Family businesses can be defined by the strength of six dimensions, according to recent research by The Family Business Network and Egon Zehnder, the global management consulting and executive search firm. The No. 1 dimension, according to the research: Shared values.

This study revealed that shared values unite family members and provide a common framework for building relationships both within and outside the business. Shared values also give the business a moral center to help differentiate it in the marketplace and sustain it in the face of adversity.

If you spend any time talking to the members of the Justice family, who own The Hemp Mine LLC in South Carolina, one thing will become eminently clear: They epitomize a business of shared values. In just under two years, the Justice family has built an organization that prioritizes a love of farming and respect for farmers, a duty to the community and a tenacity to innovate.

For Allison Justice, Ph.D., the roots of these values run deep. Her maternal grandparents, Fred and Gladys Isbell, farmed cotton, and her mother, Deborah Justice, grew ornamental plants and raised cattle on the same plot of land. So, after she obtained degrees in horticulture from Clemson University and served as vice president of cultivation for the California cannabis company OutCo, Justice decided to return home to help her family start a hemp business.

Read more: Career Treks Into Commercial Cannabis

South Carolina launched a pilot program for growing hemp in 2018, offering 20 licenses for growing 20 acres each. The Hemp Mine obtained one of those licenses. But in the wake of hemp’s federal legalization through the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill), Justice saw an opportunity to expand her family’s legacy in farming and draw the family even closer together around a new cash crop. She also saw the chance to show a nascent industry how resilient the Justices really can be, having already made three successful farming pivots from cotton to ornamental planting to cattle.

Read more: Replacing Chemistry with Biology

“We’ve tried our best to be savvy about what we grow, knowing that we don’t have thousands of acres to take advantage of,” Justice says. “We have to be smart about what we’re growing, and it can’t be what everyone else is doing. We need to have a niche for ourselves—and that’s kind of always been the path we took as a family.”

Initially, Justice, along with her mother, Deborah, siblings Amanda and Matthew, and family friend M. Travis Higginbotham Jr., created a brand called The Hemp Mine to sell the cannabidiol (CBD) they were producing from hemp grown on their farm. In August 2018, the Justice family sought to diversify their business. They partnered with OutCo and an investor to create their own CBD extraction facility called SC Botanicals, which now also extracts oil for other farms in addition to The Hemp Mine. And recently, the Justices, ever-aware of changing market conditions and the need to carve out new niches for themselves, have turned their attention to another growth venture: genetics.

Ready for Change

With CBD hemp prices suffering from an oversupply of farmers rushing into the market, genetics give The Hemp Mine options for the future, Justice says. In August 2019, biomass was selling between $2.73 to $4.50 per percentage point of CBD content, according to pricing from PanXchange. By January 2020, that had fallen to less than $1.

“Where we see the most potential is in the genetics. So, we’re going to keep going on that path,” Justice says. “The regulations are changing daily, prices for CBD oil have dropped near seven times within a year, and so you have to be ready to pivot.”

Good genetics are in high demand, and the challenge of doing something different and difficult, like breeding cultivars, suits the Justice family well.

For example, back when the Justice family was growing ornamental plants, they were competing against large greenhouses with automated processes that could produce pansies for pennies. “We had to pivot and pick something that required a little more work, a little more research, and use our brain power to make a better-margin product,” Justice says. “When we were doing ornamentals, we had to stop and think, ‘What can we grow? What’s in high demand? What’s not out there? What might be different and a little more difficult to breed? Let’s teach ourselves whatever that is, master it and sell it.’”

What about Clematis armandii? For a time, the Justices grew the climbing plant of the genus Clematis prized by gardeners for its showy flowers. “It was something that people wanted, and it wasn’t out there,” Justice says. “It wasn’t out there because it was difficult to grow.”

“You have to be ready for change, because over the years, everything changes,” says Deborah Justice, who plays multiple roles for The Hemp Mine, including that of chief financial officer.

Fortunately for the business, the Justices’ closest non-family business partners share the same outlook.

Ashish Joseph, SC Botanicals’ CEO, believes a good pivot in business is one that creates options for future moves.

SC Botanicals has not only diversified its geographic customer base to include Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina in addition to South Carolina, but also focused on the remediation of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). (Delta-9-THC is the chief intoxicant in cannabis.) To be legal under the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp must test at or below 0.3% total THC. If a hemp crop tests above the 0.3% limit, it’s known as “hot hemp,” which, to the federal government, is essentially illegal marijuana.

“THC remediation—not everyone can do it,” Joseph says. “It’s a very capital-intensive process. But we have developed our own technology, and it’s been going really well. You have people sending us material that’s hot, and we remove the delta-9-THC to compliant levels.”

As families, the Josephs and the Justices have a deep connection and similar value systems. Originally from the New York tri-state area, the Josephs purchased 20 acres of land in South Carolina in the mid-2000s with the intention of building houses on the property and relocating there. But then Joseph’s father had a change of heart; the family had been involved in multiple businesses in the Northeast and didn’t want to sell it all and move. So, they decided to rent out the land to the Justice family for farming purposes.

 

When the 2018 Farm Bill passed, the Justices reached out to the Josephs and asked if they could use the land to grow hemp. The Josephs not only agreed but also decided to join the venture, first as an investor in SC Botanicals.

“I was like, ‘Absolutely. Do you guys need any capital?’” Joseph recalls saying. “We know hemp isn’t cheap—whether it’s seeds or extraction, you need capital.”

Joseph’s role as SC Botanicals’ CEO follows his more traditional business background. He studied finance at Drexel University in Philadelphia and previously worked at an investment firm. However, farming is in his family’s blood as well: They were rubber tree farmers in India. His grandfather, father and uncles all had brokering licenses to supply Apollo Tyres Ltd., based in Gurugram, India, with the raw materials to make car tires.

“One thing my grandpa always taught me is don’t plant what everyone else is planting,” Joseph says. “It’s bad for business. ‘When people are cutting down their rubber trees to plant vanilla because vanilla prices are high, don’t do it,’ he said. Everyone’s going to do that, and the price of vanilla will drop. Meanwhile, the prices of rubber will go up.”

Now, along with the Josephs, the extended Justice family is bringing the same resolve and strategic mindset to the research and development of genetics. For her part, Justice sees genetics as a potentially lucrative growth business and a way to apply her previous cannabis knowledge and experience for the betterment of growers and farmers in the surrounding South Carolina community and the nation as a whole.

Resiliency From South Carolina to California

Most hemp farmers across the country are after the same thing: a cultivar that consistently yields a high percentage of CBD and a low percentage of THC. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) interim final rule, hot hemp crops must be disposed of. That puts a premium on good genetics. And while other factors do play some role in a crop’s final CBD and THC levels, genetics are a major determinant.

Decades of hemp prohibition and destruction of the nation’s hemp seed bank effectively erased centuries of innovation in American hemp genetics. That has put U.S. farmers at a competitive disadvantage compared to Europe, China and other countries with a longer history of hemp cultivation, which is only exacerbated by the THC limit imposed by the federal government. With a dearth of sufficient high-quality hemp genetics that remain at or below 0.3% THC through maturity, farmers and growers have struggled to locate specific strains and vet seed businesses, in some cases losing many thousands of dollars because they accepted the claims of unscrupulous seed suppliers.

“Watching my family and having a true respect for farmers—that’s one reason why we got into genetics in the first place, because I can’t stand people being taken advantage of,” Justice says. “Farmers are such hard workers who deserve more than most. That’s where the passion comes from for what we’re doing.”

After conducting several years of research and testing, The Hemp Mine is commercially offering seven different hemp varieties to greenhouse growers and field farmers during the 2020 crop year. Six of those seven hemp cultivars are focused on producing CBD, with the seventh focused on producing cannabigerol (CBG). In tests, the latter cultivar has proven to yield 12% CBG and 0.15% total THC.

“I am super excited about farming new cannabinoids,” says Matthew Justice, who plays a key role in managing operations for the company. “CBG in particular—one thing we’re hearing from people is that it induces hunger—I’m excited to see how that can help cancer patients and people with eating disorders.”

“2020 is going to be a truly defining year for hemp in the U.S.,” says M. Travis Higginbotham Jr., co-owner and vice president of sales, consumer products and genetics for The Hemp Mine. “We don’t quite yet understand what the U.S. market is capable of.”

Though there is plenty of CBD available based on the quantity of hemp biomass grown in 2019 and planned for 2020, Higginbotham says The Hemp Mine has an advantage in its plans to address farmers’ ongoing search for hemp genetics that remain below the legal THC threshold: its home state of South Carolina.

“What is the perfect climate for growing plants? It’s California,” says Higginbotham, who first met Justice while they were studying horticulture at Clemson. “When genetics are bred to perform in California, they encounter very little stress. They have many days of sun, very moderate temperatures and cool nights, which plants like.” In contrast, the South is one of the harshest growing environments in the U.S. based on heat, humidity, moisture, drought, disease and pests.

Thus, the selling proposition of The Hemp Mine’s cultivars is that they have performed well in the Southeastern part of the U.S., an indisputably harsh environment for crops. Higginbotham cautions, however, that farmers west of South Carolina still have to take two variables into consideration: frost and day length.

The pivot to genetics has already proven successful. The Hemp Mine now has several hemp varieties that have produced as much as 22% CBD in tests that measure delta-9-THC levels. Unfortunately, when testing for total THC, as required by federal rules, that number falls to 10% to 12%, Justice says.

Under the USDA’s interim final rule, state inspectors must test for the total THC level, which is comprised of delta-9-THC plus tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA). THCA on its own does not produce psychoactive effects like delta-9-THC, but it can be converted to THC through decarboxylation, which is the process required for testing.

Justice says these regulations have given the family another cause to rally around.

Finding a Voice and Raising It

The 2018 Farm Bill required the USDA to craft a set of federal hemp rules but gave states the right to develop their own plans for enforcing them. After Oct. 31, 2020, all hemp producers must be in compliance with those rules, including farmers who were producing hemp under a state pilot program. As of press time, the USDA had approved only eight state plans. South Carolina wasn’t one of them.

The rulemaking process, while painstaking for the industry, has galvanized industrywide thinking. Justice has had her part in shaping that thinking, embracing the role as an active public-policy advocate. The company, for starters, has filed a lengthy comment with the USDA on issues ranging from the required harvesting window to sampling protocols. Justice is planning to address the matter with state lawmakers as well.

“In states like South Carolina, we feel like we’re going backwards,” Justice says. Under the state’s pilot program, many growers and farmers have just gotten comfortable with how to grow the plant, what varieties work and who to work with in the supply chain. The USDA’s new “stringent” regulations turn those practices on their head, Justice says.

As of press time, it is still unclear whether South Carolina will continue to operate under its pilot program plan or under a new USDA-approved hemp production plan for the 2020 crop year—and that is what has created so much confusion and business uncertainty, Justice says. The Hemp Mine’s genetics business has already been negatively impacted in particular because potential customers are holding off orders until a decision is made and rules are finalized.

“I can name a handful of farmers that have made the decision not to grow hemp or not to grow it again because there were already such difficulties in joining this industry that it’s just kind of the last straw,” Justice says. “It’s just not worth it.”

The uncertain regulatory situation has created another opportunity for The Hemp Mine as a consultant to new farmers and growers. With the family’s collective experience in hemp and horticulture, The Hemp Mine offers to guide farmers on everything from planting to harvest to extraction, advising on how to comply with regulations all along the way.

The Hemp Mine’s sales representatives have technical expertise and, in some cases, degrees in agriculture. “There’s so much help needed, whether it is for simple farming practices that [are] never simple [or] regulation compliance,” Justice notes.

Embracing the Pivot

Despite the challenges facing small, family-owned businesses, including size, scope and the availability of capital, many thrive. According to The Family Business Network and Egon Zehnder, family businesses that endure have the right vision, involvement, cohesion and interaction, family governance and clarity on leadership principles and roles. And, most critically, they have the right set of shared values.

“One of the qualities of our family is we are problem-solvers,” says Amanda Justice Schell, operations manager and co-owner of The Hemp Mine. “There are challenges in shifting and pivoting from one thing to another. I think we really met those challenges head-on and worked through it and found a way to be successful. Our attitude is: ‘We’ll make it work somehow and get through it and come out the other end.’”

Like her sister, Justice Schell is a Clemson graduate, but she has degrees in landscape architecture and construction-science management. A creative type and natural storyteller, Justice Schell plays a key role in marketing the family’s businesses, which involves web design and photography. One of her favorite things to do, she says, is to get out in the fields and take pictures of the “beautiful” hemp plants.

Justice Schell has three daughters—Isabel, 11; Heidi, 7; and Olivia, 4—who may even comprise the fourth generation of the Justice farming family. The Hemp Mine is even sponsoring Isabel’s volleyball team, a development that speaks to the community’s acceptance of the hemp plant after decades of stigma. For Justice Schell’s daughters, the family hemp business is something to be proud of.

“They love going out in the field, scouting for insects, picking off caterpillars, helping in any way that they can,” Justice Schell says. “They’re always saying, ‘Can we go to The Hemp Mine today?’”

To Deborah Justice, the matriarch of the family, this brings an indescribable joy.

Asked how her parents, Fred and Gladys Isbell, would feel about the family continuing the farming tradition in hemp, Deborah Justice answered, “Incredibly proud.”

“I get emotional talking about it,” she says. “Our family—we’re all together every day working as one. We all believe in [hemp] and the future of it. As a parent, you couldn’t ask for anything better.”

So, you’ve decided to grow hemp this season. Now what?

One of the challenges of introducing a new crop to your farm is selecting a suitable field site for production. Because farmers hadn’t grown hemp for decades in the U.S., data on field production was lacking prior to the Agricultural Act of 2014 (the 2014 Farm Bill). Fortunately, we can draw some helpful information from recent research, Canada, Europe and old U.S. records.

Soil Conditions

One common myth is that you can grow hemp anywhere and expect high yields. I think part of this misconception stems from feral hemp populations—often referred to as ditch weed—that grow in marginal sites. (For more on feral hemp, read Taming Feral Hemp.) These populations have been naturalized to the area where they are growing, and they are not being planted at a field scale with yield in mind.

We knew even back in 1943 that hemp should be planted on the best fields. An old U.S. Department of Agriculture bulletin stated, “Hemp should be planted on the most productive land on the farm” (Farmer’s Bulletin No. 1935, USDA). This means growers may choose to plant hemp in a field where they would have otherwise planted a different crop.

Planting hemp on the most productive fields could affect yields of the other crops if those crops are planted on a less productive site. Growers should conduct a risk assessment of how they are going to allocate field space to hemp and the potential consequences of doing so, such as losing money on hemp when something less risky could have been planted there.

When selecting a field, look for loose, well-aerated loam soil with a pH of 6-7.5. Well-drained or tiled clay soils can be used, but poorly drained clay or poorly structured soils often result in plant establishment failures, as seedling and young plants are prone to damping-off. Hemp can grow in sandy soils; however, these sites may need irrigation at some point during the growing season.

With such a large lapse in hemp production, fertility programs have not been well developed in the United States. These programs outline plans to apply the right fertilizer products, at the right rate, in the right place, at the right time. I advise working with a crop consultant or county extension educators for site-specific recommendations using baseline recommendations from the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) eGuide on the amount of fertilizer to apply and when. The type of production also factors into fertility programs. Fiber, grain or cannabinoid producers will likely follow different fertility programs, especially since many cannabinoid hemp producers are feeding through drip irrigation throughout the season.

We know that hemp grows best in fertile fields that have abundant organic matter greater than 3.5%. General baseline recommendations from the CHTA eGuide state that grain hemp production requires inputs of up to 80 to 120 pounds of nitrogen per acre, 40 pounds of phosphorus per acre, 58 pounds of potassium per acre and 13 pounds of sulfur per acre. For perspective, hemp requires about the same fertility inputs as a high-yielding row crop like wheat or corn. Soil test results should inform your decisions on inputs for each field. Recommendations are going to vary based on these results. This is where universities that have been conducting hemp research can help.

Heavy Metals

Farmers have more to consider than just soil type and fertility when choosing a field site, however. Studies are showing an ever-increasing concern regarding heavy metals (e.g., lead, arsenic and mercury) in soils that move into hemp plants and show up in post-harvest testing of hemp extracts.

Five publications currently report that hemp can pull heavy metals out of contaminated soils. One recent study demonstrated that most metals are stored in the plant’s leaves, not in the flowers (Rabab Husain, et al., PLOS ONE 2019). Leaf material is often included during processing, so this could be a concern.

Most soil testing services can screen for heavy metals when they receive samples for fertility measurements. However, soils naturally can contain some amounts of heavy metals, so we do not yet have a clear understanding of what amount of heavy metals shown in a soil test would be cause for growers to pick new field sites.

Pesticides and Pathogens

Always consider previous crops grown and any pesticides used on those crops when selecting a field site for hemp. This is especially important for herbicides that have been applied in previous years. Some products have lengthy planting restrictions for specialty crops and could reduce or prevent germination or stunt hemp growth.

Records of any former crop issues in a particular field are critical because only a few pesticides have been approved for use on hemp crops. Do not plant hemp in fields that have a history of pathogens such as white mold or southern blight, as soil inoculum can build up.

Based upon reports from Ontario, Canada, it has been recommended that hemp not immediately be planted on land that has grown canola, edible beans, soybeans or sunflowers because of the risk of white mold. Knowing the disease history of your fields should help dictate rotational order of your crops. Hemp can be used to diversify current rotations of row or forage crops. Different rotational models are currently being studied at Rodale Institute and Purdue University.

Hemp can successfully grow in continuous rotation for several years on the same land, but it comes with risks. A general rule of thumb with annual crops is to rotate them out every year, because if farmers plant the same crop in the same spot year after year, they can run into issues with pest and pathogen populations.

With very few pesticide options, hemp is especially susceptible to these issues. Growing hemp in the same spot two years in a row would probably be OK, but hemp is a heavy nutrient user. Since farmers accustomed to using herbicides have few available for use on hemp, weed control after growing hemp two years in a row is going to be challenging.

It is also a good idea to avoid planting in weedy fields if possible. Early season weed pressure paired with wet weather can lead to weeds outcompeting hemp.

Seedbed Preparation

Seedbed preparation will vary depending on what kind of production system you use. I see both till and no-till hemp production from farmers for direct seeding but a fine, level and firm seedbed results in a more consistent establishment.

Preparation for transplanting depends on the production model. Some growers opt to plant transplants in bed shapers, while others use plastic on top of the raised beds. This is entirely dependent on what kind of production fits into a current operation.

Seed is best planted at ½ inch to 1 inch beneath the soil surface. Although deeper plantings may be tolerated, they are more susceptible to damping off. I have also seen growers with successful crops when they planted closer to 1/4 inch below the soil surface. This may be a better option in extremely wet springs, when deeper plantings in saturated soils could lead to greater seedling mortality.

Although the seedlings will germinate and survive at temperatures just above freezing, soil temperatures of 46 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit are preferable. Just because the seeds can germinate at 35 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t mean it is a good idea. Planting in soil that is too cool could result in damping off if it is also very wet, and lots of soil pathogens like cool, damp soils. It also means that hemp is going to grow even slower, making way for weeds to outcompete the plant if the weather is too cool and hemp can’t get a quick canopy closure. Generally, hemp should be planted after danger of hard freezes, typically around mid-April to May. Growers transplanting seedlings or clones have a larger window for planting.

Good soil moisture is necessary for seed germination, and planting after a rain is best. Heavy rainfall after seeding can stall hemp germination and slow growth, so while rainfall is needed for good growth, especially during the first six weeks, large amounts of rain is not ideal.

Crop failures due to choosing the wrong field site are not unheard of. Proper field site selection is important to get off on the right foot and set up your hemp farm for success in the 2020 season and beyond.

A century ago, Wisconsin’s hemp industry reigned supreme: farmers in the state grew more acres than in all other states combined, and it remained a top producer up until hemp’s prohibition in 1937.

Wisconsin didn’t pass a bill legalizing hemp again until 2017, putting it behind nearly half the country when the Agricultural Act of 2014 (the 2014 Farm Bill) went into effect and overturned its status as a top hemp-producing state. But it may be on the verge of a comeback: With an exploding number of hemp farmers, strong statewide educational efforts and major investments coming into the state, Wisconsin is poised to once again become a leading U.S. hemp producer.

The state has experienced a boom since its first planting season in 2018. In just one year, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) licensed six times as many growers and seven times as many producers in 2019. Brian Kuhn, director of DATCP’s Plant Industry Bureau, estimates the program will grow by 10% this upcoming season based on the number of applications at press time.

Wisconsin is sticking with its pilot program for the upcoming growing season, as several states have opted to do until the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) interim final rule takes full effect Oct. 31, 2020. “We were already moving forward with our existing plan for the 2020 growing season when the interim rule came out at the end of October. In order to have enough time to develop a new plan, get it approved and then notify growers of the changes to operate under the new program for the 2018 Farm Bill, we chose to wait to adopt a new plan until the 2021 growing season,” Kuhn says. “For our growers, our goal for this year was to try and make it consistent with what they’ve experienced in [the] first two years.”

Fortunately for growers in the Badger State, their transition will be minimal compared with those in other states. In late 2019, Wisconsin lawmakers revised the state’s pilot program with the Growing Opportunities Act and made it nearly identical to regulations under the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the 2018 Farm Bill). Now, the only difference farmers will be dealing with is a slightly stricter enforcement of the 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) limit once the pilot program sunsets, Kuhn says.

Growing Resources for Farmers

Through this whirlwind of legislative change, the DATCP has worn many hats: licenser, enforcer, tester and educator. The department received backlash last year when some farmers in the South Central Wisconsin Hemp cooperative blamed delays in testing for crops that tested “hot” above the 0.3% THC limit, but several initiatives since then have taken some of the burden off the DATCP with the hopes of easing some delays.

The Growing Opportunities Act authorized the DATCP to hire three full-time staff members for the hemp program along with a third-party contractor to assist with testing. And over the past year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been working to help educate state farmers by building up its hemp program, which now has helpful online resources.

Among those resources is a cannabidiol (CBD) and THC testing sharing page, where farmers can submit the results of their private laboratory hemp tests, which are then compiled into a comprehensive report to help other farmers make informed growing decisions.

Another of the university’s web resources is its directory that helps foster connections along the hemp supply chain throughout the state, whether for buying and selling or otherwise. The university has published video series as well, which cover everything from planting to harvesting.

Farmers in the state also have a plethora of sourcing resources available, from the DATCP’s online guide to hemp varieties for different end uses to a statewide seed certification program through Wisconsin’s official seed certifying agency, the Wisconsin Crop Improvement Association. And in Milwaukee County, an innovative plant sourcing hub is taking form. The county is working on partnering with a contractor to grow hemp in one of its Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory’s domes, seven-story glass structures that currently host an abundance of other plant life. As part of the plans, a third party would lease one of The Domes to grow certified hemp clones to be sold to farmers to help with the facility’s operational costs.

As resources for Wisconsin hemp farmers continue growing, so too are their options for mitigating costs. Wisconsin is one of 21 states where farmers are eligible to participate in the USDA’s Multi-Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) pilot program for the upcoming growing season, which insures producers against yield losses due to natural causes. (The pilot is running in all but two of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.)

In addition, in a recent survey by the Wisconsin Bankers Association (WBA), nearly 50% of bank respondents who aren’t currently banking hemp said they would extend services to hemp-related customers in 2020.

“The reality is that hemp is a very new and complex issue from both a regulatory and business viewpoint,” Rose Oswald Poels, the WBA President and CEO, said in a press release. “It takes time to work through these complexities. Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach, each bank’s approach and timeframe will be different.”

Accelerating Hemp Production

Like the rest of the country, much of the hemp focus in Wisconsin for the time being is on CBD. Most processors in the state focus on CBD, including a 46,000-square-foot processing facility that recently received a multimillion dollar investment from Grove Group Management.

Kuhn says 96% of the state’s hemp farmers grew for CBD last year, but that may soon change. Wisconsin Hemp Alliance members have recently asked state lawmakers to consider passing S.B. 817, which would dedicate $125,000 toward establishing a Wisconsin Hemp Fiber Innovation and Technology Accelerator in the Institute for Sustainable Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Their goal is to find innovative ways to create and sell hemp fiber products.

At press time, the legislation was slated to be decided on by the end of February, potentially re-launching an industry that thrived in the state a century ago.

“Everyone in the hemp industry knows exactly how important this first step is for fiber,” Wisconsin Hemp Alliance President Rob Richard told The Center Square Wisconsin about the group’s proposal. “As legislators look for ways to bring innovation, diversification and market expansion to Wisconsin agriculture, they absolutely should not ignore the long-term growth potential in hemp.”

Though the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively banned hemp cultivation, the federal government briefly lifted the ban and encouraged cultivation during World War II through its promotional “Hemp For Victory” video. That effort planted the seeds for a hardy, industrial form of hemp that has now thrived in the wild for decades.

Commonly known as ditch weed, feral hemp has been recognized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as “wild, scattered marijuana plants [with] no evidence of planting, fertilizing or tending.” This hemp is especially prominent in the Midwest and has long been known to have a negligible tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) level.

But to Win Phippen, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Agriculture at Western Illinois University, ditch weed could have broad implications for today’s booming hemp industry. Are those THC levels, for example, low enough to meet the federal 0.3% limit? Even if they contain no THC at all, could pollen from the fibrous feral male plants contaminate fields of the cannabidiol (CBD)-rich hemp grown for flower? Or, on the flip side, could the feral hemp be worthy of breeding to produce varieties that thrive in the state?

Phippen had questions, and he set out to address them in the summer of 2019 by searching for feral hemp throughout the state to characterize and trace its thread to the now-flourishing hemp industry.

Phippen has been the director of the university’s alternative crops research program for two decades, but he didn’t start working with hemp until early 2018. It only took a year of working with farmers for him to see that researching feral hemp could help farmers address one of their biggest challenges.

“The challenge a lot of our Illinois producers had was [finding] seeds. … I’m a plant breeder by training, and so my thought was, well, why don’t we collect the wild stuff?” Phippen says. “It’s been in the wild since the war, so it’s well-adapted to Illinois growing conditions. It’s actually a good place to start for someone who’s interested in being a hemp breeder in the state.”

Though hemp is now federally legal, feral hemp in particular has a controversial past. The DEA spent at least $175 million eradicating 4.7 billion wild hemp plants from 1984 to the mid-2000s, according to Vote Hemp. Its efforts were particularly strong in Illinois, where the agency led efforts to eradicate about 11 million wild hemp plants per year, ranking the state third in the country behind South Dakota (nearly 69 million) and Indiana (more than 66 million) for the most plants destroyed.

Despite industrial hemp’s legalization, Phippen still needed a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collect feral hemp. After receiving the permit, he began putting calls out to Western Illinois University alumni in July 2019 to see if they had any feral hemp on their properties. Some of his efforts involved serendipitous searching. He drove around until he spotted areas heavy with greenery and plodded through open fields, roamed down stretches of highway and even wandered into a backyard or two to find the camouflaged cannabis.

“You could find it anywhere,” Phippen says. “There’s some counties where you can get out of the car and just start walking along some power poles along the highway or something like that, and there it is. You could go around any corner and find it.”

In counties where he had trouble finding feral hemp samples, Phippen resorted to asking for help from the local sheriff’s office, who he said would discreetly point him to a general location they knew about.

By the end of the summer, Phippen had collected 27 different samples from 13 of Illinois’ 102 counties, mostly on the northwestern side of the state. The good news: None of the feral hemp tested “hot,” or above the legal 0.3% THC limit. 

“We did see some phenotypic differences between the wild stuff, but for the most part, they are remnants of the old fiber industry,” Phippen says. “Four of my collection sites were from original farms that grew during the war effort, and they are clearly remnants from the war effort.”

Phippen, however, has concluded that those growing for CBD may be best served doing so indoors. He says that when he was helping farmers grow hemp for CBD in 2018, they experienced some cross-pollination even on farms “out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.” Phippen suspects the feral hemp may have played a role. (For more on pollen drift, read “Hemp Law: Drifting Into New Legal Territory” at: bit.ly/hemppollendrift.)

“We were probably 4 miles away from the nearest forest area that could have wild hemp, and we still had seed production in our CBD plants, so that would indicate it was either in the wind or insects were visiting,” Phippen says. “A lot of producers had a bad experience with CBD this year, so a lot of them are going to start switching over to seed/grain production and fiber production. Those two types of producers are going to produce a tremendous amount of pollen. That’s why if you’re going to be really vested into CBD production, you probably want to go indoors, because there’s not much you can do about stopping the pollen from coming in.”

Phippen presented his findings at the Illinois Hemp Summit in December and plans for them to be featured at the university’s undergraduate research day in April as well.

Looking ahead, Phippen’s hemp focus will revolve around helping the university get its recently announced cannabis minors off the ground, as well as develop a related major to launch in the future.

But Phippen’s feral hemp research may follow him longer than he initially intended. He still fields phone calls from people who find feral hemp and want him to check it out, and he predicts he’ll end up going on another hemp expedition this summer. His ultimate goal is to offer seeds from the wild varieties he collected to those interested in starting a breeding program for hemp grain and fiber production, picking up on an effort that has remained stagnant since WWII.