Source: wate.com
CROSSVILLE (WATE) – A few farmers across the state are finally getting the chance to grow a new crop. Tennessee began accepting applications earlier this year for anyone interested in growing industrial hemp for research.
Hemp, while often mistakenly associated with marijuana, is in the cannabis family, but has a significantly lower content of THC. Instead, it’s mostly used for things like fabrics or textiles. Licenses have been granted to people in at least six East Tennessee counties, and the seeds are just now starting to come in from Canada.
The Davis family is one of the first to get the seeds and they started planting them Wednesday.
“Really it’s just like planting any other garden,” said Bryant Davis.
The Davises have been farming their whole lives, but hemp is a first.
“We’re learning as we’re going,” said Sandy Davis.
The Tennessee Department of Agriculture said it got the first shipment of hemp seeds in last week, but there are several shipments still to come, so the Davis family is one of the very first to start planting.
“We’ve planted corn and potatoes and beans and things like that before so we thought we could carry the same approach into this and hopefully we would have a good yield and a good outcome just based on previous success,” Bryant Davis said.
They took a different approach to the process. Instead of spreading the seeds in a field, they planted them in rows like a garden.
The Davises said it will take 90 to 100 days for the plants to grow.
Once the plants are ready to be harvested, each producer gets to decide what to do with the hemp. Part of the deal to get a license was to report what’s done with it to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, and keep record of their production and marketing information.
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