Industrial Hemp in Oregon

[socioecologist]

Any other growers participating / interested in Oregon's industrial hemp program? The program is pretty awesome. $500 cost to register as a grower. No cameras. No fences. No plant count limits. No canopy limits. Counties and cities can't ban it. Federally legal due to the 2014 Farm Bill and, thanks to the FY2016 Ag appropriations bill, legal to ship anywhere in the US (only catch: THC must be less than 0.3%).

We've got 5 sites running this season (you can register limitless sites under the same $500 license) for both CBD flower and seed production. Anyone else jump into this yet?

 

[Aotf]

Water rights? Are you using well water?

Of course you are already on zoned AG right?

Do you have a lab help with samples and QC/QA?

Pest control?

Sounds awesome, especially if CBD oil can become a reliable alternative and be had for fractions of pennies.....

 

[socioecologist]

Farmers do not have to demonstrate water rights to ODA for their crop in the same way rec growers do to the OLCC, but it's always good to have that stuff figured out ahead of time. We have 5 sites around the state with various water rights, but all legal to use for crop irrigation.
Our primary field pulls directly from the Willamette river, and, yes, it is ag zoned (year 1 of organic transition).

Yes, we work with an awesome local lab.

Biggest pest concerns vary from field to field; last year was rabbits, this year mice. Bears cause trouble at one of our sites, but haven't destroyed any plants yet.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

I spent a good amount of time talking to the hemp folks down at hempstalk. Hemp growing has all sorts of fascinating possibilities & some fine looking plants as well, hitting pretty big CBD numbers while keeping the THC at bay. Is anyone sourcing cannabis terpenes from hemp plants? The massive oil batches I've seen pics of are already intriguing enough without worrying about unexploited potential.
If you were a medical grower with a client who desired CBD, sounds like you could just pay up the $500 & grow hemp plants for the CBD source, preserving your THC plant count for the THC plants, is that at all accurate?

 

[Aotf]

I spent a good amount of time talking to the hemp folks down at hempstalk. Hemp growing has all sorts of fascinating possibilities & some fine looking plants as well, hitting pretty big CBD numbers while keeping the THC at bay. Is anyone sourcing cannabis terpenes from hemp plants? The massive oil batches I've seen pics of are already intriguing enough without worrying about unexploited potential.
If you were a medical grower with a client who desired CBD, sounds like you could just pay up the $500 & grow hemp plants for the CBD source, preserving your THC plant count for the THC plants, is that at all accurate?

Minimum five acres plus handling and processing licensing too which weren't outlined by OP. Not too difficult, though. Hemp CBD is just like any other strain, without genomic markers we are left to search for quality cultivars. Not all hemp produces CBD in sufficienct or useable quality. So not the quite a panacea for going a "cheaper" road for medicinal quality.

Huge potential for a state that really has agriculture centered only in the Willamette Valley, which is fine...This is a borderline desert shrub; Eastern Central and Steens and Blue Mountain areas would be badass for hemp farming, especially interlaced with all the Medicago sativa that is grown everywhere else around there.....

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Minimum five acres plus handling and processing licensing too which weren't outlined by OP. Not too difficult, though. Hemp CBD is just like any other strain, without genomic markers we are left to search for quality cultivars. Not all hemp produces CBD in sufficienct or useable quality. So not the quite a panacea for going a "cheaper" road for medicinal quality.

Huge potential for a state that really has agriculture centered only in the Willamette Valley, which is fine...This is a borderline desert shrub; Eastern Central and Steens and Blue Mountain areas would be badass for hemp farming, especially interlaced with all the Medicago sativa that is grown everywhere else around there.....

Thanks, hemp is a fascinating topic that I pretty much ignored until a few months ago. Its also a cannabis plant that might be grown in those localities that still don't permit high THC varieties, which is most of the east side of the state. I have friends who live out south of Christmas Valley who would love to grow, but marijuana (using the slave name is valid in this context) is banned in their locality, they might be interested in hemp.

Here are some topical photos I took at Hempstalk, I got some hemp flower

Beautiful golden hemp oil, 26% CBD. Those purple stalks in the background are from hemp purps.

All them seeds

Various hemp textiles & other products

 

[socioecologist]

There is no longer a minimum acreage requirement in Oregon, we did away with that last legislative session. Finding high CBD cultivars that qualify as hemp is easy in this state--get a $500 license and the list of seed suppliers from ODA. Our company is the largest supplier of terpene rich, high CBD varieties in the state and will have some very cool releases for the 2017 season.

Yes, the Willamette valley is a great place to grow cannabis--as long as you have varieties that finish before the monsoons set in (which is happening right now this season)!

We like to grow on 4'x6' centers with early finishing plants and recommend this to our clients who are producing more than 5 acres of plants. Here's a 2lb'er that was harvested last week (15% CBD, 30:1 ratio).

 

[Robrites]

Subbed

 

[Aota1]

Do you folks grow a Swiss tsunami?

 

[socioecologist]

We haven't trialed that one. We only grow our own varieties in our main production field, as they are bred for specific purposes. We do, however, run some common clones in our seed production sites (ACDC, Ringo's Gift, HarleTsu, etc.) when we improve them for Oregon's climate.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Do you folks grow a Swiss tsunami?

I know a guy who has that strain, he can get a pinch over 24% CBDA out of it. Highest number I've seen on a CBD strain yet by a pretty good margin, but it flowers too late for local outdoor growing.

 

[socioecologist]

24%....that sounds like a great building block even if it doesn't finish! We have a couple mothers we use for seed production that are 20%+, but it's a difficult trait to lock in when growing fields from seed. You just can't grow from clone when running hundreds of acres so...

If your friend is looking for an earlier finishing version of that plant, put them in contact with us (oregoncbdseeds.com). We've figured out a way of altering photoperiod sensitivity in true F1 crosses so that they are guaranteed to finish in September.

We just finished seed production for a similar test cross; a 20%+ CBD cannatonic cut with a 58:1 ratio was combined with a short season 27:1 lady. All of the progeny will be very early flowering (and will add to the photoperiod sensitivity evidence from our work on many other lines this year), but what we are really interested in is the inheritance patterns for ultra high ratio plants. We'll share those results later this fall when we aren't dealing with field harvests! Best,

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

24%....that sounds like a great building block even if it doesn't finish! We have a couple mothers we use for seed production that are 20%+, but it's a difficult trait to lock in when growing fields from seed. You just can't grow from clone when running hundreds of acres so...

If your friend is looking for an earlier finishing version of that plant, put them in contact with us (oregoncbdseeds.com). We've figured out a way of altering photoperiod sensitivity in true F1 crosses so that they are guaranteed to finish in September.

We just finished seed production for a similar test cross; a 20%+ CBD cannatonic cut with a 58:1 ratio was combined with a short season 27:1 lady. All of the progeny will be very early flowering (and will add to the photoperiod sensitivity evidence from our work on many other lines this year), but what we are really interested in is the inheritance patterns for ultra high ratio plants. We'll share those results later this fall when we aren't dealing with field harvests! Best,

Damn, that 58:1 is more impressive than 24% - thats just a pinch over 0.3% CBD at 20%! Best of luck with your cross, it sound like a potential monster for the local hemp market. I'm also now wondering if its legal to grow a plant that produces less than 0.3% THC in a recreational grow for dispensary sales, because regardless if its more annoying and way more expensive, the Oregon CBD buying public is mainly in the dispensaries. Swiss Tsu seems to go in the 25:1 range so medical/recreational only for now.
I read something about inheritance patterns for high THC plants with CBD types, it will be interesting to read about how that patterns change at high CBD:THC ratios. I'd love to know more about getting F1s to flower earlier too, that seems like potentially even hotter info.
Some of the stuff on your website kind of make my head spin too. I haven't looked too much into the cannabinoids other than THC, CBD, THCV & CBN. When I worked in a dispensary we had one request for CBC in thousands of transactions & there are all sorts of other cannabinoids out there which are virtually unavailable due to lack of demand or information. CBDV interests me & I'm positive that if THCVhunter (from what I've read of his posts I figure he's somewhere PNW) still posts here he's interested too.
Please give us a briefing on what of the lesser known cannabinoids the hemp world is producing, I saw CBC & CBG on your seeds page. $2/seed is a massive deal for unique genetics like that, anyone could put them in 10 packs & sell them $100/pack. Are you prohibited from doing that?
Here is a pretty crapy picture of the east side of our 1:1 Cannatonic photographed on the equinox, when good plants should be almost ready to harvest. Its under a tarp for most of the time since then & will get cut young when someone gets around to it.

 

[socioecologist]

You can definitely grow sub 0.3% THC plants for the rec market in Oregon, but it wouldn't make sense unless you did so under a hemp license (unlimited acreage, $500 yearly fee, < 0.3 THC 30 days from harvest... that's it). OLCC retail stores can sell products produced under the hemp program as soon as they are licensed by our benevolent bureaucrats. Jumping through the OLCC production license hoops to grow CBD wouldn't be a great business decision at the moment, since a handful of massive ODA hemp farms are cranking out high CBD flower all over Oregon (us included). Our goal is to make Oregon the nation's leading producer of non-THC cannabinoids until THC is legal nationally.

There are great articles on breeding for novel cannabinoids published by DeMeier's research group (GW Pharma); even when they are wrong, they are functionally right. Despite their monopoly, cool bread crumbs have been dropped along the way for creating CBD, CBC, CBL, CBG, and propyl (-V) dominant lines. When starting from scratch, it just comes down to luck, intuition, good data collection, and enough operating capital to test everything you can get your hands on.

The seed price thing...yea, we could crank it up and do just fine, as the price is ridiculously low compared to returns...just seems wrong and shortsighted though. We wanted to keep the hemp program quiet at first last year because we were afraid that our little farm would swamp demand, but the reality is the opposite--the more people who are involved, the better off our whole industry is (demand included). These compounds are so useful that the more available they are, the more in demand they become.

Cannatonic is pretty mold resistant, hopefully your lady makes it to a successful harvest!

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Thanks for the briefing, there is a ton of potentially very exciting things going on in there. Sounds like a really fascinating end of the industry to be involved in. You're all probably quite cutting edge on mechanical harvesting & precessing as well, I imagine the large scale of work is also pretty amusing.

 

[Corverde]

I am a noob, so excuse me if this is in the wrong place.

I had three plants grown outdoors from clones in Corvallis this year and they all got lots of seeds. I had no such problems last year.

I was talking to a fellow at our local grower supply store and he mentioned that several folks in the area are having similar problems and he attributed it to the pollenization from industrial hemp grows.

Any thoughts on whether that's the likely culprit? I had thought they hermed from stress even though I never saw any evidence of pollen sacs.

 

[socioecologist]

Corverde,

Really sorry to hear of this, it is a very widespread problem in the south Willamette valley this year and definitely worth talking about. I've been working on this issue at the Oregon legislature since winter 2014 and will be spearheading the effort again this session. Hemp production for grain is not compatible with cannabis farming in most of the state and we need safeguards in place to ensure that this doesn't ever happen again. The likely culprit was a 75 acre hemp farm that planted 38 million seeds about 20 minutes north of Corvallis (4 miles from our R&D greenhouses). We lost 15 million feminized seeds due to contamination from this a-hole in our light del greenhouses--enough seed to plant 13,000 acres of ultra high CBD cannabis next season. The irony is that he failed his state THC test because his seed was actually THC rich and NOT industrial hemp (low cannabinoid content, but definitely THC dominant).

Can you shoot me an email ([email protected]) or a PM with more detailed information about your location? I'm trying to map / gather evidence to present to the legislature.

For the record: we only grow female plants in our fields and do so for CBD production. Most hemp farmers in Oregon do this as well, but there are some absolute idiots out there who have no idea what they are doing or what the possible ramifications of their actions are.

The accepted science on this issue says that 3.5 miles if enough distance to prevent cross-pollination. The problem is that this number is derived from Canadian "foundation" hemp seed production, which only requires that seed be 95% varietally pure. When you are growing a field that is 50/50 male/female, your males (which are literally right next to your females in densely planted plots) are infinitely more likely to pollinate your crop than a neighbor who is growing 3.5 miles away. Keeping a crop from being pollinated is an entirely different situation altogether.

I will be recommending 10 mile exclusion zones around hemp farms who want to grow for grain. This may increase if we can collect evidence demonstrating longer travel distances on pollen.

 

[Corverde]

Thanks for the reply, Socioecologist.

I am north of Corvallis (Lewisburg area) and will send you a message via email with my address. I will also contact the store that I got the hint from (Samurai Grower Supply on Circle Blvd) and give them a heads up so they can let other folks know.

I have a mixed reaction: glad it wasn't something that I did to screw up the plants, but bummed I won't be able to use the seeds for next years grow.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

The irony is that he failed his state THC test because his seed was actually THC rich and NOT industrial hemp (low cannabinoid content, but definitely THC dominant).

So does that mean that the perpetrator in the pollen case is sitting on 75 acres of over 0.3% THC flower? Even if its weak stuff, thats hundreds of pounds of THC, but if he accidentally grew 75 acres of White Widow it'd be tons!
Whats the penalty for going over the THC limit by accident as a hemp farmer? Do you just not get to sell your crop or do they make you destroy it?

 

[socioecologist]

Super low cannabinoid content overall (less than 1%), but a 6:1 THC to CBD ratio (so THC dominant). There's definitely a couple kilos of pure THC in his field if you want to run thousands of pounds through an extraction system, but not really worth it (like ditch weed extraction really).

In Oregon, you are turned over to the cops if over 1% THC otherwise you have the opportunity to "remediate" your crop. If you go over 0.3%, you have bad seed and poor information.