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November 6, 2017

Maine-invented machine could boost marijuana industry

A mechanical “bud tugger” reduces the amount of time it takes to trim marijuana plants from hours to minutes. The innovation is seen as having a strong potential market among growers of medical marijuana.

Maine Public reported that Morrill medical marijuana farmer King Bishop worked with a northern Maine machine shop to make his first bud tugger four months ago. Its sells for $3,500, as compared to a similar West Coast-marketed machine that’s going for nearly $20,000. He’s advertised on his Facebook page and sold eight so far.

“It’s been a game-changer,” Dan Brown of Gravelwood Farm in Blue Hill, another medical marijuana caregiver and the owner of a grower’s supply store, told Maine Public.

Bishop said the machine allows him to harvest plants when they’re ready, while complying with state rules that limit hiring to only marijuana farmhand. The cleaned stems can also be processed as hemp fiber, expected to be a developing Maine industry, he said.

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