{"id":118988,"date":"2014-07-21T22:46:08","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T04:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hemp-struggles-in-county-test-plots-2\/"},"modified":"2014-07-21T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T04:46:08","slug":"hemp-struggles-in-county-test-plots-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hemp-struggles-in-county-test-plots-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hemp struggles in county test plots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Scott
Scott Perez of Mancos posted this photo, showing the progress of his hemp crop, on Facebook\u2019s Hemp Talks page on July 14.<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A week after the summer solstice, a Mancos farmer planted an acre of hemp, outlawed in Colorado until 2014. Under ideal conditions, an acre of industrial hemp could equal paper production from two to four acres of trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things we learn this year will help as we move forward,\u201d Scott Perez recently posted on Hemp Talks\/Western Slope. \u201cI believe that we can have a thriving local industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Hemp Talk\u2019s Facebook page, Perez offered the encouragement to his Pleasant View peer, Merle Root. She germinated hemp seeds inside an egg incubator, and planted a 50-by-30-foot plot in late June.<\/p>\n

\u201cHemp growing project here is not going too well,\u201d Root posted over the weekend.<\/p>\n

With 150 visible plants, some up to 8 inches tall, Root watered the crop twice a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have many more weeds than hemp,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to Perez, controlled tests revealed a 15-to-20 percent germination rate from the seeds he planted. In the field, rates were closer to 10 percent, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome is already getting tall, and some is just germinating,\u201d Perez posted.<\/p>\n

Perez and Root agreed that seeds should have been planted in May, when there was more moisture in the ground. They are the only Montezuma County farmers among more than 100 in Colorado that the state approved to grow research and development plots of industrial hemp this year.<\/p>\n

Perez indicated securing different varieties of industrial hemp seed would also be beneficial next year. He predicted it could take five years or more to find the best strain for the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of public support in this area for our work,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd finally, even though we don\u2019t have bumper crops, we have hemp growing where it hasn\u2019t grown for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Root intended to grow 10 acres of hemp this year on her 1,200-acre family farm. She was only able to secure a single pound of seed from a secondary source, due in part to seizures from U.S. Customs.<\/p>\n

Chris Boucher, a hemp seed importer based in San Diego, explained only sterile hemp seeds could be received under the nation\u2019s current tariff codes. He reported two 1,000-kilogram pallets of hemp seeds remained stuck in customs.<\/p>\n

In addition to seed issues, advocate James McVaney cautions that the verdict remains whether industrial hemp could be a viable product in Southwest Colorado, adding that alfalfa grown on irrigated land earned approximately $1,000 per acre.<\/p>\n

To compete, a certified and registered high yielding hemp cultivar capable of producing more than a ton of seed per acre would be required, McVaney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the inability and uncertainty in procuring seed, most of these farmer\u2019s fields turned into fields of dreams, or if they were lucky enough to find a few seeds \u2013 rows of hope,\u201d he posted on Hemp Talks.<\/p>\n

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

says it could take 5 years to find best strain; another battles with weeds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-118988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118988","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=118988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118988"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=118988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}