Two Montezuma County farmers will be among some 100 across Colorado to grow close to 1,300 acres of industrial hemp this year.<\/p>\n
Last fall, Sharon Stewart organized Hemp Talks\/Western Slope to bring area farmers together with other industrial hemp activists. She shared the promising news with a handful of advocates Sunday at the group\u2019s monthly meeting.<\/p>\n
According to Stewart, a farmer near Mancos and another near Yellow Jacket both filed applications with state agriculture officials to grow research and development plots in 2014. The Mancos farm plans to test a one-acre site, and the Yellow Jacket farm plans a larger five-acre plot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a lot, but at least it\u2019s something in this area,\u201d said Stewart.<\/p>\n
After the legalization of industrial hemp in Colorado last year, the greatest hurdle for area farmers has been locating a seed source. Hemp remains classified as a controlled substance under federal law, but Chris Boucher, vice president of U.S. Hemp Oil in California, has provided local farmers with the seed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not only supplying the seed, but (Boucher) has also agreed to pay for the water at these two research plots,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n
Betsy Garrison with the Mt. Lookout Grange in Mancos said the organization has historical data that reveals industrial hemp was once a huge agricultural product locally. The 66-member Grange organization was re-formed last summer after years of dormancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe national Grange supports research and development for industrial hemp, but they are really concerned about the THC levels,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n
THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that is responsible for a user\u2019s buzz, is only found in low levels in industrial hemp strains. The state mandates the THC level in hemp be 0.3 percent of less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mancos, Yellow Jacket picked<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[281,188,13,135,60],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-120428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-agriculture","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-marijuana","tag-montezuma-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120428","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=120428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120428"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=120428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}