{"id":112027,"date":"2015-06-02T16:26:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T22:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hemp-goes-forward-in-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2015-06-02T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T22:26:10","slug":"hemp-goes-forward-in-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hemp-goes-forward-in-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Hemp goes forward in Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Industrial
Industrial hemp harvested in Mancos last year by Scott Perez.<\/span>The Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On a small research plot in Weber Canyon, three varieties of industrial hemp were planted on Monday, the first day of Hemp History Week.<\/p>\n

Scott Perez, a second-year industrial hemp farmer from Mancos, hopes his three-quarter acre agrarian experiment sprouts a robust agricultural transformation that benefits farmers across America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a headline this week that indicated the outlook for hemp was hazy,\u201d said Perez. \u201cThat\u2019s simply not true. Industrial hemp is on the verge of becoming an agricultural revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industrial hemp doesn\u2019t contain THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absurd,\u201d said Perez. \u201cYou could smoke a whole bale of this stuff, and all you\u2019re going to get is a headache and a cough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe grew hemp from the 16th century past World War II and all the way up to 1970,\u201d Perez said. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why we have to reinvent the wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing pains<\/p>\n

Congress declined to pass legislation that would have removed hemp from the federal list of banned substances or to reform laws that have hindered farmers\u2019 efforts to secure seed, yet Perez remains optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you believe in industrial hemp, then contact Congress and lobby,\u201d he said. \u201cWrite them a letter. Send an email. Call them. We have to push our politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legalized in Colorado last year for the first time in more than 50 years, industrial hemp still faces hurdles. U.S. officials, for example, have approved academic-based research efforts in states that have revised hemp laws, but Perez said Colorado State University agricultural officials have not provided seed stock for test plots like his. And some seed suppliers are charging more than $2,500 per pound, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeed is still definitely an issue,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n

Because hemp is included in the Controlled Substances Act, farmers face a loss of federal subsides, or worse, their farms, said Perez. He cautioned farmers not to \u201cjump in\u201d without \u201cjumping through\u201d protocols.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of farmers are waiting to see if I\u2019m going to get marched off in handcuffs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Seeds of change<\/p>\n

Perez planted a half-pound of seed that he received from a friend last year. He then saved a half-pound of seed harvested from his crop, and relied on the generosity of other farmers.<\/p>\n

This week, he planted three hemp varieties, sowing them between rows of sunflowers and corn to combat cross-pollination,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seed I got last year tested with a 10 percent viability and a 5 percent viability in the field,\u201d Perez said. \u201cThis year, it tested at 80 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez has relied on irrigation water, saying dry land puts his small supply of seeds at risk. Though hemp is drought-resistant, it requires about 12 inches of water during its 90- to 100-day growing season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to be able to make some money growing hemp, but this year, I just want to find a strain that will work in our climate,\u201d said Perez.<\/p>\n

Perez, 63, grew up in a Midwest farm community. After receiving a graduate degree in natural resources from Cornell University a few years ago, he settled in Mancos.<\/p>\n

\u201cHemp is really good for soil restoration,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I became interested from the conservancy end of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he found that hemp could be used to produce cannabidiol, or CBD, which has medical applications including treatment for epilepsy. His son suffered from seizures since age 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hemp crop this year is going to be used to make CBD oil,\u201d said Perez.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Colorado has licensed 2,637 acres for hemp production. Perez has partnered with a Steve Ottersberg, a former Fort Lewis College chemistry professor, to produce CBD oil. Launched this year, Ottersberg\u2019s Green Lab Solutions Co. in Durango is the only known industrial hemp production facility operating in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

tbaker@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

talks about seeds of change and growing pains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-112027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112027"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=112027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}