Farmers gather for hemp lessons

MURFREESBORO – Farmers from across Tennessee gathered Friday afternoon in Murfreesboro to learn about the ins and outs of growing industrial hemp.

A capacity crowd squeezed into a conference room at the Embassy Suites to hear speakers discuss the budding industry.

One farmer, Christian Grantham of Woodbury, explained he became a licensed hemp farmer, so he can help future hemp farmers by experimenting with varieties and conditions.

“I’m here to learn what we can do legally and what we can produce,” Grantham said about growing about an acre of Canda hemp on his Cannon County farm.

Grantham and other farmers are allowed to grow the controversial crop after the Tennessee General Assembly last year passed a law that legalized strains of low-THC varieties of cannabis, as well as measures to start a licensing program.

Under the new regulations, industrial hemp can be grown in Tennessee only as part of a research or pilot project.

Industrial hemp is the same plant as marijuana but the different strain has significantly lower content of the psycho-active chemical tetrahydroncannabinol (THC), officials said.

Colleen Sauvé, founder of the Tennessee Hemp Industries Association, said Tennessee farmers were given varieties from Canada, where hemp has been legal since 1998, to see how they thrive in Tennessee.

“We want to know how these varieties are performing,” Sauvé said.

So hemp farmers are collecting data about how the plants are growing, which soils work best and what varieties do best where in the state.

“We have a lot of hemp in the ground, and it’s exciting to see where we are headed,” Sauvé said.

Grantham said he wants to see what he and his husband, Vince Oropesa, can do with the plant, specifically therapeutic applications.

The couple started growing medicinal plants, like turkey tail mushrooms, to help a family member with the side effects of cancer, he said.

“Being a small farm, we will never be able to produce hemp as a commodity, but we can produce a value-added product,” Grantham said.

He said they might be able to extract cannabinoids for use in medicinal hemp oil, which was legalized for limited medical purposes in May.

Sauvé said industrial hemp can be used for therapeutic purposes, but mostly it’s grown for fiber, grain and hemp seed oils.

“(Hemp seed oil) is used in bath and body products, nutritional supplements, salad dressing,” Sauvé said.

Therapeutic uses wasn’t the only thing Grantham and the other 150 registered attendees were there to learn about.

They heard from Canadian farmer James Silcox about growing and harvesting hemp, as well as others who spoke about processing, manufacturing, and research and field data.

Judging by the extra chairs organizers had to bring in the room, interest is high among farmers and agricultural professionals.

Contact Michelle Willard at 615-278-5164 and on Twitter @MichWillard.