This crop is not the benign introduced species it’s cracked up to be and stray pollen from the hemp industry can wreak havoc on growers of therapeutic and “recreational” cannabis. Medicine and a potential revenue source are being put at risk by an experiment that makes Jerusalem artichokes and Belgian endive look like safe investments.
Alex White Plume of the Oglala Lakota Nation in occupied South Dakota planted his grow/op on May 30 and on August 1st he tested the THC level to be sure his crop conforms to tribal code. He said the original law was 1% but the "lawyers got a hold of it and rather than act sovereign they went .3%." His clones are bred to be high in CBD. In a Faceberg post White Plume told journalist, Tim Giago that growers are governed by heavy-handed policy from the federal government and the tribal councils so there is little will to deviate from the rules. White Plume has since harvested and sold his crop to a Colorado processor.
Before planting just one and a half acres Minnesota grower Phil Reed hired Luis "Lulu Magoo" Hummel as a consultant whose own crop tested above the .3% THC threshold which led to criminal charges so attorney's fees keep the industry a gamble.
Hemp is a "challenging grow" that's not for everybody, said Reed. According to Margaret Wiatrowski, program coordinator for the Industrial Hemp Program with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, there were 580 hemp licenses issued this year. That number includes both hemp growers and processors. An MDA inspector must sample each hemp lot produced in Minnesota, and the lots are sampled within 30 days of harvest, said Wiatrowski. Wiatrowski said over 700 samples had been collected by MDA inspectors this year, and estimated between 5-10% of the samples had failed THC threshold testing. In 2019 there was a 12% failure rate of the THC tests, she said. After being charged in Fillmore County, Hummel felt that state officials had forced him to destroy his crop without due process or clear rules in the industry.
Photo: top bud from a plant of an OJ Kush strain.
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Up in smoke: industrial cannabis is a hobby crop for the rich. Some of Iowa's first legal hemp crops set on fire because THC exceeds federal limits
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