# Hemp - Hype or Help



## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)




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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Hemp would grow well in all the places that used to grow tobacco.


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## shawnlee (Apr 13, 2010)

Hemp is a good material, but dupont could not sell much rope with that pesky hemp stuff around.


I have some hemp goods from many years ago, the stuff is like iron material......some of the bags are 60 to 80 years old and like new still.


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## crehberg (Mar 16, 2008)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Hemp would grow well in all the places that used to grow tobacco.


It would definitely give a good option to those struggling in row crops right now...at least in theory. I hope it works out for the farmers....and for everyone else.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Industrial hemp has is the strongest natural fiber in the world and offers over 50,000 commercial, medical, and consumable uses, one of which is cannabidiol (CBD), the wildly popular cannabis compound taking the health, beauty, and wellness industries by storm.


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## Shine (Feb 19, 2011)

No wonder they made it illegal. God forbid that something that grows out of the ground would be so versatile...


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

I took my elderly aunt from out of state into a local greenhouse. Huge rows of the stuff towering over her. She asked me what those plants were and after I told her she acted like I'd brought her to a strip club.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

My prediction is many states will Foster hemp farms in the near future. I think many people take MJ for medical reasons like pain. They don't really want to get high but that is a side effect. Hemp will allow these people to get what they want. 

Another reason is some politicians will see this as a compromise that will keep them in office by playing both sides against the middle. Plus it is another cash crop. More taxes.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Michigan recently legalized pot. The Dept of Ag has set up regulations and tests for tainted pot. Michigan gets a tax, but spends more insuring it is safe than they get in taxes.
Their is a new promotion for anyone that wants to grow hemp for fiber or for seeds that make oil. Great expectations. But how much cloth does the US make? I doubt there will be much market for the fiber.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Seems like a gold rush mentality


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

HDRider said:


> Seems like a gold rush mentality


Isn't that how most laws really get passed anyway?


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## SLADE (Feb 20, 2004)

HDRider said:


> Seems like a gold rush mentality


We see it here. Every little farm wants to grow hemp. They have no one to process it and no market.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

*Hemp Growing Was Once Required By Law in the US*

"Going back to 1619 America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, VA. All farmers were ordered to grow Indian hemp seed. Mandatory cultivation laws were enacted in MA in 1631, in CT in 1632, and in the Chesapeake colonies in the 1700’s.

Cannabis hemp was even used as legal tender in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800’s. The reason for making it legal tender was to encourage farmers to grow more. You could then pay your taxes with cannabis hemp throughout America for over 200 years. If you did not grow hemp during periods of shortages, you could be jailed."

https://hubpages.com/education/Hemp-Growing-Was-Once-Required-By-Law


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## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

Hemp (not pot) still grows wild around here in a few places.
Smoke a pound and all you will get is a headache.

During WWII it was grown mostly for fiber (rope, canvas) for the war effort.
My grandparents talked about how hard it was to clear fields for grain after the war and the bottom dropped out of the market, reduced demand and synthetics were so much cheaper & stronger, the hemp market went right in the toilet.

It's a weed that reseeds itself, once it gets a hold on an area it simply chokes off light to the ground (think horse weeds) and goes like crazy.

It takes a LOT of processing to make it feed through rope making or canvas making machines, while fibers like cotton are easy to size and spin, and synthetics have a consistent, and MUCH longer fibers right out of the mixing vat.
Keep in mind that if it were cost effective, other less developed countries would be using it despite the irrational US ban on hemp.

The big push for hemp in the US is so people can grow high THC (pot) since without lab tests you can't tell the difference by looking.

I'm always amused to see some tourist stop along side the road and grab a few stray plants growing in a fence row thinking they just got 'Free Pot'...
First comes the battle, it doesn't come out of the ground easy,
Then comes trying to stuff the plant into some commuter car, which is like trying to shove a cat in a toilet,
And then the 'Get Away', they want to bug out as fast as possible, since they *Think* they are getting away with something...
Paranoid before smoking their 'Dope'! (They are the 'Dopes')

We are just happy the plant went before it seeded out and reproduced...
Mowing that crap is a pain, thick fibrous stalks makes it hard to cut down with anything that will reach under a fence (weed eater, sickle bar mower), it even makes a bush hog grunt when you hit a very big patch...

I don't want to see it get started again, farmers have been battling it since after WWII and it's a real pain to eradicate, it's just a noxious weed to us, ranks right up there with horse weeds.

It's also expensive to taxpayers,
The state police use helicopters ($5,000 an hour) to look for hemp/pot, and then send in ground patrols to pull & burn the stuff.
Not even the police can tell the difference between rope hemp and pot other than rope hemp isn't cultivated, it's not planted in rows with even spacing...
It all has to go when they find it, so it wastes a BUNCH of time & taxpayer money when they do the late summer/fall hunts.

I *Think* I got it all off my land, but I mow everything about 4 or 5 times during the growing season, but it's like any weed, given any opportunity it will be back in force...
If idiots deliberately grow it around is, all our work will be out the window as soon as birds pick up the seeds and fly over our land, hemp seeds pass right through birds without being digested...


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## Mish (Oct 15, 2015)

I've been hearing some good things about using hemp bedding for animals like chickens, especially if you compost the litter. 

Still a tad pricey for me to check it out myself, but once the price goes down I'm definitely planning to give it a shot.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

It would grow well in all the places that used to produce tons of tobacco.


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## homesteadforty (Dec 4, 2007)

SRSLADE said:


> We see it here. Every little farm wants to grow hemp. They have no one to process it and no market.


Must be a market somewhere... several farmers in my area each planted about 5 acres of the stuff. They paid $15,000 for permits.


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## farmrbrown (Jun 25, 2012)

homesteadforty said:


> Must be a market somewhere... several farmers in my area each planted about 5 acres of the stuff. They paid $15,000 for permits.



According to recent market prices, they'd only make about $300 an acre, which doesn't sound like a good investment.
https://newfrontierdata.com/hemp/am...s-price-per-acre-help-us-win-china-trade-war/

OTOH, if there was somehow a mix up with the seeds, they might get a better yield out of that 5 acres......


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

SRSLADE said:


> We see it here. Every little farm wants to grow hemp. They have no one to process it and no market.


https://www.hempinc.com/largest-industrial-hemp-processing-plant/
"Posted on 08/25/2015 by Staff to Blog
*Largest Industrial Hemp Processing Plant in America*
Hemp, Inc. purchased the largest natural fiber manufacturing and industrial hemp processing facility in North America in May of 2014 and relocated it to Spring Hope, North Carolina. This was no small undertaking. The original Temafa plant took 14 months to build with a crew of 20 to install it. The plant is the only one of its kind in the United States and will enable us to process raw hemp and kenaf from American farmers into two valuable base materials (fiber and core) that both yield hundreds of different products.

We are scheduled to complete the installation of the decortication plant in just under a year. That means it should be ready for testing by the last quarter of 2015. Initially, we will process kenaf (a legal cousin to cannabis), until industrial hemp becomes legal to grow in more states. There are already several surrounding states growing hemp for research and we predict they will be looking for somewhere to process their crops."

There have been some farmers around here growing Kenaf for a lot of years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenaf



> *Kenaf* [etymology: Persian],[2] _*Hibiscus cannabinus*_, is a plant in the family Malvaceae also called *Deccan hemp* and *Java jute*. _Hibiscus cannabinus_ is in the genus _Hibiscus_ and is native to southern Asia, though its exact origin is unknown. The name also applies to the fibre obtained from this plant. Kenaf is one of the allied fibres of jute and shows similar characteristics


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## SLADE (Feb 20, 2004)

homesteadforty said:


> Must be a market somewhere... several farmers in my area each planted about 5 acres of the stuff. They paid $15,000 for permits.


At 15,000 it does sound like there's a market. At least on the front end.


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## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

The trend today is hardwood flooring, not jute-backed carpeting. Where's any viable market that Dow and Union Carbide can't duplicate with plastics?

geo


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

SRSLADE said:


> At 15,000 it does sound like there's a market. At least on the front end.


Like emu


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Unless someone invests in portable processing machinery that can process the harvest on small acreage farms. the whole plant transportation costs eliminate the profit. It's like anything else, enough supply means more feed stock and lower costs for industry. 

Large acreage farmers that have figured out how to get three products from each harvest are the ones making money.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Darren said:


> Unless someone invests in portable processing machinery that can process the harvest on small acreage farms. the whole plant transportation costs eliminate the profit. It's like anything else, enough supply means more feed stock and lower costs for industry.
> 
> Large acreage farmers that have figured out how to get three products from each harvest are the ones making money.


Maybe, but it might resemble the way cotton gins used to exist in every community


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

More than half of hemp crops cultivated in Hawaii in the past year were unusable due to high THC levels, officials said.

The crops cultivated for the state's hemp industry tested above the federal limit for the chemical that causes people to become high, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Monday.

Eighteen crops were destroyed because of heightened tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. The state Department of Agriculture granted waivers to four crops that tested slightly above the limit, allowing the plants to be used as hemp.

A cannabis plant containing 0.3% or less THC is legally classified as hemp rather than marijuana. A plant needs about 1% THC or more to produce marijuana's mind-altering effects.


https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/p...mp-growers-crops-due-high-thc-levels#stream/0


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## Mish (Oct 15, 2015)

So (serious question here), what negative effect could having a high level of THC have on me having, oh, I don't know, a rope or a bag made out of hemp? Assuming I'm not desperate enough to light them up and attempt to smoke them?


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Mish said:


> So (serious question here), what negative effect could having a high level of THC have on me having, oh, I don't know, a rope or a bag made out of hemp? Assuming I'm not desperate enough to light them up and attempt to smoke them?


Who are you, or I, to question the wisdom of government laws and regulations?


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## SLADE (Feb 20, 2004)

Hemp is also used for CBD. I think that's where limiting the percentage of thc came from.
People wanted the medicinal benefits but not the buzz.


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## RibbyR (Mar 15, 2020)

Everyone is different. For me it's help. I like CBD oil for arthritis but I don’t like vaping it because of the taste. I was thinking of seeing if it can be mixed with flavored vape juice or just flavoring. I rub it on the sore joint but it isn’t as good as vaping. The stuff works.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

RibbyR said:


> Everyone is different. For me it's help. I like CBD oil for arthritis but I don’t like vaping it because of the taste. I was thinking of seeing if it can be mixed with flavored vape juice or just flavoring. I rub it on the sore joint but it isn’t as good as vaping. The stuff works.


Get the subliminal. My wife uses it that way and it works.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

mreynolds said:


> Get the *subliminal*. My wife uses it that way and it works.


What does that mean?


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## wdcutrsdaughter (Dec 9, 2012)

HDRider said:


> What does that mean?



guessing he meant - Sublingual. - taken under the tongue


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

wdcutrsdaughter said:


> guessing he meant - Sublingual. - taken under the tongue


Thanks. That makes sense. When I looked up CBD it listed 4 ways to use it, that being one


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

mreynolds said:


> Get the subliminal. My wife uses it that way and it works.


I use it as well. Charlotte's Web from Infinite CBD. It does help with pain or mood, I can't tell which and it doesn't really matter.


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## IMFoghorn (Jan 28, 2012)

A couple of years ago some folks came to our Cattlemen s meeting to make pitch for growing hemp here in the county. Putting pencil to paper it didn't take us long to figure out the haul bill to the processor would eat up all the profit in a good year.

JMO
Doug


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

wdcutrsdaughter said:


> guessing he meant - Sublingual. - taken under the tongue


Yes. My phone doesn't say what I what it to say often. Plus I don't double check every time.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

mreynolds said:


> Yes. My phone doesn't say what I what it to say often. Plus I don't double check every time.


*Want*


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

Clothing and sheets made from hemp are lovely. Soft, durable and easy to care for. I love ours. The price has been going down steadily as more is grown and more manufacturers are using this fabric.


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## Chris in Mich (May 13, 2002)

SRSLADE said:


> They have no one to process it and no market.





Bearfootfarm said:


> Hemp, Inc. purchased processing facility in North America in May of 2014 and relocated it to Spring Hope, North Carolina.





Darren said:


> Unless someone invests in portable processing machinery that can process the harvest on small acreage farms. the whole plant transportation costs eliminate the profit.


As a long time supporter of hemp, i have supported VOTE HEMP and their efforts to help promote its rightly position in agriculture and the marketplace -- including writing my state and fed reps. The above-quoted issues have been a primary concern and would like to see fields of it being grown/harvested/utilized from coast-to-coast.


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