Hemp Guide - 2022 - 17

ORGANIC
Companion
Sub-Zero
and cover crops
are planted to help boost
biodiversity on the farm.
Photos: NuuMe Organics
WATER MANAGEMENT
Subsurface drip irrigation is used on
the farm. Rice recommends keeping
drip lines flushed on a regular basis to
avoid having them get plugged. The
farm previously used water sensors
buried down in the soil but Rice says
the system resulted with the crop
being overwatered.
" Hemp is very sensitive to that,
especially in the later stages, " he
says. " It really likes to kind of dry
out as it gets through the end of
flowering. I think it's because it's a
riparian plant and it evolved growing
next to rivers. The rivers get high
in the spring and then they're much
lower in the fall and I think it really
likes that. It really likes to dry out a
bit and [that] makes the roots reach
and expand. "
Rice notes that the year they
ended up overwatering with the
sensors, the crop experienced a
potassium deficiency despite cutting
off watering about six weeks before
harvest. He believes it was due to
how much water was in the soil
column from the overwatering.
" For us, we have tons of potassium
in our soil and we add some calcium
in the form of gypsum. Then we also
Extracts uses
organic ethanol to
produce high quality
hemp extract products.
apply some sulfur to free up calcium
in the soil, but even though our soil
has way more potassium than the
plants would ever want, we still
ended up with that severe potassium
deficiency just due to a little bit too
much water in the soil, " says Rice.
PEST PRESSURE
The only pest the farm has had
to contend with is various types of
borers. Diligence when scouting has
been important as " there doesn't
seem to be any natural predator, at
least in this area, that goes after
that, " says Rice.
The Eurasian hemp borer and
European hemp borer are two
common pests in cannabis sativa
L. in the eastern part of the state,
according to Colorado State
University. The Eurasian hemp borer is
the caterpillar stage of a small moth
that tunnels into stems and buds. The
European corn borer is larger than the
Eurasian hemp borer but tends to stay
away from bud and seed developing
parts of the plant.
Rice says the variety of crops
planted within the hemp fields feeds
into NuuMe's pest management
strategy.
" We find [that]
when it's not a
monocrop, when
there's a diversity of
different plants, we have a
natural population of beneficial
insects, " he says. " The ecosystem of
insects keeps itself in check because
it's allowed to grow and evolve in a
varied set of plants. "
As a pioneer in the hemp industry,
NuuMe Organics has been around
long enough to watch the industry
evolve - from trending products and
consumer demand to the types of
players entering the game.
" When it was more of a legal gray
area you had to really care about
what you were doing to get into it
and take that risk, " says Rice. " As
time went on, and especially when
the Farm Bill was passed and went
into effect, it was just a lot more of
big money interests trying to go for
the gold rush. That kind of diluted or
polluted the culture to some degree. "
" There's been a lot of consolidation
over the past year to two years. At
this point it's either some of the big
money that's actually done it right and
hung in through the storm ... and the
smaller people that really, really care
about what they're doing and have
also been able to, luckily, weather
the storm and have a good enough
customer base of people that keep
coming back and keep spreading the
word. That's what we've been lucky
with. " HPN
2022 GUIDE TO HEMP PRODUCTION | 17
Hemp Guide - 2022

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