Marijuana Business Magazine - Issue 09, Oct 2017

86 • Marijuana Business Magazine • October 2017 CARBON COPY pesticides and are grown outdoors. Sun- light and water are generally sufficient. But if you’re growing hemp for CBD, the crops are virtually identical – and should be nurtured in the same way, said Kyle Wagner, co-founder of Queen Bee Bliss, a Sherwood, Oregon- based hemp farm. Wagner, who relocated from Colorado to Oregon to start the business, studied and trained in Colorado to go into the recreational marijuana industry. But she soon determined she didn’t want to deal with all the regulatory complexities. So she opted to become a hemp farmer. Still, Wagner is also growing several medi- cal marijuana plants; she battled cancer twice and has an MMJ card. Given the similarity between marijuana and hemp grown for CBD,Wagner is frustrated by the misinformation that sur- rounds the latter. For example, it’s widely believed that all hemp plants are male and marijuana plants are female. But Wagner spends a lot of time pulling any male plants she finds out of her hemp crop so they can’t pollinate the females. When her hemp crop reaches its pre-flowering stage, Wagner examines each non-clone plant – not all seeds are feminized, so the ones grown from seed need to be sexed – to ensure there are no males lurking in the rows. If there are, she pulls and destroys them. “I stop, drop to my knees and look through a magnifying glass,” she said. “With marijuana, it’s possible to find far more feminized seeds than it is with hemp, and thus with hemp we have to sex out the males once they start the pre-flower phase. “If you wait too long to sex the plants, you can see the boys’ parts … with the naked eye,” she added. “But I like to get them the heck out of there long before that so there’s no chance that the pollen will disperse. Hence, the magnifying glass, which I would use on marijuana plants, too.” According to Wagner, both plants can be started from seeds or by cloning the mother plants. Germinating plants K yle Wagner offers a mirror image of a hemp farmer who opts to transition into marijuana. Wagner was for many years a Denver food and travel writer. Ear- lier this year, she pulled up stakes and trekked to Sherwood, Oregon, to co-found the hemp farm Queen Bee Bliss. But before getting into hemp, Wagner thought she wanted to get into cannabis. Initially, she studied and trained in Colorado to go into the recrea- tional marijuana industry. But Wagner determined soon after arriving in the Pacific Northwest she didn’t want to be subject to regulation by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which reg- ulates marijuana in that state. Instead, she chose to become a hemp farmer. “If you’re not already dealing with the craziness of medical or recreational cannabis, I don’t know why a hemp grower would even go that route,” she said. The Oregon hemp market is competitive. Last year the state issued just 77 licenses to grow hemp, a number that ballooned to 300 this year. Wagner is persever- ing in hopes her final products will enable her to cash in on the crop. Roughly 10,000-15,000 acres of hemp is planted nationwide each year, with the majority of that in Colorado. Most hemp is grown on plots of 10 acres or less. Wagner pointed to one of the big differences between cannabis and hemp, which is harvested for its fibers, seed, seed oil and CBD. “Cannabis is a crop,” she said. “The money is in the final product, rather than the raw product.” — Margaret Jackson should be kept in a greenhouse until they’re about 12 inches tall and can then be transplanted to the field. Wagner puts her hemp plants into planting cups with FoxFarm’s Ocean Forest, a potting soil that’s considered the standard bearer for well-rounded soil, before planting them in the ground. She said the same can be done for cannabis. Soil and Planting As with hemp grown for CBD, high- quality soil is critical to ensure a healthy marijuana crop, Wagner said. Good soil is dark brown in color, compacts when you squeeze it and easily breaks apart again with a small amount of pressure.The soil should be rich in organic matter with a slightly acidic pH of 5.5 to 7. Cannabis likes a slightly acidic environment at the roots, which is what makes it thrive outdoors. Soil also should be well-drained because water- logged cannabis can lead to bud rot. Wagner’s hemp property previously was a horse farm, so she and her crew spread stored manure and slow-release calcitic lime across her field and brought in a special tractor to turn her rows into raised beds with 3 feet between them. Wagner dug holes a foot deep and augmented the soil with kelp, blood meal and garden-grade lime before dropping the transplants into the ground – the same technique, she said, that can applied to cannabis. Before transplanting her hemp crop, she picked her favorite plants and put them in the greenhouse so she can clone the mothers for future crops – again, the same can be done for marijuana. In addition to such similarities, Wagner said a benefit of growing mari- juana is the plant effectively telegraphs its condition. So it’s easier to nurture the plants. “The great thing about cannabis is that it tells you what it needs,” she said. “What kind of bugs, whether it’s dehydrated – it shows itself amazingly readily.” ◆