by HempingtonPost | Jan 22, 2021
Editor’s Note – After reading these incredibly stringent new laws and guidelines for the HEMP CBD industry, (below) when the Hemp CBD Industry already seems highly competitive and overpopulated. It begs the question, since we can’t smoke this…how much THC is in Hemp FIber that matters to anyone?
Example: Why would one need to test for THC in Hemp Fiber, if one were producing Hemp for paper or plastic or housing, shoe, cloths, or a thousand other industrial uses?
QUESTION: How do these New Hemp Regulations apply to Hemp FIber… Why are our farmers NOT focusing on the hemp industrial industry creating the powerful flow of the real gold in this almighty Hemp plant?
Why play by these rules in an overindudated market when the real industry is Hemp Industrial?
So many questions regarding the crazy directions the hemp industry is taking… Does anyone have real answers? Darlene Mea – CEO/Founder HempingtonPost
Notable Provisions From the USDA Final Rule for the U.S. Domestic Hemp Production Program
By Michelle Bodian
Jan 19, 2021
Last week, the USDA announced the first federal final agency regulation governing hemp production. The final rule is now available for viewing in the Federal Register and will become effective on March 22, 2021.
The industry may be disappointed with some problematic provisions that remained from the Interim Final Rule (IFR); however, with any new industry emerging from decades-long prohibition, change happens slowly. The final rule does contain many improvements from the IFR.
While it will take time to digest the content and fully appreciate the implications, we want to highlight a few notable provisions.
Notable Provisions from the USDA Final Rule
DEA Registration for Testing Laboratories Required for All Labs Testing Hemp (Even Unofficial Samples Throughout the Growing Season)
- This requirement remains in the final rule
- Given the limited number of DEA-registered labs currently, enforcement of this requirement will continue to be delayed until December 31, 2022
- AMS acknowledged it received comments in opposition to this requirement, but it retains the requirement that any lab testing hemp for regulatory compliance purposes must be registered with the DEA to conduct chemical analysis of controlled substances per 21 CFR 1301.13
- DEA registration also applies to any lab testing hemp throughout the growing season to informally monitor THC concentration
- AMS justifies this requirement by saying: “Registration is necessary because laboratories could potentially handle cannabis that tests above 0.3 percent THC on a dry weight basis, which is, by definition, marijuana and a Schedule 1 controlled substance”
Laboratory Accreditation Not Required
- AMS will not provide an AMS administered lab approval program or require ISO 17025 accreditation
Testing for Total THC Required
- AMS will retain the requirement test for “total” THC instead of only “delta-9” THC
Harvest Window Expanded
- AMS is expanding the post-sampling hemp harvest window from 15 days to 30 days
Performance-based Sampling Permitted
- USDA will allow States and Indian Tribes to consider performance-based alternatives when developing sampling plans
Where to Take Samples from the Plant
- AMS retains the requirement that pre-harvest samples be taken from the flower material of hemp plants
- The final rule clarifies the number of inches of plant material needed for the sample and provides greater detail as to where exactly on the plant to make a cutting
Designated Sampling Agents
- AMS is retaining the requirement that only designated agents can collect samples
- A Federal, State, Local, or Tribal law enforcement agency or other Federal, State, or Tribal designated person may collect hemp samples to test THC levels in hemp
Disposal of Non-compliant Plants Still Required, but With More Flexible Options
- The disposal requirements remain the same, but “disposal” is clarified and remediation is an option to remove non-compliant plants
- Some of these new options for disposal include, but are not limited to, plowing under, composting into “green manure” for use on the same land, tilling, disking, burial, or burning
- Remediation can occur by removing and destroying flower material while retaining stalk, stems, leaf material, and seeds, or by shredding the entire plant into a biomass-like material, then re-testing the shredded biomass material for compliance
Negligence Standard Increased to 1%
- The negligence threshold increased from 0.5 to 1.0 percent THC
- The rule clarifies how States and Indian Tribes determine when to suspend or revoke a producer’s license
- Find more information on this article at [email protected]
Are crazy rules and guidelines for hemp fiber – do they even apply?
by Bruce Ryan | May 7, 2020
North America is experiencing a Renaissance in the cannabis sector. Outlawed for 90 years, the crop continued to flourish in other parts of the world but was relegated to the underground in North America. In Canada, lobbying in the early 90’s achieved legalization of “industrial hemp” in 1998: low THC cannabis bred for seed and stalk production.
The new industry began to develop and a few promoters were very active in 1999 thru 2001 encouraging farmers to grow hemp. Promises of contracts from industrial consumers did not materialize and agreements to purchase the crop were not honoured. Industrial hemp market collapsed in 2002 – acreage dropped from 30,000 acres to 3,000. Today the acreage has increased: something over 140,000 acres last year.
Compare that to growing 38 million acres of Canola.Something similar is happening the the U.S. over the past few years. Promoters are using CBD as the modern day gold rush: promises of large returns have encouraged a massive increase in acreage planted. Last year crested 500,000 acres with 20,000 licenses issued across the country. The industry does not have enough harvesting & drying equipment in place. Worse, the CBD sector does not have enough processing and extraction equipment in place. A number of farmers report that contracts are not being honoured and the promoters are not covering expenses as agreed. Prices being offered have plunged dramatically and some projections indicate that market saturation has been reached. In other words, the hype does not live up to reality.
Something else is needed: good, old-fashioned business development without the wild wild west nonsense.Industrial Hemp is AgricultureEven with legalization of cannabis for medical and social uses across Canada in 2018, the industrial hemp sector has not expanded sufficiently to meet demand. Although many of the restrictive regulations were revised, industrial hemp is not treated like typical agricultural crops. Permits are required and farmers are limited to fiftytwo approved cultivars. Vital core technology in the sector continues to inhibit the hemp market.
Improved harvesting and handling equipment is needed. Large scale processing systems are required. Supply chain development is essential. In order to fill large scale industrial contracts for fibre or core, we MUST have all the ducks in a row. The full range: from hemp farm acreage to the factory floor with reliable, consistent production to manufacture the vast array of products made with industrial cannabis.Industrial consumers require a supply chain that simply delivers the tonnage to the loading dock – every week, on time, without delay.
by Paul J. von Hartmann | Apr 22, 2020
Cannabis has finally been recognized as ‘essential’. Growing Cannabis, regardless of THC content, must be encouraged now. Raising THC limits on industrial hemp, federally recognized “strategic resource” is this nation’s first priority. Cannabis stalk processing infrastructure has to be financed with some of the money allocated to the COVID bail-out.
This must happen immediately, before the hemp seed hits the ground. Spring planting season 2020 finds the world writhing in the grip of a global pandemic, in my opinion, caused by terpene deficiencies in Earth’s atmosphere, compared with concentrations of aerosol terpenes seventy years ago. It did not have to go this way. It is truly shameful how far my generation has allowed blatant attacks on democracy & the Rule of Law to advance. Our children will suffer the worst of what we’ve created, unless we act now.The ‘good news’ is, there is something we can do about the systemic dysfunction that afflicts our collective, extinctionistic trajectory: We must demand that government eliminate the THC limits on industrial hemp.
There is nothing about THC that is more dangerous than UV-B radiation. There is nothing more dangerous about THC than there is about COVID virus and other biopathogens circulating throughout Earth’s hydrologic cycle. If THC levels are eliminated in time, America could recover social balance in time to eject a traitorous, pseudo-president from office.Extremes of death, illness despair and sadness swirl around the planet. Fear is as epidemic a the virus itself. People are vibrating at fevered pitch, audible in the quivering voices of news anchors, forced to recite escalating casualty figures & dire warnings, day in & day out.
The FACT that Cannabis produces sustainable biofuels AND complete nutrition, FROM THE SAME HARVEST, ought to ring a bell for anyone who understands the need to grow energy without inducing food insecurity & malnutrition. Cannabis is unique in that. And essential. Funny that, in the midst of a pandemic, marijuana dispensaries have been deemed “essential” businesses here in Oregon. I’ve been writing it for so long, I’d given up hoping that anyone would ever recognize the truth In it. There’s much more to it though. When people realize the fuel potential in Cannabis, by investing in hemp as a biofuels feedstock for making cellulosic hydrogen, electricity & supercapacitors, fossil fuels stocks will plummet over-night.
That’s why there’s so much intentional dysfunction. The longer people are distracted by cognitive dissonance, the more fossil fuels we consume. As soon as we recognize the true essential value of Cannabis, we can begin to evolve toward agricultural abundance supplying Gaiatherapeutic industry. Cannabis agriculture connects the healing of Earth’s atmosphere to our energy consumption. Energy production is the driving force of human economics, but it doesn’t have to be harmful to the Natural Order.
If we make energy from an organic, non-GMO plant, that heals Earth’s atmosphere, water & soil, then consumption becomes healthy for people, animals, and the Earth itself. People have to decide whether they are more worried about THC or global extinction. Those are the choices. Unless we plant hemp everywhere we can this Spring, to produce fuel, food, fiber, & herbal therapeutics, then the chaos that ensues will, at some point, become irreversible, if it is not already. We have to assume it’s not too late to recover balance, in full understanding that time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival.
Our window of opportunity is closing at an accelerating rate. Cannabis agriculture is mankind’s functional interface with the Earth’s Natural Order. The sooner we recognize that, the better our children’s chances will be for a livable future.
by HempingtonPost | Feb 24, 2020
Attention Hemp Farmers in Southern Nevada
700,000 young female plants of; 1ft tall 500,000 plants for $0.50 each, 250,000 plants 1.5ft tall for $0.75 each.
Other varieties and strains started are Cherry Wine and Bouquets (March 15th ish these will be 1ft tall).
Prices determine by volume of purchase order and time frame
If you already are farming Hemp here is southern Nevada, you may need seedlings, small, medium or large plants and, if you have the timeline, you need seeds.
Vegas Gardens has been cultivating organically grown hemp over the past few years. They are a licensed regulated Hemp farm offering, at below market prices, beautiful 13.2% CBD female cloned crop to jump start your planting. These are available in all sizes and they will give you a rotating product that you can resell or continue to regrow for end use. They only sell to licensed dealers or licensed farms in Nevada. The clones are organic and are certified.
Vegas Garden clones range in size from 8” to 3 ft tall. They have been greenhouse grown and expect to be a healthy crop that is usable as oil or other marketable products for your end use.
We also offer seeds, which we sell by the pound at $1.00 per seed!
Shipping costs at buyer’s expense. Prices vary and start at $.50 per plant to $1.25 Become our agent or buy our clones inquire at [email protected]
minimum orders of 2,700 clones.
Email us at [email protected]
by HempingtonPost | Feb 19, 2020
Bees are major fans of hemp and a recent study has found that the taller the hemp plants are the larger the number of bees that will flock to it.
The new research, spearheaded by researchers at Cornell University and published last month in Environmental Entomology, shows that humans aren’t the only fans of weed. The findings also reinforce a study published last year at Colorado State University that discovered the same thing.
The study shows how bees are highly attracted to cannabis due to the plant’s plentiful stores of pollen, and it could pave the way for scientists to figure out new ways to support their struggling population as well as floral populations.
According to the study, the greater the area covered by the hemp plant the greater the chance that bees will swarm to the area. Additionally, those hemp plants that are taller have a much greater likelihood of attracting bees with the tallest plants attracting a stunning 17 times more bees than the shortest plants.
The study also found that as time went on greater amounts of bees visited the hemp plots on a more frequent basis. It sounds almost like the word-of-mouth effect among humans who hear about great deals at a dispensary, no?
The researchers also discovered that hemp, a major cash crop with multiple applications, can support no less than 16 different varieties of bees in the northeastern United States.
The findings may seem strange considering that cannabis doesn’t produce the sweet, sugary nectar that your typical floral varieties produce to attract insects. Nor does hemp flower come in the dazzling array of bright colors that likewise attract bugs. However, the pollen produced by male flowers is highly attractive to the 16 bee subspecies in the study for reasons that remain unknown.
Female flowers—the kind that humans like to smoke for its intoxicating and soothing effects—are basically ignored by bees since they don’t produce any acutal flowers.
The study’s author’s wrote:
What makes the findings so compelling is the crucial impact it could have on suffering bee populations across the United States.
Bee are perhaps one of the most important managed pollinators in U.S. agriculture. Spreading the male sex cells of flowers to their female counterparts in a natural process that is highly crucial to plant reproduction.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, pollinators are worth anywhere from $235 and $577 billion worldwide owing to their pivotal role in the production of global crops. In the U.S. alone this means that bees are responsible for $20 billion of domestic crop production. Without bees we can kiss almonds, blueberries, watermelon, and other crops goodbye.
The authors of the study made clear that the combination of bees plus hemp won’t mean that folks should worry about cannabinoid-rich pollen sneaking it into their diets nor will the bees start producing honey enriched with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—as nice as that sounds.
Likewise, the presence of cannabinoids like THC in hemp pollen is “not likely to have an impact on bee development due to the loss of cannabinoid receptors in insects.”
So while we often like to focus on the recreational or medicinal use of marijuana—in its edible, smokeable, and vape-able forms—this new research shows that the plant can in fact help nature and agriculture in amazingly important ways.
This story originally appeared on The Mind Unleashed.
by HempingtonPost | Jan 22, 2020
Arizona’s budding hemp-growing industry is suffering growing pains as levels of THC that are too high force some farmers to destroy crops instead of harvesting them.
About 41% of the Arizona hemp plants tested for THC, the compound that gives marijuana its high, have failed, according to the Arizona Department of Agriculture’s Plant Services Division, which oversees the program.
Growers in other states around the country have had issues managing the THC content of hemp plants, with crops in Hawaii and Nebraska also testing too high, but not as much as in Arizona’s early months, the Arizona Republic reported.
Arizona began issuing hemp-growing licenses to farmers in 2019 and harvesting started later that year.
When lawmakers considered legalizing hemp growing, supporters predicted that the plant use to create CBD oil, rope and other products would an economic boon.
But growers face a challenge in managing crops because the hemp must be destroyed, not harvested, if the THC level is too high.
“At 40%, that’s off the charts,” Sully Sullivan, executive director of the Hemp Industry Trade Association of Arizona, said of the state’s THC findings. “I’m taken aback by that. That’s substantial.”
A Plant Services Division official official had a milder assessment.
“The failure rate is not unexpected based on anecdotal information from around the country regarding variable seed quality and genetic expression, for THC content, between the varieties planted,” Associate Director John Caravetta said in an email.
Arizona farmers began having the agriculture department test their hemp plants’s for THC levels before harvesting started in late 2019.
Dustin Shill, head farmer for Arizona Hemp Supply Co. which has 40 acres (16 hectares) in Yuma, said although his plants haven’t yet been tested by the department, he’s paid for weekly independent testing. His last batch of 10 tests cost $12,000.
“It’s a high-risk deal,” Shill said. “Right now, it’s just a shot in the dark really. It’s crazy.”
Not spending the money to test is too risky, he said, even though testing costs reduces profits.
“But if you don’t spend that money and go into it blind, you’re just rolling the dice. You got to know when to harvest,” Shill said.
“The THC and CBD go hand-in-hand,” he said. “When it’s going up, THC is going up, so it’s a fine line to determine when it’s ready.”
Ryan Treacy, founder and CEO of an Arizona lab that tests cannabis and hemp, said several factors may contribute to failed tests.
Treacy said that just because a seed for a plant worked in another part of the country does not mean it will adapt well to Arizona’s hot and dry climate.
“Stressed plants do crazy things,” he said, adding that the new environment may contribute to a plant having a higher THC level.
The state’s testing process could be another factor.
Despite the early issues, Shill said he is confident Arizona eventually will be one of the best places to grow hemp in the country.
“Arizona is going to dominate this,” Shill said. “It’s just once we get it all figured out.”
This story first appeared at 420 Intel
