Western US Farmers Scramble to Harvest Hemp as Early Snow Sets In

Early-season stormy weather is threatening to ruin the hemp fields in the Western states, and this risk has prompted farmers to scramble to harvest as much of their hemp crop as they can before about 50 inches of snow are dumped on their fields.

Jamie Fitterer, the proprietor of Montana Hemp Co., says that farmers around Montana are “freaking out” and are in triage doing whatever they can to salvage their best hemp plants.

He goes on to say that he and other farmers in Montana had embarked on harvesting their hemp and preparing the outdoor drying areas where the plants would be spread. However, when the weather forecast on Wednesday predicted stormy weather in the coming days, these farmers immediately switched to removing the hemp from the fields and piling it in dry, sheltered areas.

Fitterer says that farmers have had to hire all the help that they can get in addition to calling on volunteers to help them to get the hemp out of the fields. However, one huge challenge that these farmers are facing is that the available storage spaces on the farms are full and yet more plants are still in the fields.

This lack of storage space means that farmers are faced with the prospect of losing part of their harvest due to their inability to find where to keep it during the snowy weather.

In Oregon, industrial hemp farmers are more concerned about the low temperatures than they are about the snow.

Farmers in Central Oregon are particularly worried because they have been struggling with mold as a result of the heavy rain that fell during this planting season. They therefore worry that if temperatures drop to the 20s that have been predicted, the mold and disease problem could get worse.

The prospect of inches of snow on their fields isn’t worrying these Oregon farmers because they are confident that within a week, all that snow will be gone and their plants will continue to mature.

All the same, farmers in Oregon are harvesting as much of the uppermost parts of the hemp flowers in their fields as possible in order to save this CBD-rich portion of their plants.

Nevertheless, not all farmers are unhappy that storm weather is setting in earlier than expected. One such farmer is Kim Phillips who grows hemp in Helena, Montana. She is experimenting on a plot of about three-quarters of an acre, and she has decided to leave her plants out in the snow in order to document how they fare after that bout of bad weather.

The way things are, this first year of growing hemp in the Western states of the country is turning out to be a real roller coaster. It is widely believed that analysts and industry actors like Geyser Brands Inc. (TSX.V: GYSR) and Green Hygienics Holdings Inc. (OTCQB: GRYN) see these challenges as a way to sort the farmers who are in the business for the long-term and those who just wanted to make a quick buck.

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