Iowa farmer goes big with first-year hemp acres
Collected
Greg Nicholas laughs at the image he suspects most people have of a hemp farmer. He doesn’t wear tie-died shirts or headbands. He doesn’t sport a beard. There is absolutely no Grateful Dead playing in the backdrop.
“I’ve never even smoked a cigarette,” he said.
But here he's, surrounded by bags of professional hemp.
Nicholas is the main small fraternity of farmers nationwide who are learning how exactly to grow and market commercial hemp. It is a new group. In Iowa, 2020 was the first year it had been possible to grow hemp legally and there are several rules regarding its production.
A number of the new hemp producers, like Nicholas, want to sell for the CBD oil market. Others want to sell for the fiber market. Robin Pruisner, who heads the hemp program at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, said almost all of the acres in Iowa were grown for the cannabidiol market (CBD) and little of the fiber crop made it to advertise. Most growers planted only 1 1 to 3 acres.
Nicholas took a slightly different approach. He and his cousin grow corn and soybeans on their north central Iowa farm. He wished to reduce labor and mechanize as much as possible, so he planted 15 acres of hemp and used mechanical planting and harvesting machinery. That set him apart in the market in Iowa, Pruisner said.
But he said it had been still the first year and it had been definitely a learning process.
One thing he learned was that Iowa soils grow tall hemp plants. He said he was told that a lot of hemp plants are waist-high to chest-high at maturation. Harvesting equipment used assumes that size plant. However the hemp plants on his farm were as much as 7 feet high by maturation, creating some harvesting issues.
One more thing he learned was that weed control was difficult and expensive.
“Weeding was a struggle,” he said. “We were in the field each day, 7 days per week, from planting on June 2 until harvest in September.”
And then there is the task with the planter. Nicholas had ordered parts for a planter from Italy. That was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Italy was among the first places to be hit hard. The parts were delayed, delayed again, and delayed again. He finally got parts locally and caused a local equipment dealer to manage the planter only days prior to the seed went in the ground.
Drying was another adventure, nonetheless it was one Nicholas had anticipated. Many small producers dried the hemp yourself, hanging it just as tobacco growers would hang tobacco to dry in a building. Nicholas tried that with a little bit of his crop, but he knew that could not work for 15 acres worth of hemp. So he worked with the Shivvers company to build a tiny bin with a specialized grain drying system. That system was the first of its kind ever made and worked perfectly, Nicholas said.
And there have been the unforeseen issues linked to the unusual nature of the brand new crop, including the time a guy was spotted in his field, apparently trying to look at whether it was marijuana. Nicholas said he told the man he would not press charges so long as the individual never returned and told his friends this wasn’t a field of smokeable marijuana.
That’s no problem Nicholas ever had along with his corn or soybean crops.
Through everything, Nicholas said he learned a whole lot in regards to a crop that was brand new to him and almost every other grower in the state. But he said the largest keys are in the planning and marketing of the crop.
Having a contract is important. It is easy to invest a major chunk of profit the crop and have no buyer towards the end of the year.
Another lesson is that the rules are very specific and incredibly strict. The plant can haven't any a lot more than 0.3% THC. When the crop is ready to harvest, the grower must contact the state and the state takes samples. If the THC level is too much, the farmer has to plow the crop under. If the levels are OK the farmer has specifically 15 days to harvest the crop.
All of this is important for the reason that cost of production per acre is fairly high. This is simply not a crop the farmer plants and walks away from. It takes a lot of management.
The good news is that the potential will there be for a tiny number of farmers to have a profitable business.
“I’ve never even smoked a cigarette,” he said.
But here he's, surrounded by bags of professional hemp.
Nicholas is the main small fraternity of farmers nationwide who are learning how exactly to grow and market commercial hemp. It is a new group. In Iowa, 2020 was the first year it had been possible to grow hemp legally and there are several rules regarding its production.
A number of the new hemp producers, like Nicholas, want to sell for the CBD oil market. Others want to sell for the fiber market. Robin Pruisner, who heads the hemp program at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, said almost all of the acres in Iowa were grown for the cannabidiol market (CBD) and little of the fiber crop made it to advertise. Most growers planted only 1 1 to 3 acres.
Nicholas took a slightly different approach. He and his cousin grow corn and soybeans on their north central Iowa farm. He wished to reduce labor and mechanize as much as possible, so he planted 15 acres of hemp and used mechanical planting and harvesting machinery. That set him apart in the market in Iowa, Pruisner said.
But he said it had been still the first year and it had been definitely a learning process.
One thing he learned was that Iowa soils grow tall hemp plants. He said he was told that a lot of hemp plants are waist-high to chest-high at maturation. Harvesting equipment used assumes that size plant. However the hemp plants on his farm were as much as 7 feet high by maturation, creating some harvesting issues.
One more thing he learned was that weed control was difficult and expensive.
“Weeding was a struggle,” he said. “We were in the field each day, 7 days per week, from planting on June 2 until harvest in September.”
And then there is the task with the planter. Nicholas had ordered parts for a planter from Italy. That was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Italy was among the first places to be hit hard. The parts were delayed, delayed again, and delayed again. He finally got parts locally and caused a local equipment dealer to manage the planter only days prior to the seed went in the ground.
Drying was another adventure, nonetheless it was one Nicholas had anticipated. Many small producers dried the hemp yourself, hanging it just as tobacco growers would hang tobacco to dry in a building. Nicholas tried that with a little bit of his crop, but he knew that could not work for 15 acres worth of hemp. So he worked with the Shivvers company to build a tiny bin with a specialized grain drying system. That system was the first of its kind ever made and worked perfectly, Nicholas said.
And there have been the unforeseen issues linked to the unusual nature of the brand new crop, including the time a guy was spotted in his field, apparently trying to look at whether it was marijuana. Nicholas said he told the man he would not press charges so long as the individual never returned and told his friends this wasn’t a field of smokeable marijuana.
That’s no problem Nicholas ever had along with his corn or soybean crops.
Through everything, Nicholas said he learned a whole lot in regards to a crop that was brand new to him and almost every other grower in the state. But he said the largest keys are in the planning and marketing of the crop.
Having a contract is important. It is easy to invest a major chunk of profit the crop and have no buyer towards the end of the year.
Another lesson is that the rules are very specific and incredibly strict. The plant can haven't any a lot more than 0.3% THC. When the crop is ready to harvest, the grower must contact the state and the state takes samples. If the THC level is too much, the farmer has to plow the crop under. If the levels are OK the farmer has specifically 15 days to harvest the crop.
All of this is important for the reason that cost of production per acre is fairly high. This is simply not a crop the farmer plants and walks away from. It takes a lot of management.
The good news is that the potential will there be for a tiny number of farmers to have a profitable business.
Source: https://nonpareilonline.com