[Jellyfish]

Originally Posted by Bud Green Sr.

I found this wild hemp field in 1975, in northwest Missouri...It was at least 80 acres...

I dried and smoked some, (who wouldn't have tried that in 1975?) but didn't get any kind of buzz at all...
Similar to if I smoked dried leaves I found in the woods...

I did the same thing in 1973. An associate of mine convinced me to drive to this field in Northern Indiana. When we got there, there were hemp plants 10, 12 feet tall.

We chopped down about a dozen plants and raced home. I didn't know male from female plants back then, didn't even know male plants weren't for smoking.

I ended up with about five pounds of green dust that you could smoke, but it would not get you high.

Ah, good times!

[socioecologist]

Awesome thread! So great to see IC embracing the hemp revolution.

Feminized hemp seed is a real thing and, yes, we sell it in the states to federally legal, state licensed growers. Old chuck is right, we have a minimum order that seems large (5k seeds), but works out to about 2.5 acres worth of plants. We set this minimum because we choose to work with production farmers (rather than hobbyists). We spend a lot of time providing advice, conducting site visits, updating clients on policy changes etc. (for free), advancing our breeding work, and operating our own farm sites (6 in 2017); we didn't feel like we could provide the same level of support to smaller buyers and maintain the overall quality we strive for.

The comments earlier about hemp breeding being difficult due to issues with the plants are accurate. There is a tendency towards sterility on the CBD side and it sets in rather quickly. That is part of the reason why many of the more successful farms in Colorado (and elsewhere) use tissue culture for reproduction. FWIW, there's a strong relationship between the rooting time on clones and the plant's ability to produce viable pollen; our lines that take 3-4 weeks to root can make seed, but not viable pollen. The other scientists we work with are baffled by this feature as much as we are. Crossing siblings instead of selfing in the line breeding process helps, but makes the achievement of homozygosity impossible. Tough options for breeders! We still believe that growing from seed is the best way forward (vs. TC or traditional cloning), but I can tell you that our focus for 2018 lines has definitely changed. 2016 was all about meeting the 0.3% THC requirement (federal definition); our released lines for 2017 do the same while upping total cannabinoid content and allowing for the earliest harvests possible with photoperiod plants. Our 2018 breeding efforts are headed in two separate directions: (1) mass production and mechanized harvest / drying with 10%-12% lines and (2) ultra-high content early varieties (15%+). Keep in mind that these are scientifically valid CBD percentages, not the inflated versions you can obtain from non-certified labs. Oregon forced all of their cannabis testing labs to obtain third party accreditation through NELAP (National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program) and the results have been pretty remarkable; it turns out that most 20% THC or CBD clones are actually closer to 14%-15% when trimmed and 10%-12% if handled / processed like large scale hemp farms do.

For the first few years of this new hemp revolution, farmers were just trying to get their hands on seed capable of producing a little bit of CBD--2%-3% was good enough for mass extraction purposes. European varieties were imported and seed was pretty cheap ($20 a kilo). First year farmers often see a kilo of Finola seed advertised as 2% CBD and get excited about making money growing acres, which is what some were doing until 2016--then the bottom fell out.

The only farmers able to sell their crops after this season (in Oregon anyway) grew very high CBD content flowers (10%+). Extraction facilities are realizing that low CBD content varieties are not economically viable (a point we've been highlighting for 2 years now), since high content material yields orders of magnitude more oil that is much also higher quality (terpene rich). Unless you are running a 12k liter CO2 extraction system, only high content material will do. The same goes for drying now as well; we've had conversations with VERY large farms in Kentucky who offer their high CBD content plant material for fire-sale prices, but they quick dry it in high temperature kilns and vaporize all the terpenes--rendering it useless outside of making CBD isolate. Just like in regular cannabis farming, you have to properly dry and cure your material if you want it to be high enough quality to move in a competitive market!

Last line in a long response (sorry!): take a good long look at what is happening in the US in the hemp industry. This is how 80% of all cannabis will be produced in 10 years.

[oldchuck]

Mr. Ecologist, your expertise is appreciated. Question: what happens to cannabinoid ratios/percentages when you cross a low cannabinoid hemp like Finola with a high THC variety like most of us grow? AT the F1 or at the F3. No special selection, selfing, or cloning.

[socioecologist]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

Mr. Ecologist, your expertise is appreciated. Question: what happens to cannabinoid ratios/percentages when you cross a low cannabinoid hemp like Finola with a high THC variety like most of us grow? AT the F1 or at the F3. No special selection, selfing, or cloning.

Hey oldchuck,

You'll have 1:1's in the F1 (both THC and CBD synthases active), but an overall cannabinoid content in the 5%-6% range if starting with a very high content THC mother. The ratio should also be skewed towards THC (I would guess 1:2 CBD:THC), as Finola does not have a high starting ratio (15:1) and that ratio is heritable as you proceed with line breeding. Best way to visualize what happens next is with a Punnet square, using the following:

T=active THC synthase
t=inactive THC synthase
D=active CBD synthase
d=inactive CBD synthase

Your F1 is: Tt Dd
Open pollination in the F1 is: (Tt Dd) x (Tt Dd)

Which leads to the following genotypes in the F2:


Roughly 18.8% will be high CBD, but will require leaf ratio analysis to confirm. Note the difference here from de Meijer's (2003) and GW's work because of their incorrect monogenic hypothesis. They are correct about the functional breeding outcomes (1:2:1), with one small difference (which should be obvious after adding up the totals...). All will be relatively low cannabinoid content due to Finola being in the mix.

[oldchuck]

Okay, thank you. Next question: What do you think of all the supposedly high CBD seeds suddenly on offer at the big seed outlets?

[armedoldhippy]

folks shooting for a share of the CBD oil sales taking place here in the south, maybe. there is really no "legal" way to get it, so families with sick kids are buying it anywhere they can find it, & praying it is the real thing. these fly-by-night assholes that take advantage of their desperation & sell them bogus shit should be castrated with chainsaws. your opinions, of course, may differ from mine.

[socioecologist]

Originally Posted by oldchuck

Okay, thank you. Next question: What do you think of all the supposedly high CBD seeds suddenly on offer at the big seed outlets?

I favor a language change re: "high CBD". "High CBD" means ratios over 20:1 to me, but it seems to mean 1:1 everywhere else. The only CBD-rich seeds I have seen advertised by the Dutch et al. are 1:1, which is the result of a high THC plant and a high CBD plant (my version). If you buy their work and self it / open pollinate, 18% will be high CBD and could pass hemp THC testing in some states, but will be so unstable (it's an F2) as to be problematic, unless growing out large numbers for selection and further inbreeding--but there's always the guaranteed possibility of truly exceptional plants in that generation (odds of discovery directly related to sample size and parental quality). What we choose in the F2 indelibly defines future lines (and us, I believe, as well).

Are there others that I haven't seen lately? I apologize if so, I'm pretty immersed. If it is as it was though, I think there are better options here in the states if you want plants that produce between 0%-1% THC. Tree of Life seeds offers the very popular "Cherry Wine" line and sells them in 10 packs of regular seed like traditional seed vendors (i.e. $14 a seed); we were just given some of their F3s of that line that a client purchased--growing them out to see if it's worth the hype. Most farmers here in Oregon liked the F1s and they were all 20:1+ from what we saw.

[oldchuck]

That was my impression, S. I have not bought any because my reading tells me they would be far from stability, hit or miss. I will always marvel at the genetic diversity of Cannabis.

[Aether]

Originally Posted by WHIPEDMEAT

because fiber is not the only option, seed crops, and seeds can be used .. for not only plant it..
eat it, extract oil, use it as a bait in fishing,,

I've always wondered how in earth do you use hemp seed for a fish bait...?

[Jellyfish]

Good question. This is a hemp field.