HARVEST CALCULATOR
Video Transcript

Hey, this is Josh Hoff coming at you with 3Light at the Super Farm facility here in Denver, Colorado. Hanging out with a good friend here with the Easy Trim company. They are kicking butt and taking names, and we're here to tell you a little bit about that. We've been in the industry for a long time, you and I both, definitely a couple pioneers. Nonetheless, it's been a heck of a road getting here. I think the one thing that we should all stay is humble and continuing to move forward when it comes to discovering new processes, new ways to achieve things, and that's how we ran into Easy Trim. We ended up giving it a shot, trying the satellite, and the product just came out looking so good that we wanted to implement it across all of our facilities. When it comes to, most importantly, our finished product, we've been able to achieve just a higher quality, especially ever since your products have came along. We've got product that's kind of tough to keep on the shelves, which is a great problem, especially in a flooded market here in Colorado. This facility, we've got about 16 bedrooms here. Yeah. About 24 flower rooms. Here in our nursery room, we have our clones, our four-inch cubes, as well as our seven gallons. These girls are getting ready to go to war. Looking good, though. Yeah. So these girls are getting ready to flip. Yeah. We'll be getting schwazed tomorrow, and then we'll fast-forward in your mind two days to the room we're about to go into. Here we are now, and these girls are all stripped down, schwazed up, looking good. The next room we're going to go to, you're going to fast-forward 19 days in your mind, and they're going to be on day 20. We're rocking. This room right here, they got a schwaz going on. All these leaves got to come off. It's a full project, that's for sure. The next room we're going to go to, you're going to fast-forward three days in your mind, and this is what they're going to look like. So in this room, we got way less leaves than we had in the prior room because they all got schwazed up. At this point, they don't really want to be bothered. They've all been netted, supported, and now it's time to start stacking. So the next room we're going to go into is going to be a fast-forward of 40 days in your mind, and these girls are done. We're going to a harvest room. Let's go check it out. Most important part about this room is when these big, gorgeous flowers do come down, that they're trimmed properly. It's got to look like the top-shelf product that it is, and that's where our products come into play. Call it what it is, but you guys are people-people. You have the skills. You understand how it is to communicate, how it is to be a decent person. And unfortunately, in the cannabis industry, that is few and far between, which is why I feel extra inclined to want to tell people about you guys, because the products are legit, and the most important part about it is revenue will cross a bridge, but more importantly, the relationship follows it. And you guys have the ability to follow up. You guys do answer your phones. You guys are consistent. You guys do provide help, especially when we're stuck in a pinch and I need an extra machine. You're always answering the call. You're always coming down, and for us, that carries its weight in gold. That means a lot to us, especially at a facility where we're harvesting 100 to 150 pounds every other day. I do not have time for something to fall behind. Absolutely not. I need your help. I need you to show up. I need you to answer that call, and you guys have been able to do that for us, and obviously that's why we're working together. That's why we're doing this now. That's why we're doing the whole walkthrough, and we're really happy to have you guys on our team. Awesome. 100%.

Cannabis Trimming Labor & Touch-Up Calculator

The EZ Trim Harvest Calculator helps commercial cannabis growers estimate how long it may take to machine trim and hand touch-up a harvest using the EZ Trim Satellite Bud Trimmer.

The calculator models two parts of the trimming workflow:

1. Machine trimming with the Satellite Bud Trimmer

2. Manual touch-up of the flower that still requires additional finishing

Enter your harvest size and available touch-up labor to estimate how these two stages work together and how long the trimming process may take.

How the Calculator Works

The calculator uses the following production assumptions:

Satellite trimming rate: 1 pound per minute (approximately 453 grams/minute)

Flower requiring touch-up: 30% of the total trimmed weight

Employee touch-up rate: 5 grams per minute per employee

These assumptions create a simple model for estimating the relationship between machine-trimming capacity and the hand labor required after trimming.

The calculator is a planning tool, not a guarantee of production. Actual trimming and touch-up rates can vary based on cultivar, flower structure, preparation, dryness, trim readiness, machine settings, operator experience, and your finished-product standard.

Example: 100-Pound Harvest With 10 Employees

Suppose you have:

100 pounds of flower

10 employees available for touch-up

The calculator assumes that the Satellite can machine trim approximately:

1 pound per minute

At the calculator's 30% touch-up assumption, a 100-pound harvest produces:

100 lb × 30% = 30 lb requiring touch-up

Thirty pounds is approximately:

13,590 grams

Each employee is assumed to touch up:

5 grams per minute

With 10 employees:

10 employees × 5 g/minute = 50 grams/minute

The estimated touch-up time is therefore:

13,590 g ÷ 50 g/minute = approximately 272 minutes

or approximately:

4.5 hours of touch-up time

The Satellite itself would require approximately 100 minutes to machine trim 100 pounds at the calculator's 1-pound-per-minute assumption.

This example demonstrates an important point: machine throughput and total trimming throughput are not necessarily the same thing.

Once machine trimming becomes fast, the amount of flower requiring hand touch-up—and the number of people available to perform that touch-up—can become an important factor in total production time.

Calculator Assumptions at a Glance

Satellite Bud Trimmer: approximately 453 g/minute

Satellite Bud Trimmer: approximately 1 lb/minute

Assumed touch-up requirement: 30%

Touch-up generated at 30%: approximately 136 g for every minute of machine trimming at the modeled rate

Employee touch-up rate: 5 g/minute per employee

One employee: approximately 1 lb every 90 minutes

One employee: approximately 5.3 lb during an 8-hour workday

These values are the assumptions used by the calculator to estimate labor requirements. They should not be interpreted as guaranteed production rates for every harvest.

Why Touch-Up Percentage Matters

The 30% touch-up assumption is especially important.

It does not mean every harvest processed through a Satellite will require exactly 30% touch-up. It is the baseline used by this calculator to estimate labor.

Actual touch-up requirements depend heavily on the flower entering the trimmer.

Factors that can affect touch-up include:

Defoliation

Stem preparation

Flower size and structure

Consistency of dryness

Whether the flower is actually ready to trim

Satellite settings

Trim cycle time

Cultivar characteristics

Your definition of finished, shelf-ready flower

This is why EZ Trim treats touch-up as part of the complete trimming process, rather than evaluating a trimming machine only by its pounds-per-hour rating.

Machine Trimming Is Only Part of the Labor Equation

A machine can process flower very quickly while the overall trimming operation remains limited by downstream hand labor.

For example, at the calculator's assumptions:

Satellite output = approximately 453 g/minute

At 30% requiring touch-up:

Touch-up workload generated = approximately 136 g/minute

One employee working at 5 g/minute cannot keep pace with that workload.

Ten employees provide:

50 g/minute of touch-up capacity

Twenty employees provide:

100 g/minute

Approximately 27 employees at the modeled 5 g/minute rate would be required to provide roughly the same touch-up capacity as the calculator assumes is being generated while the Satellite continuously trims at 1 pound per minute.

That does not mean every Satellite operation needs 27 employees. It means the calculator can help you understand the relationship between machine speed, touch-up percentage, and available labor.

The Satellite does not necessarily need to run continuously, and touch-up can continue after machine trimming is complete.

Reducing Touch-Up Can Change the Entire Equation

One of the most important variables in the calculation is the percentage of flower requiring touch-up.

Consider a 100-pound harvest:

30% touch-up = 30 pounds requiring hand finishing

If process improvements reduced that to 20%:

20% touch-up = 20 pounds requiring hand finishing

At 10 employees working at the calculator's assumed 5 g/minute rate:

30 lb touch-up ≈ 4.5 hours

20 lb touch-up ≈ 3.0 hours

That is roughly 1.5 fewer hours for a 10-person touch-up crew on the same 100-pound harvest.

This is why improving the process feeding the trimmer can be just as important as increasing machine speed.

Preparation Affects Trimming Efficiency

For dry trimming, EZ Trim recommends treating preparation and trim readiness as part of the trimming process.

The workflow is:

Defoliate → Hang Dry → Buck → Equalize Dryness → Finger Test → Satellite Trim → Pre-Sort → Touch-Up / QC

Proper preparation helps the Satellite remove unwanted leaf efficiently while reducing unnecessary downstream correction.

Equalize Dryness Before Dry Trimming

Small and large cannabis flowers can dry at different rates.

Before dry trimming, EZ Trim recommends Equalizing Dryness so moisture is more consistent throughout the batch.

This helps reduce situations where some unwanted leaves are brittle enough to release while others remain pliable and attached.

Learn more in the EZ Trim Harvest Playbook: /pages/playbooks

Use the Finger Test

RH and drying time are useful indicators, but EZ Trim recommends physically testing the flower before machine trimming.

Select representative small, medium, and large buds.

Lightly disturb exposed unwanted leaf or rub two buds together.

PASS: The unwanted leaf is dry and brittle enough to snap or release.

FAIL: The leaf bends, folds, remains pliable, or stays attached.

If the unwanted leaf will not release when subjected to this simple friction test, it is unlikely to release efficiently during dry machine trimming.

Start With a Satellite Test Batch

For properly prepared dry flower, a useful Satellite starting test is approximately:

1 pound of flower

for approximately:

30–60 seconds

Then inspect the result.

Different cultivars and batches may require changes to:

Airflow

Suction

Rotor speed

Rotor direction

Agitation

Batch time

The objective is not simply to run every batch for the same amount of time. The objective is to find the settings and trim time that produce the desired result with the least unnecessary handling and touch-up.

Learn about the Satellite Bud Trimmer: /pages/satellite-bud-trimmer

Use Touch-Up as a Process Metric

Touch-up labor can tell you something about the effectiveness of the entire trimming process.

If an unusually large portion of the flower requires correction after machine trimming, investigate why.

Ask:

Was the flower properly defoliated?

Was excess stem removed?

Was dryness consistent?

Did representative flower pass the Finger Test?

Were the Satellite settings appropriate?

Was the batch under-trimmed?

Rather than assuming that a fixed amount of hand finishing is unavoidable, track the percentage of each harvest requiring touch-up.

Over time, this creates a useful operational metric:

What percentage of our machine-trimmed flower actually requires additional hand finishing?

Lowering that percentage can reduce labor even if machine throughput remains exactly the same.

Calculate Labor Cost Per Pound

The same information can also help evaluate trimming cost.

For touch-up labor:

Touch-Up Labor Cost = Number of Employees × Hours Worked × Hourly Labor Rate

Then:

Touch-Up Labor Cost per Pound = Total Touch-Up Labor Cost ÷ Total Harvest Pounds

For a more complete comparison, include machine operators and other trimming-related labor as well.

This allows commercial growers to compare processes based on finished-product labor cost per pound, rather than looking only at machine throughput.

Plan the Complete Harvest

The Harvest Calculator focuses on the relationship between Satellite trimming and touch-up labor.

The EZ Trim Harvest Playbook goes further by explaining how the stages before and after trimming affect the complete commercial harvest:

Defoliate → Hang Dry → Buck → Equalize Dryness → Finger Test → Trim → Pre-Sort → Touch-Up/QC → Final Cure → Final Sort → Package

Harvest Calculator = Model trimming and touch-up capacity

Harvest Playbook = Improve the process that produces those results

Read the EZ Trim Harvest Playbook: /pages/playbooks

Harvest Calculator FAQ

What does the EZ Trim Harvest Calculator calculate?

The calculator estimates machine-trimming and hand touch-up requirements using the Satellite Bud Trimmer. It models Satellite throughput at approximately 1 pound per minute, assumes 30% of trimmed flower requires touch-up, and calculates touch-up labor at 5 grams per minute per employee.

Why does the calculator assume 30% touch-up?

Thirty percent is the baseline assumption used by the calculator to estimate labor. It is not a guarantee that 30% of every harvest will require touch-up. Actual results depend on flower preparation, dryness, cultivar, machine settings, trim time, and finished-product standards.

How fast can one employee touch up cannabis?

The calculator uses an assumed rate of 5 grams per minute per employee, equivalent to approximately one pound every 90 minutes or approximately 5.3 pounds during an eight-hour workday.

How fast does the Satellite Bud Trimmer trim cannabis?

The calculator models Satellite production at approximately 1 pound per minute. Actual production depends on flower condition, preparation, cultivar, machine settings, batch size, and desired trim quality.

How many employees do I need for cannabis touch-up?

It depends on harvest size, the percentage of flower requiring touch-up, the employee touch-up rate, and how quickly the work needs to be completed. The calculator uses these variables to help estimate the required labor.

How can I reduce cannabis touch-up labor?

Start upstream. Proper defoliation, bucking, consistent dryness, passing the Finger Test, and appropriate Satellite settings can all affect the amount of manual correction required after trimming.

Why is the Finger Test important for dry trimming?

The Finger Test checks whether unwanted leaf is brittle enough to release from the flower. If the leaf bends or remains attached when physically disturbed, the flower may not yet be ready for efficient dry machine trimming.

Is the Harvest Calculator a guarantee of production?

No. It is a planning model based on defined assumptions. Actual production and labor requirements vary between harvests and operations.

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