It’s hemp planting season again and University of Kentucky agronomists hope the state’s second crop of research will yield far more data than the first.
Think of it as Kentucky Hemp: Part II. And like a lot of sequels, this one promises bigger and better results.
"Our work last year was rather limited in scope, so the information gleaned from that was very limited," says UK agronomist David Williams.
This year the university’s plot will grow to 30 acres in 2015, a roughly 300-fold increase. Also expanding – the number and variety of the studies.
"We have a funded study with Sundstrand Corporation, very important work with fiber production and processing. [We] can't wait to get going on that," he says. "We have another very important study funded by CannaVest to investigate the best production practices for the cannabinoids, so that's very exciting."
But companies eager to get Kentucky hemp-based products to market still have a wait ahead of them. As industrial hemp program coordinator for the state Doris Hamilton notes, all growers currently operate under a Memo of Understanding with the Department of Agriculture that bars commercial production of the plant.
"It would take federal legislation to change that," she says. "So until federal legislation passes we are in a research phase."
Still, the phase is far from a holding pattern, as the numbers show. The program debuted in 2014 with just over a dozen modest pilot projects across the state. This year, that number stands at 121.
