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How to Pick Quality Hemp Genetics

How to Pick Quality Hemp Genetics

With an exploding market and a high demand for hemp genetics, how can you tell if your genetics are high quality?

For the past 90 years, the only hemp that grew in the United States other than hemp grown in scientific studies for research purposes was feral. That is, it grew in the wild, mostly untouched by man. Now that industrial hemp has been legalized and a new market is quickly emerging, a lot of farmers are trying to transition from traditional row crops into mass-hemp production.

With very few means to process hemp fibers, husks and other materials that will be useful in the future, the main appeal for those entering the hemp industry is CBD. Cannabidiol (CBD) has become a craze in the US, with hundreds if not thousands of new CBD companies and products.

But where are all these people getting their hemp seeds from, and as a grower, how can you know if the seeds you get are quality?

Hemp Genetics Stability

Stable genetics are genetics that are uniform. This is essential for hemp farmers who are growing on a large scale. Having stable genetics give the grower confidence knowing that every seed they plant, will grow to look exactly the same, with same characteristics as the plant next to it.

On a large scale, this makes processing and managing your hemp much easier. Compare this to unstable genetics that would vary in size, structure, and potentially have other growth issues. Stable genetics makes the whole grow uniform, and therefore easier to manage.

You can tell the stability of your genetics relatively quickly, as you’ll notice differences in growth and structure as the plants vegetate. Stable genetics will grow to look the same, at the same time.

High-CBD Hemp Genetics

Like it or not, CBD is the name of the game in legal hemp right now. Until the market grows a desire for the countless other commodities created via hemp, CBD is the most accessible and sellable hemp product on the market currently. But when it comes to high-CBD hemp genetics, they are few and far between.

Cannabis has been genetically modified by humans for hundreds of years, with the most vigorous and highest yielding plants being crossed with each other to produce the high-THC strains we have today. Up until December 2018, hemp hasn’t had the same luxury. It has mainly grown feral around the world, with a main focus on extracting its materials in Europe.

But now that hemp is legal in the States, and everybody is looking for high-CBD hemp, cannabis breeders are making the transition to hemp. By taking traditionally low-THC cannabis strains, and breeding them over time with high-CBD feral hemp strains, the THC can be bred out, and the CBD bred up.

The end result is hemp that looks, smells and even tastes like cannabis, with .3% THC or less, and CBD content surpassing 12-15%. It’s important to do your due diligence in researching your hemp seed supplier to ensure they have quality, high-CBD genetics, and not some mid-grade hemp seed they pulled off some males growing the back yard.

You Won’t Know Til You Grow

The reality is you can buy the most expensive hemp seeds from one of the most renowned breeders and still not get quality results. Sellers with a reputation won’t always have the best stock available, and the only way to truly know whether or not you have quality genetics is to grow it through flower and test it.

Even if your genetics aren’t the most stable, and you have varying sizes and structures in your plants, they can still produce high-CBD hemp flower that can be processed. But the only way to test your CBD content is to wait until your plants are roughly 35 days into their flower cycle. This is when you can begin to test for CBD content effectively.

It is important to trust your hemp seed supplier, but even if they are a pro, they can still produce seeds that won’t perform as well as others. Just like cannabis, growing quality hemp is a process of testing, trial and error. Until you’ve been through a couple hemp harvests, you probably won’t truly know what to look for in your genetics.

That’s why it is important to study up with articles like this and others that help guide you through the growing process, and how to judge your own hemp genetics for quality.

Everything You Need to Know About Growing Alabama Hemp (Pt. 1)

Everything You Need to Know About Growing Alabama Hemp (Pt. 1)

Wow. Finally by the grace of God, hemp is finally legal. In Alabama, this is an exciting time and opportunity for many people.

With the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp is now considered a legitimate farm crop in the US. The problem is that hardly anyone knows how to grow hemp, and the people that have been growing hemp have only grown limited amounts, in limited environments.

Now Alabama and a number of other southern states have “legalized it.” But what does that mean?

What is hemp?

Hemp is considered any cannabis plant that has less than .3% THC. This is the only thing that defines what makes hemp legal in the US. With the new Farm Bill of 2018 comes the ability for farmers and states that have regulated the production of hemp to legally farm it.

Even though it’s called industrial hemp, there is very little industrial use of hemp today.

Out of hemp you can make everything from paper to plastics, cement to chipboard. We are on the cutting edge of this technology and we have yet to see industry spring up around it. In the future we will see the above and more utilized for industrial hemp. But until then farmers will have to settle on growing hemp for CBD extraction and potentially seed for food.

Growing hemp for grain can be lucrative. The seeds are inexpensive, however you have to be mechanically geared for the scale of this type of production. Think hundreds or thousands of acres.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is the most lucrative side of industrial hemp today. It is a medicinal component of the cannabis plant that doesn’t share any psychoactive affects with its relative, THC. CBD is used in everything from skin creams to anti-seizure medications. It truly is a wondrous natural supplement.

As of today, CBD is the only way that you’ll be able to be cash positive from any hemp farming activity. If you’re lucky enough to have applied and received an Alabama Hemp License to grow hemp, then it’s time to get started.

The Plant

CBD hemp has many growth patterns and harvest times. It can be planted from June to August in most of the US. Alabama hemp is no different.

Unlike its cousin (i.e. ganja, marijuana, herb), Alabama hemp is grown on a considerably larger scale, with very different techniques.

The first thing you need decide before starting in Alabama hemp, is whether you want to grow from clones or seeds. High-CBD hemp seeds are available for approximately one dollar a seed on the current marketplace. These are feminized seeds that only produce female plants (or at least 90% or female plants).

That’s right. You still can have some percent of males show up, but that’s a little more complex science than we want to get into now. Basically, if you buy 10,000 feminized seeds you’re mostly going to get female plants. Don’t worry if you get a little seed in your hemp either.

You can just as easily purchase traditional seeds that will randomly be male and females. On a small scale of 5 to 10 acres this could be an excellent choice. It is easy enough to cut down all the males as they show their sex, leaving only the females in your field.

However if you do this you have to plant at twice the density in order to compensate for losing half of your plants.

Clones are by far the best way to have consistent yields and performance.

In part 2 of this guide, we’ll go over tips for planting properly, keeping your Alabama hemp plants healthy and maintaining your fields.

You can also hear from somebody who’s breaking into the Alabama hemp industry right now, Brett Terry, on The Real Dirt Podcast.