Marijuana Business Magazine July 2019

Marijuana Business Magazine | July 2019 110 biomass with a combine. Both hemp flower and biomass are dried in an industrial dryer before being stored in large canvas sacks like those used for corn and wheat. The sacks measure roughly 4 feet tall by 5 feet wide. And while the sacks will store up to 1,000 pounds of grain, Cummings said Hemptown doesn’t pack in hemp as tightly to allow for better airflow. “The large super sacks can hold about 250 pounds each of material,” Cumming said. Flower and biomass “are dried differently and cured differently, but they get stored similarly more or less, sitting in the same building.” TOBACCO OFFERS A GUIDE Criticality is approaching hemp postharvest and storage in a unique way that stems from its parent company’s tobacco-industry origins. Because it processes hemp flower and not whole- plant biomass for its Korent product line of hemp-derived CBD oil drops and e-liquid, Criticality uses the resources already in place at the network of tobacco farms where its hemp is produced across North Carolina. Criticality’s Propheter said the process of drying down hemp is simpler, requiring less time and technique than curing tobacco. The tobacco barns where hemp is stored are much like shipping containers, fitted with forced-air units to dry the moisture out of the plants. Each farm has as many as 20 barns, with each large enough to hold up to an acre’s worth of harvested plants. Hemp plants are hung in the envi- ronmentally controlled tobacco barns, where it is dried uniformly for three to five days. While the process is similar to curing tobacco, it requires less time and technique because hemp is less dense and the flower, not tobacco leaves, is the end product. Once the plant is dry, removing floral material is easier than attempting this when the plant is freshly harvested. “Being able to force air into that posi- tive pressure keeps a lot of that humid- ity out of there, so really, the tobacco barns are almost a perfect on-farm solution for drying this product down,” Propheter said. Extracting from whole-plant biomass makes the harvesting and storage process much simpler than focusing just on hemp flower, according to Robert Leaker, president and chief operating officer of Eureka 93, a vertically integrated hemp, CBD and pharmaceutical company based in Eureka, Montana. While hemp fiber farmers have been baling hemp straw and fiber for decades (see “Storing Hemp for Food and Fiber”), the same process can be used to quickly and cost-effectively take shorter plants grown for CBD off outdoor production fields, and the material can be kept at least for the short term, he said. Bales are dried and wrapped in plastic to protect biomass from temperature fluc- tuations, humidity and ultraviolet light. “You want to keep it dark, keep it dry and keep the oxygen out of it,” Leaker said. “That’s why the tightly wound bales are great for six months to a year. If you want to go any longer than that, you’ve really got to separate the biomass, deseed it and pelletize it.” Leaker said his company will buy: • Bales for short-term storage. • Pellets, which will keep for roughly 18 months. • Ground biomass with low moisture content, which can be stored potentially longer in a dry, dimly lit storage facility and refrigerated. Ultimately, no one standard currently exists for storing hemp. And as more producers open for business, they’ll likely develop their own custom solutions that work best for their needs and customers. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS POSE A RISK All varieties of hemp, no matter the end use, are susceptible to mold if plants are not dried sufficiently and stored in low-humidity, environmentally con- trolled spaces. “Humidity control is of critical impor- tance, because if you can’t control your humidity, that material moisture backs up and creates the possibility for develop- ment of mold that can produce aflatoxins and ochratoxins,” Propheter said. Mold is the biggest issue in terms of pests. Depending on how it’s processed, other contaminants can also affect hemp quality, Leaker said. “For most extractors (who use ethanol) like ourselves, any biological contaminants would get destroyed in the process,” Leaker said. “It’s a little different with cannabis because people are using the bud directly, and they’re ingesting the cannabis bud either through inhaling or through edibles. With CBD, you typically are doing a little more processing because you’re just really after the CBD molecule itself.” Storage solutions and timelines for how long hemp flower and whole plant biomass can be stored will become increasingly important as more U.S. farmers grow the plant in the wake of the 2018 Farm Bill. Correct storage can affect a company’s bottom line. When storing hemp, consider the following: • Hemp is susceptible to ultraviolet light, heat and moisture. Keep it protected from these elements to avoid mold and degradation of cannabinoids and fiber. • Properly drying hemp before stor- age will reduce its susceptibility to mold, which is currently the biggest factor that affects crop quality and can ruin your profits. • Cannabinoids will degrade over time, so extractors should try to use stored material within a year or less. • With uncertainty for how end prod- ucts will be regulated, it’s important to find an effective storage tech- nique that will maintain crop quality. • Currently, there is no one standard way to store hemp. As more hemp farmers and processors open for business, they’ll likely develop their own custom solutions.