trimmer, I believe his SN is humboldtlocal.

I've seen harvest time at outdoor grows and when it's time to harvest, they go all day long, 3-4 man crews operating each machine.

The only things I can think of are trimming the fan leaves on all the plants before you cut it down, but that will be very hard considering your outdoor plants are huge. You can also cut them down and find a way to "hang" the plant before you run it through the machine, but you'll need to set up something that can suspend a few hundred pounds.
 
P

paulycali

2,479
163
Just give them all to me!! LOL!!! Get a trim pro or some mechanical device. Cutting corners never felt easier
 
D

digging

Guest
Would it be possible to cut all the buds off the plants and put the buds in a big pool of water then, and then remove the buds from the pool of water and put them in say a twister machine.

Would this work?

Or would it be just best to hang all the plants upside down and while they are hanging to dry begin the process of removing the larger leaves, and then start the fine detail trimming after the plants have dried?

Thanks for sharing your experience !
 
N

noone88

726
63
Would it be possible to cut all the buds off the plants and put the buds in a big pool of water then, and then remove the buds from the pool of water and put them in say a twister machine.

Ugh, is this your first grow or harvest...? Putting buds in water....??

Ask again when it's time to harvest, you have a long way to go and tons of crap that can happen between now and then.
 
greenthumbdanny

greenthumbdanny

Premium Member
Supporter
1,583
63
Man are you gonna ahve your hands full>>>.But it can be done:)
Ya first need to spend some money and get a
Trim Pro station>>>>>Use that to rough it out>>>>Pulls all the water leafs and big larf off the plant to get it ready for your Tumble Weed or Samurai.
It will take about a crew of 6 or more to get things done efficiently>>>>Usually 2 on the trimpro and 4 guys husking the plants into the hopper of the Tumble Weed/Samurai and one on quality control. Run it threw the Tumble weed a couple of times for best results.
I really dont see any other way for you to achieve such a task with out 50+ mexicans helping:)
Them tumble weeds are pricey but well worth it if you plan on taking down that big of a crop.

:passingjoint:

gtd
 
D

digging

Guest
Yes this is our first major Outdoor Grow. In past years we have grown maximum 20 plants, and at harvest time we all trim together, till our plants were all trimmed up.

We are a group of three friends since grade school (30 plus years), very dedicated hard workers, and willing to walk what ever walk we need to, in order to bring our 1500 plants to a successful and bountiful harvest.

We are planning our strategy out now, so we have all of our ducks in a row come harvest time. We are all very excited about our upcoming growing season.

Thanks for your help and support.
 
H

humboldtlocal

258
28
Hey Digging, you certainly have your work cut out for you but kudos on your ambitious plans.
I have a lot of experience with the Twister and can't recommend it enough. You have a unique situation. Sounds like you are growing way out in the sticks. I know people that have hiked their Twister and a generator pretty far out and ran it in the woods. You can run the Twister off a Honda eu6500 genny. If you are far out enough the noise shouldn't be an issue. The Twister has large rubber wheels so you can wheel it around pretty good. It also has handles on either end so two strong guys should be able to get it anywhere. Same with the generator. I know a guy on another forum who trimmed 10lbs in 3 hours with one other guy helping. If you can get the Twister out there you should have no problem running through that large amount. You can also use the hanging dry racks to dry it all. Just set up a nice tarped area to cover them. What you are trying to do has been done. The only other option is to spray the buds down with a lot of water to keep it from degrading and that would buy you some time to get them out and trimmed. But it would make everything a lot heavier to haul out. I think you should bite the bullet and plan to haul the Twister in if you guys end up with the huge haul you are planning to have. I hope you pull it off. Let me know if I can answer any of your questions. Check in my gallery to see pics of my Twisters. And to the guys on here recommending the samurai/Tumbleweed, they have obviously never used one. I owned one and it is a piece of crap.
 
greenthumbdanny

greenthumbdanny

Premium Member
Supporter
1,583
63
How do you figure the Tumble Weed is crap bro>>>>Did my homies just fine last summer<<<<<< I ahve many hours on that so called piece of crap:)
gtd
 
greenthumbdanny

greenthumbdanny

Premium Member
Supporter
1,583
63
Its the same thing>>>>>pert- n -near there genius:)

:passingjoint:

gtd
 
D

digging

Guest
Humboldtlocal much respect and thanks, and thanks for your willingness to answer any further questions we will have.

The three of us are all hardworking, and dedicated to the success of our project. As the saying goes come hell or high water we will pull this off !!!

Where we live we will not be able to take a Twister out to the fields, but we have built a sound proof room with in a barn, that has a 10ft ceiling height that is 400 sq/ft in size.

So our plan is to cut down about 200 plants a night, and either bring the whole plant to inside the barn, or out in the fields cut the buds off the plants and bring back only the buds in large bags to the barn to be trimmed by a Twister.

Any further directions or advice would be warmly welcomed.

Thanks to everyone who has been willing to give advice and experience, which will ultimately help make our project a successful one !
 
H

humboldtlocal

258
28
Danny, sorry if that came off sounding like it was directed at you. There are just so many people on these forums saying use this use that and they don't have the hands on experience. You obviously do. I have a thread on the other forum ( i c m a g )that pretty much details my experience with both machines and why I think one is better than the other. There are also a lot of other users talking about their experience. Plenty of Tumbleweed/Samurai owners bitching it up as well. I won't go into it all here because I have already gone over it many times. All I will say is that a Ferrari and a pinto are both a car but they are not the same at all. Again, no disrespect meant. Keep that thumb green.:flower
There are also lots of trimming machine reviews at
http://www.harvestreview.com/
 
JACKMAYOFFER

JACKMAYOFFER

Playing with Fire Son...
Supporter
939
263
200 plants a night with 3 people is not going to do the job. I have seen 2 twisters run back to back the Twister is the best trimming machine hands down.I believe they where abel to do 5 elbows in 4 hours, Im sure Humbolt local knows the exact ratio...JACK
 
H

humboldtlocal

258
28
Humboldtlocal much respect and thanks, and thanks for your willingness to answer any further questions we will have.

The three of us are all hardworking, and dedicated to the success of our project. As the saying goes come hell or high water we will pull this off !!!

Where we live we will not be able to take a Twister out to the fields, but we have built a sound proof room with in a barn, that has a 10ft ceiling height that is 400 sq/ft in size.

So our plan is to cut down about 200 plants a night, and either bring the whole plant to inside the barn, or out in the fields cut the buds off the plants and bring back only the buds in large bags to the barn to be trimmed by a Twister.

Any further directions or advice would be warmly welcomed.

Thanks to everyone who has been willing to give advice and experience, which will ultimately help make our project a successful one !

Well doing everything at night will help because of the cooler temps. Your plants will wilt a lot slower. I have seen gardens cut down that had to be transported long distances before they were processed and the growers sprayed them down heavily with water. Like they were rained on. Even in piles it kept the temps low and stuff didn't start to break down so quick. If you were just doing the Tops and you sprayed them down heavily and the temps were kept really cool you might be okay. How much are you hoping those 200 plants per night will yield is a good question to start with? Do not hang them upside down while you are waiting to trim them because you don't want the leaf to start wrapping around the bud. The whole point of doing it fresh is that the leaf will be crisp and stick straight out so it will get sucked into the blades. Our biggest days we did last year (40lbs) were in the heaviest downpours. Because the bud was soaking wet we could harvest and let it sit around for many hours till we got to it. The machine needed less cleaning as well. After that we started spraying down the plants with a spray bottle if they were sitting around too long.
 
H

humboldtlocal

258
28
200 plants a night with 3 people is not going to do the job. I have seen 2 twisters run back to back the Twister is the best trimming machine hands down.I believe they where abel to do 5 elbows in 4 hours, Im sure Humbolt local knows the exact ratio...JACK

Hey Jack, I have been able to do around 4lbs per hour with one machine. I have a friend who was doing 60lb days but was working a longer day than us with more people bucking to keep up with the machine. I will be running two back to back set ups this year. I have seen it and it is way faster. You can pretty much feed the Twister non stop as fast as you can. I think 7-8lbs per hour is very doable.:drunk
 
H

humboldtlocal

258
28
They do make the trimpro gasoline. Scroll down the page.

You can take the automatic top off and use it tabletop style. I don't like the automatic style ones. They really do a lot of damage. I have seen the abuse first hand and it isn't pretty. One of those machines that have given machine trimmed weed a bad name. I use a couple of the table top ones just for big leafing before running through the Twister. It is hard to get a tight trim with them without rubbing your buds all over the grate and losing a lot of resin. Just one option.
 
P

Purkle

Premium Member
Supporter
428
0
When its all wet do you put it on screens? How do you dry it when its in nug form like that?
 
Top Bottom