Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
We're tromping across a farm in the Whitethorne section of Montgomery County. Out past the sheep pasture, past the grain bins, past the corn field ... whoa, wait, is that a field of marijuana? Are they really growing cannabis here, right out in the open?
No. And yes.
This is hemp. It sure looks like marijuana. Same distinctive leaves. Same species, in fact - just a different strain of cannabis, just like how Chihuahuas and Saint Bernards are both dogs, but are very different types of dogs. The main difference here is that hemp won't get you high. Well, it might - if you rolled a joint as fat as a telephone pole.
The buzz comes from tetrahydrocannabinol; the THC content of marijuana often measures in the double-digits. The THC content of hemp is 0.3 percent or less. As a drug, it's a buzz-kill. But as a farm product, well ... that's why two researchers from Virginia Tech are standing here admiring their crop.
Graduate student Jabari Byrd plucks a spindly plant out of the ground and tries to snap it in two. He's a big, strong guy - but the hemp is stronger. It takes him some effort to bend the stalk and peel away the skin. Hemp is fibrous, which explains why it used to be a staple crop in colonial America. You can make stuff out of it.
Rope, clothes, sails for ships - all were once made from hemp. The word "canvas" comes from "cannabis." Thomas Jefferson penned the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. In World War II, the federal government promoted "Hemp for Victory!" Growing hemp for use in making industrial fiber was considered patriotic. Then came another war - the War on Drugs - and hemp didn't fare so well. If it looks like pot, it must be pot, right?
Other countries didn't see it that way, though. Today, industrial hemp, as it's called, is grown in more than 30 countries. This year, Americans will spend an estimated $500 million to import stuff made from hemp - and you can make a surprising amount of stuff out of hemp. It can be processed into beauty products or woven into strong but lightweight construction materials. Hemp apparently can be used for just about everything from A to Z - from airplanes to zits.
Henry Ford - yes, that Henry Ford - once had a hemp-based plan to "grow automobiles from the soil," or at least their fenders and fuel.
No wonder that Americans - well, some Americans - have been asking: If this stuff is so versatile, and you can't get high off of it, why aren't we allowed to grow it?
In 2014, Congress passed and President Obama signed an otherwise routine farm bill, which contained a not-so-routine provision: Hemp could be grown, but only for research purposes, and only in states that allowed it. This push for hemp farming hasn't come from blissed-out hippies, but from cold-eyed capitalists who see a chance to make a buck.
When Virginia legislators voted in 2015 to allow hemp research, the legislative champion was a Republican - Delegate Joseph Yost of Giles County, who saw the potential for hemp to become a new cash crop in a part of the state that cries out for economic development of any kind.
Sometimes it's hard to see the connection between what happens in Richmond and what happens in the real world. That's not the case here. You can see the fruits of Yost's bill - or at least the buds - on six farms across Virginia this summer, which explains why Virginia Tech professor John Fike and his graduate assistant are standing here admiring their crop.
OK, they're not admiring their crop. One of the first discoveries they made in hemp research is how hard it is to get the seed. Other countries are happy to export it; American officials aren't so keen to import it. There's lots of paperwork. One shipment burst and different types of seeds got mixed up, rendering them useless for research purposes. Others got stuck at JFK International Airport, awaiting even more paperwork.
As a result, this year's crop - the first in Virginia since olden times - got planted weeks late. The plants are about waist-high now. They ought to be towering 8 feet. Oh well. Lesson learned. Virginia Tech has hemp growing at its research farms in Orange County, Nottoway County and here at Kentland Farm in Montgomery County. Virginia State University has hemp growing at its research farm near Petersburg. James Madison University has contracted with private farms in Rockingham and Albemarle counties.
Different researchers are looking for different things. JMU's farmers are looking at whether hemp oil can be used for fuel - just as Henry Ford once envisioned. Tech has multiple varieties growing - some intended for grain, others for fiber. Fike says an ordinary farm combine can harvest the grain hemp but the fiber hemp may have to be harvested by hand - it seems way too tough for even farm machinery to chop down.
That first hemp harvest is coming up soon. Next year, there'll be another. After that, it's unclear. There's certainly interest among farmers. "I get calls on a weekly basis," Fike says. "They want to know how they can grow hemp."
Right now, they can't - not in a commercial way. There are bills in Congress to allow hemp farming (they may be the only thing that Bernie Sanders and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agree on) but so far they haven't gone anywhere. Curiously, hemp advocates now face an unlikely adversary: The marijuana lobby.
In Oregon, a state that has legalized marijuana, pot farmers have tried to block hemp farms. They're worried the plants might cross-pollinate - and lower the THC content of the pot. In Colorado, marijuana farmers want to force hemp into greenhouses, which might be fine for research purposes, but not for industrial-scale farming. And that's ultimately why Fike and Byrd are standing in this field, assessing their plants. Can hemp be turned into a cash crop?
They'll look at things like grain yield and fiber quantity. Part of that answer, though, is beyond scientific inquiry.
"The industry," Fike says, "is disadvantaged by a climate of uncertainty." There's no point growing hemp if there are no buyers; there will be no buyers until there's an investment in processing facilities and there will be no investment until investors are certain the crop is really legal.
That's definitely a buzz kill.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: The Buzz Over Hemp
Author: Staff
Contact: 800-346-1234
Photo Credit: Dwayne Yancey
Website: The Roanoke Times
No. And yes.
This is hemp. It sure looks like marijuana. Same distinctive leaves. Same species, in fact - just a different strain of cannabis, just like how Chihuahuas and Saint Bernards are both dogs, but are very different types of dogs. The main difference here is that hemp won't get you high. Well, it might - if you rolled a joint as fat as a telephone pole.
The buzz comes from tetrahydrocannabinol; the THC content of marijuana often measures in the double-digits. The THC content of hemp is 0.3 percent or less. As a drug, it's a buzz-kill. But as a farm product, well ... that's why two researchers from Virginia Tech are standing here admiring their crop.
Graduate student Jabari Byrd plucks a spindly plant out of the ground and tries to snap it in two. He's a big, strong guy - but the hemp is stronger. It takes him some effort to bend the stalk and peel away the skin. Hemp is fibrous, which explains why it used to be a staple crop in colonial America. You can make stuff out of it.
Rope, clothes, sails for ships - all were once made from hemp. The word "canvas" comes from "cannabis." Thomas Jefferson penned the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. In World War II, the federal government promoted "Hemp for Victory!" Growing hemp for use in making industrial fiber was considered patriotic. Then came another war - the War on Drugs - and hemp didn't fare so well. If it looks like pot, it must be pot, right?
Other countries didn't see it that way, though. Today, industrial hemp, as it's called, is grown in more than 30 countries. This year, Americans will spend an estimated $500 million to import stuff made from hemp - and you can make a surprising amount of stuff out of hemp. It can be processed into beauty products or woven into strong but lightweight construction materials. Hemp apparently can be used for just about everything from A to Z - from airplanes to zits.
Henry Ford - yes, that Henry Ford - once had a hemp-based plan to "grow automobiles from the soil," or at least their fenders and fuel.
No wonder that Americans - well, some Americans - have been asking: If this stuff is so versatile, and you can't get high off of it, why aren't we allowed to grow it?
In 2014, Congress passed and President Obama signed an otherwise routine farm bill, which contained a not-so-routine provision: Hemp could be grown, but only for research purposes, and only in states that allowed it. This push for hemp farming hasn't come from blissed-out hippies, but from cold-eyed capitalists who see a chance to make a buck.
When Virginia legislators voted in 2015 to allow hemp research, the legislative champion was a Republican - Delegate Joseph Yost of Giles County, who saw the potential for hemp to become a new cash crop in a part of the state that cries out for economic development of any kind.
Sometimes it's hard to see the connection between what happens in Richmond and what happens in the real world. That's not the case here. You can see the fruits of Yost's bill - or at least the buds - on six farms across Virginia this summer, which explains why Virginia Tech professor John Fike and his graduate assistant are standing here admiring their crop.
OK, they're not admiring their crop. One of the first discoveries they made in hemp research is how hard it is to get the seed. Other countries are happy to export it; American officials aren't so keen to import it. There's lots of paperwork. One shipment burst and different types of seeds got mixed up, rendering them useless for research purposes. Others got stuck at JFK International Airport, awaiting even more paperwork.
As a result, this year's crop - the first in Virginia since olden times - got planted weeks late. The plants are about waist-high now. They ought to be towering 8 feet. Oh well. Lesson learned. Virginia Tech has hemp growing at its research farms in Orange County, Nottoway County and here at Kentland Farm in Montgomery County. Virginia State University has hemp growing at its research farm near Petersburg. James Madison University has contracted with private farms in Rockingham and Albemarle counties.
Different researchers are looking for different things. JMU's farmers are looking at whether hemp oil can be used for fuel - just as Henry Ford once envisioned. Tech has multiple varieties growing - some intended for grain, others for fiber. Fike says an ordinary farm combine can harvest the grain hemp but the fiber hemp may have to be harvested by hand - it seems way too tough for even farm machinery to chop down.
That first hemp harvest is coming up soon. Next year, there'll be another. After that, it's unclear. There's certainly interest among farmers. "I get calls on a weekly basis," Fike says. "They want to know how they can grow hemp."
Right now, they can't - not in a commercial way. There are bills in Congress to allow hemp farming (they may be the only thing that Bernie Sanders and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agree on) but so far they haven't gone anywhere. Curiously, hemp advocates now face an unlikely adversary: The marijuana lobby.
In Oregon, a state that has legalized marijuana, pot farmers have tried to block hemp farms. They're worried the plants might cross-pollinate - and lower the THC content of the pot. In Colorado, marijuana farmers want to force hemp into greenhouses, which might be fine for research purposes, but not for industrial-scale farming. And that's ultimately why Fike and Byrd are standing in this field, assessing their plants. Can hemp be turned into a cash crop?
They'll look at things like grain yield and fiber quantity. Part of that answer, though, is beyond scientific inquiry.
"The industry," Fike says, "is disadvantaged by a climate of uncertainty." There's no point growing hemp if there are no buyers; there will be no buyers until there's an investment in processing facilities and there will be no investment until investors are certain the crop is really legal.
That's definitely a buzz kill.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: The Buzz Over Hemp
Author: Staff
Contact: 800-346-1234
Photo Credit: Dwayne Yancey
Website: The Roanoke Times
