I just found out that I might be able to grow CBD and sale products from the plant in Florida as long as I going through the correct process.
Anyone growing in my similar climate (Zone 8a/8b border, N. Florida)? Just wanting to know if it grows out doors easily or if it pays for it self in the long run to grow indoors?
You know the saying āgrows like weedā? lol
The stuff will grow anywhere from what I have seen.
This is great. This guy here is one of the best!
I just read on Floridaās website that you cannot plant your own seeds, clone or duplicate any mother plants you have to get seeds from the state directly.
Since youāre not guaranteed to have the same plants characteristics from seed it seems a hard way to be consistent I guess Iāll have to do lots of tests?
A farmer about 7 miles west of me grew a whole bunch of hemp this year. Ended up testing too high in THC and now heās sitting there with almost 200 round bales of the stuff. Heāll probably end up composting them.
I donāt understand why they wonāt allow you to clone but I might have to call them and find out more about their seeds I also donāt want to waste a lot of time if I have to burn them because of that same issue
Not sure what the laws are in Florida, but here you can grow the real deal. Less regulation and higher prices. I have been thinking about growing some. There are three states around me and each has different laws. Like in DC you can give it away, but not sell. What they do is set up like hot dogs stands that sell you a $40 hot dog that comes with a free bag of weed.
To your point. Your environment is great for growing. Hemp naturally grows all over the south. I used to live in TN. and back then you could find it along stream banks wild. If you are only able to grow cbd that will still make better money than fruit. A lot more learning and regulation though. There is a cbd farm a couple miles from me. Imagine driving by acres of weed.
Another thing to look into is delta 8. Most states that only allow cbd for some reason allow delta 8. They actually sell it in most vape stores anywhere. Iām not an expert on it, but it seems to be exactly like the real deal, but somehow it is legal.
Iām only allowed to grow CBD legally seems like a background check and a small permit fee. I have a lot more investigation to do but I have decided to get rid of my raspberries and persimmons so I will have a little extra time and room and thought it might be something to look into. At least I wonāt have to buy my own CBD and I can grow my own hemp seeds for my carp particle bait.
No need to rip anything out. They only live one year. Just get big pots and throw them everywhere. Some varieties get 10-15 foot tall. You will have to water, but you can also give them premium soil that way.
im in z4 and they grow fine. i have to put them in my portable greenhouse in the fall to keep the rain off the buds or theyāll rot. you should be able to grow trees in your weather. once they get about 6in. they like very hot soil. look into ac/dc strain. most grown strain for cbd. im growing 3 in my grow room for a friend right now.
If youāre looking to grow CBD hemp for profitā¦I say forget it.
We grew 12 acres of CBD floral hemp in 2019, and, like ever so many growers, got screwed when the market crashed and processors reneged on contracts or went bankrupt, leaving growers with no market for what theyād produced.
We still have probably 12,000 pounds of ābudā sitting in the barn here, and no prospects for selling it, even for pennies on the dollar for what it was valued at0 ($4 per CBD% per pound) when we contacted to grow it.
I figure Iāve just got a barn full of extremely expensive organic mulch.
Damn that sucks. Could you donate it and take it as a write-off? Iāve seen where some Farmers donate to people who canāt afford it since it is used for medical issues.
The medical clinics around here have all the medical marijuana you want but they have no CBD and they said itās more expensive than the medical marijuana for some reason? I had to go to Alabama to find CBD. they probably donāt want to sell CBD since itās not addictive like the THC marijuana they sell.
I only thought about growing a small bed of them for myself.
The state of Florida has to give me the seeds I canāt obtain them anywhere else do you know if seeds can be tested to not have high THC levels or will they match the mother plant levels? Iād hate to spend time and money planting these and then have to get rid of them because the THC levels are too high.
Itās going to vary from state to state.
In KY, the minimum acreage you could plant was 1 acre - they didnāt want to have to be policing tens of thousands of folks growing in their back yard.
You had to submit to a criminal background check before you were considered for a license to grow. I still have to do that, yearly, and apply for a license to store what we grew in 2019ā¦ or the authorities could theoretically imprison me and seize my farm for having 12K pounds of āmarijuanaāā¦ with a THC level below 0.3%. You couldnāt ācop a buzzā on it if you could smoke 30 pounds at a session.
We planted all-female clones of 8 different varieties, grown by another licensed grower. I would not mess with seed unless youāre doing an indoor grow of autoflower type to produce āsmokable hempā - if thatās even legal in your state (it is in TN, but not in KY).
With seed, you have to rogue out and destroy any male seedlings ASAP.
Even with all female clones, we evidently had some that āhermedāā¦ threw a male branch here and thereā¦ I never saw a male plant, and I walked those rows dailyā¦ but toward the end of harvest, we were finding some buds that contained seeds, and Iām still having to destroy āvolunteerā hemp plants coming up in my fields and around barns here.
So far as trying to ensure that your hemp doesnāt go āhotāā¦stupid federal regs require hemp THC levels to be below 0.3% ( a number some faceless bureaucrat pulled out of their @ss)ā¦about all you can do is start pulling samples to check THC levels as soon as the plants start flowering, and test weekly to plot the point at which your plants are likely to go hot, so that you can plan harvest time. Good luck with that. Testing is expensive. THC levels can double in just a few daysā time. There are some āprojected time tablesā for some of the more common varieties that can give you ballpark ideas about how long after flowering commences that they will likely be approaching the 0.3 THC limitā¦ but theyāre not all that reliable, as temperatures, rainfall/moisture levels, fertilization, pest/disease issues can all impact CBD & THC levels.
State of KY provided one official test per variety before you could begin harvestā¦ but you had to wait 6 weeks to get a result to find out if your crop was compliant or āhotāā¦ not helpful at all.
We had one variety that went āhotāā¦ THC level was around 0.6%(CBD was around 12%)ā¦ ended up running the entire plants of that variety - stems, trunk, everything - through a chipper/grinder to ādiluteā the THC to compliant level, but that also cut the CBD level in halfā¦ and created a product that no processor would want to buyā¦ processors donāt even want to bother with biomass with CBD level below 10%.
You canāt give it away to someone who doesnāt have a license to process, and no, you couldnāt write it off, and thereās no federal-subsidized crop insurance like for corn, soybeans, etc.
I suppose we āwrote offā some of our lossā¦ we were able to put tiller, transplanter, mulch/driptape layer, irrigation pump & filter, drying barn on a depreciation schedule, and showed a significant loss on our farm income tax filing for that year (weāre talking well over $100Kā¦), but you donāt āget that money backāā¦ just a reduction in what you end up having to pay to the federal government in income taxes.
I learned a lot about growing hemp that year. It was the hardest work Iāve ever done in my entire life. It was just one foot in front of the other, from daylight 'til after dark, every day, for more than an entire yearā¦ we worked in the greenhouses cloning plants, did all the soil prep, laid plastic mulch & drip-tape, irrigation lines & pressure regulators, pump/filter/fertigation, trouble-shot leaks in driptape, battled weeds in between rows, sprayed BT for caterpillars(walking with a backpack sprayer), harvested by hand, hauled to barn and hung to dry, cut 'em down and cut limbs off, then ābuckedā buds, and dumped into bulk grain bags for storage.
That sucks, thanks for the info. Here in Florida the only option I have is CBD to grow and the only way I could grow it is from seed from the Florida government you cannot clone, It has to come from seed from the government which means even more work like you said I might be destroying male plants and testing was the other issue that I had how do I know what Iām going to get from their seeds if I canāt clone?
And it might even cost over $600 if I have to get a nursery license so it might not be worth it for me since I would just be doing it on a low scale for personal use. Iāll definitely look into it with the state.
Iāve been looking into how to test tincture and flower for CBD/THC percentage and I havenāt seen any test kits other than the tCheck 2 which they state the accuracy can be off from 2%, doesnāt seem like itās worth $300. Anyone done any testing examples with the tCheck 2 or know of any other options for a home use test?
Most of the āhome testā kits that were available in 2019 were mainly intended for marijuanaā¦ lowest level of detection was 1%ā¦ which is more than 3X the allowed level for CBC hemp. Donāt know if theyāve improved the lower detection level enough or not for it to be of any use to a hemp grower.
The 0.3% THC limit is ridiculous. Even if they bumped it up to 1%, which would be a huge boon to hemp growers, thereās no ādangerā there. Heck, if you grew marijuana that came in at 10-12% THCā¦ you couldnāt even give it away!
Oh, BTW, I looked at some of the FL Hemp stuff online. You can grow clonesā¦ there is a list of approved seed strains and clone varieties. FL Hemp Growers Assn can probably direct you to folks who are producing clonesā¦ theyāre essentially just rooted cuttings taken from a āmother plantā.
We grew several of the clone varieties in the list - Cherry Cherry, Trump(T-1), BaOx, Stout, Sweetened. (We also grew RX-Cherry, Cherry Citrus, and Otto II)
That would be awesome if I could do clones, thanks. I need to do a lot more research.
I bought some 22% THC flower from the medical clinic maybe Iāll buy that tCheck 2 too try it out on a couple different flower. I bought some homegrown CBD from a distributor the other day for the first time he sold me some 6-month-old stuff at a discount at $10 an ounce I made some tincher out of it but I have no clue what percent it is. I guessed it was around 12% when making the tincture but that tCheck 2 should be able to show that as well. If it doesnāt check close to what the container say Iāll just send it back.
Come to think about it before I spend a lot of time and effort I might be better off looking for local farmers who might be selling it at a lower cost than the storefronts. I would rather see the extra money go to the farmers at least.
If Florida regulations are anything like Kentuckyās, the grower canāt legally sell it to youā¦ only to a licensed processor.