leehemp.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cI had not grown cannabis before, so it was experimental, a last-minute decision,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just acquired some seed and went for it. It went pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season, Lee is planting at least 7 acres of hemp, and he plans to buy plants from Clutch Hemp Co. The Durango company is poised to be one of the first vertically integrated CBD hemp companies on the Western Slope. They currently sell their clones (plants with identical genetic makeup) and offer consulting services. In the fall, they will offer harvesting, drying and extracting services to farmers.<\/p>\n
The services are useful for farmers who, like Lee, are grow hemp on a larger scale but don\u2019t have the equipment or know-how.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to network in the community,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI see there being a great need for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clutch Hemp CEO Patrick Cain, who quit his job as an ER doctor at Mercy Regional Medical Center two weeks ago, and COO Stefano Creatini founded Clutch last year. The two met because they both raise mangalitsa pigs in Durango. Cain has been involved in the agriculture business for the past decade and began experimenting with hemp three years ago when he moved to Durango.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe original idea was to just grow \u2013 just be farmers this year,\u201d Cain said. \u201cBut once we realized where the industry was and that there were a lot of inefficiencies \u2026 we decided to start our own company and do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are only around five modified combines in Colorado that are used for hemp. Clutch purchased one from Germany, The Claas, which Lee plans on utilizing in the fall for his larger crop.<\/p>\n
After hemp is harvested, it needs to be dried quickly to maintain quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe management of the oil is very critical because if you lose just 1% or 2% (of the CBD), that is hundreds of thousands of dollars,\u201d Cain said.<\/p>\n
Currently, hemp farmers dry in the field or ship the biomass (the bud and leaves that contain CBD) to Denver or Colorado Springs to dry.<\/p>\n
Clutch\u2019s dryer operates at a low temperature so none of the CBD evaporates. It has the ability to dry 6,000 pounds of hemp per hour, burning about 200 gallons of propane in that time. Most hay farmers don\u2019t have the funds to invest in the massive driers or large combines.<\/p>\n
Beyond farming, Lee said extraction businesses were set up for marijuana, not hemp. The facilities are not geared toward the scale of hemp, which appeals to a much broader market.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know all sorts of conservative Christians who are using it,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
The bottleneck issue has resulted in price gouging. The price of extraction for a pound of hemp is around $35 or more.<\/p>\n
Lack of regulations has led to dishonest extractors or people selling snake oil products. The only regulation is the FDA\u2019s Good Manufacturing Practices that apply to anything that goes into a supplement or food.<\/p>\n
The only other stipulation is hemp plants have to be under .3 percent THC under the Department of Agriculture\u2019s definition. But as far as standards set on the hemp itself, there are none.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuality all starts to form in the clones,\u201d Creatini said.<\/p>\n
The plant\u2019s quality is measured by its percentage of CBD. When measured at the highest concentrated area of the plant, the industry average is around 10% to 12%. Clutch\u2019s greenhouse plants push 19% and their outdoor plants are around 15% to 16%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to develop this region as a premium product, like Napa wine country,\u201d Cain said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to make this part of Colorado be the best place for CBD.\u201d<\/p>\n
To do so, they want to keep hemp farming in the area CBD hemp only. If a hemp oil crop was planted near a CBD crop, they could cross-pollinate and this could drastically decrease the quality of the CBD plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are really working collaboratively to get as many farmers as possible to expand as much as possible because we do see this as a way to rejuvenate the agricultural lands in the region,\u201d Cain said. \u201cWe understand there is a bubble aspect to it. The prices are not going to be this great forever, but even if the prices are this nice for two or three years, it allows farmers to reinvest in their fields.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Durango company says it can show you how to make sky-high profits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[281,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94485","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=94485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94485"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}