Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
UNH Biology student, Ryan Spelman ’20, follows HB 1658 relative to the growth of hemp (part of the 2020 legislative calendar).
University of New Hampshire students explore the science behind the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House.
From UNH Cooperative Extension, this is Relative to New Hampshire.
Step into the classroom and listen in while a group of UNH students explore the underlying aspects of current issues under consideration at New Hampshire's State House. We pick apart those issues and connect with experts. All to share with you, insights from our scientific community that enhance our understanding of the biological world right here in New Hampshire, home of the greatest democracy in the world.
Anna: I’m your moderator, Dr. Anna Kate Wallingford and I’m diving into the archives to share with you the work of last year’s class of science liaisons…well Extension’s first class of science liaisons actually, from the spring of 2020. This remains a rather experimental project but it was really unclear what we were up to last year. All I had planned was to send my two brave volunteers up to Concord to sit in on some public hearings, take notes, and report back what they learned, maybe make some connections between members of the UNH community and the legislature. I wasn’t really sure…but the pandemic changed our plans and we were relegated to zoom meetings only. This ended up being quite the boon for us as it was a little easier to schedule and record interviews with the folks we wanted to talk to.
I was blown away by how bright and resilient Ryan and Patrick were through this – UNH students generally blow me away - and I’ll be playing their final projects, including this interview that Ryan conducted last year with Dr. Cheryl Smith, emerita professor of Plant Pathology from UNH’s department of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems, and Extension’s Plant Diagnostic Lab Director.
I will start out with a little clarification, as I’ve heard from a few folks that the 2018 Farm Bill made it legal to grow hemp in the U.S. However, this bill actually just directed USDA to establish a national regulatory framework for hemp production in the United States. It was the responsibility of each state to figure out the details on how to regulate the production of hemp, including a testing protocol to ensure that THC content was below some allowable threshold. Many states created these programs but New Hampshire had no such program and therefore it was not legal to grow hemp in the state. I’ve included a link in the show notes, if you’d like to learn more about this and I’ll let Ryan take it from here…
Ryan: Hi, my name is Ryan Spellman and I'm an undergraduate biology student at UNH and I have been working alongside our UNH extension specialist in IPM and entomology and Anna Wallingford, as well as alongside Patrick Kaplan, another undergraduate biology student at UNH.
The purpose of our project is to discuss the biological implications of some of the bills crossing the floor at the New Hampshire general court and provide information from state experts on these biological matters. Today, I wanted to focus on the House Bill 1658, which as it was proposed was intended to enact the establishment and administration to regulate the growing processing, testing and marketing of hemp in the state of New Hampshire. Not only does this bill outline the guidelines, which pertained to allowable THC limits pesticide usage and testing procedures for these things, but also provides penalties and action plans for the failure to meet these state regulations. While this bill did not eventually pass this year, I believe this podcast can serve as an educational resource for further hemp bills that may cross the general floor, as well as a New Hampshire state program, if it is proposed again.
Before we begin, I would like to clarify what I'm talking about when I'm referring to THC regulation in hemp. Now hemp is in this species Cannabis sativa, a species which also contains the marijuana plant. Although hemp and marijuana are the same species, what differentiates the two is their tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC content. THC is the main psychoactive compound in marijuana and is a schedule one drug. Thus, in order to be hemp, the plant must contain less than 0.3% THC. Hemp is grown instead for its cannabidiol content or CBD rather than its THC content. CBD is known to be non psychoactive and is used medicine medicinally for its auto inflammatory and neuroprotective properties. Now because hemp is not technically different, a different species than marijuana, there are many considerations which go into creating a hemp product that is less than 0.3% THC.
Anna: Another note from me, although folks do grow hemp for a couple other purposes around the world, the northeast market primarily focuses on the growth of hemp flowers. This is a rather high unput, high value crop, and the cannabidiol that Ryan mentions, it’s extracted from hemp using solvents like oils and alcohols to produce CBD products. This is much different than a crop that’s grown for seed, and lightyears different than a crop that’s grown for fiber. Hemp seed (aka hemp hearts) and fiber crops tend to be lower input and more like an agronomic crop than a horticultural crop…so like the difference between growing a tomato versus wheat versus cotton. These commodities all require really different processing and handling. This is all to say that there is very little market for hemp hearts in the northeast and virtually no market for hemp fiber. There’s just currently no infrastructure to support this in our region. All right. Back to Ryan.
Ryan: So for today's discussion, I would like to focus not only on what goes into growing a hemp product that is low in THC here in New Hampshire, and the considerations a grower might need to take to stay within those THC regulations, but also the current state of pesticide usage on and the testing for those pesticide residues. We will also give a quick overview of how a grower might currently register to grow hemp in the state through the current federal program. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our guest today the state plant health specialist and director of the UNH plant diagnostic lab, Cheryl Smith. Welcome Cheryl. And thanks for coming in to speak to me today.
Cheryl: Hello there. I'm Cheryl Smith. I'm the extension plant health specialist and also the director of the plant diagnostic lab and sort of the unofficial or de facto hemp specialist because of my interest in hemp and helping growers who are interested in help in in growing hemp.
Ryan: How might growers go about registering on through the USDA domestic hemp program? And what might they need to know about registering through that and, and why would it be different than registering through a New Hampshire program?
Cheryl: A couple things. First, the hemp bill, House Bill 459. A legislative study committee, actually signed off by the governor last year, was to look at and see about the practicality the viability of having a hemp program in New Hampshire. The one sticking point that made it really seem like that wasn't a viable thing to do in New Hampshire, was the number of potential growers versus the cost of running a program in New Hampshire. There weren't enough, a large enough number of growers, interested or who had expressed interest in growing in New Hampshire, to justify the cost of starting that kind of program in New Hampshire. So therefore, the recommendations from the committee was not to have a program in New Hampshire and to look at it, you know, say for instance, a year out after seeing how many people signed up for the federal program as to whether or not that was viable in in in New Hampshire.
We’ve posted some things - we meaning extension - I wrote this in conjunction, or in cooperation with Jennifer Cornett, who is head of the regulatory services director regulatory service for the New Hampshire Department of Ag markets and food. In that article you can find links for questions about the hemp program that takes you to the federal hemp program on that there's also a link for commercial growers. The application is fairly simple to fill out. What they do have to do, is they have to get an FBI record and they get that sent in the USDA hemp program. That takes within six to eight weeks, maybe a little bit longer now given the situation and probably reduction in staffing, etc. They would review those applications, and once approved, they also have to go in and register with their Farm Service Agency as to where that field is located GPS coordinate sides of the fields, etc. This is so that from a federal regulatory standpoint, they know where that that field is. To the best of my knowledge, I think right now, probably as of the end of February, we had three permitted growers in New Hampshire that have been permitted under the federal program. I know there are a few people who expressed interest in applying but whether or not they've done so yet, I don't, I don't know.
Things that haven't been worked out quite yet is there will be a requirement to have that crop tested to make sure that the THC - the active part, the part that’s considered a schedule one drug - if the THC goes above 0.3. That has to be tested. And under the federal program, that testing has to be done by an EPA approved lab. And the reason for that is because it's a schedule one drug if it goes over point three. So if the crop is hot, and it goes over point three, it has to be done by a lab that can test that schedule one drug, right. Okay. So it has to be an EPA approved lab, and our closest lab talking with Jennifer is in New York. So exactly how that testing is going to happen with our New Hampshire growers has not been finalized yet. In all likelihood, someone from our State Department of Ag may go collect the samples from the grower and then the grower will pay to have those sent or the state will pay to have them sent to the testing lab in New York. But that hasn't been finalized yet with that process will be.
Ryan: So the discussion of this THC testing procedure is actually a good segue into my next question. So as you mentioned that there's a federal limit of 0.3% in your hemp product, 0.3% THC. As I did a little bit of research on this 0.3% THC limit, I found that there's a lot of complexity to attaining a low THC content plant. And it seems like there's a lot of genetic considerations as well as management practices on the grower side that can affect this level. Taking into consideration the current research on this topic. What might a grower need to do to mitigate the risk of overshooting or letting their field go hot with THC level?
Cheryl: Well, Larry Smart and his graduate student at Cornell University, just did a study and they were looking at some of that. You know, genetics versus cultural growing conditions that affect the THC levels. What they actually ended up finding out was that it's really all to do with the genetics and not so much to do with how the crop is grown. There's been thoughts in the past that stress, drought, etc, can raise or lower the THC level? The work that they did looking at different strains or clones -we might think of them as cultivars or varieties - but they're kind of really looking at strains. What they found through the Cornell research was that the major reason the plants go hot - have too high THC content - is really all to do with genetics. They found that genetics really is the major reason why the crops go hot. They can either have two genes for THC production, two genes for CBD production, or one gene of each. What came down to is that, really the genetics and looking for plant breeding now in in hemp is going to be really looking for strains or clones that have two CBD producing genes. That it's less likely that they're going to have a high THC content. There's still some chances that that environment can play a role into make it creep up a little bit. But it really looks like the genetics in that is what's driving that high THC likelihood.
North Carolina and Kentucky, those two states have had programs under the 2014 farm bill, which allowed for research for hemp. So they've been testing different strains for a long period of time. As new strains come out, they'll test them over a year, a couple years. If they test high over a period of time, or repeatedly test high, they become a not allowed strain to grow.
There's different times of the year that those THC levels can go up and down. I think some of it depends upon the size of the crop, perhaps a little bit about the stresses, but they know with some of the crops - I was reading some of the stuff out of Kentucky - with some of those clones, they're really recommending that you're harvesting them, you know… you don't let them get to over mature, because then the THC tends to creep up on them.
Ryan: So the the timing of testing is also an important consideration, would you say for like testing laboratories?
Cheryl: Yep. I went to a hemp research conference in October, down in Kentucky, last October. One of the things they're talking about there is that a lot of the growers who have been growing hemp for a while, will tend to pay and have their own testing done. Typically the states or the federal program will test them once the plants go into flower. So if that particular strain tends to flower in August, they'll have to test it in August. Another strains goes into flower in late September, October, they'll test that so each strain gets tested. Its not just one broad tests across the field. If you're growing multiple strains, every strain needs to have a test done.
They found that some of the growers will test periodically during the season to make sure that they're monitoring where the THC level is. And it looks like it's creeping up and it's going to get above that allowable level, they'll harvest early. And if so, ideally, what the federal testing program is looking at and some of the state programs, they're testing the top three to five inches, where the flowers are located. And of course, for CBD content, you're not looking for seeds, you're really looking for the flowers without seeds in them. That’s what they're looking to test for because those are where the glandular hairs are most concentrated. That's where the CBD and THC is going to be most concentrated.
Ryan: Okay, so kind of along the lines of, you know, the support that growers might have for a crop like this… I know a lot of your assignment is to test for plant disease and getting plant disease samples from growers. What is the current situation for you being able to handle and help growers manage disease?
Cheryl: Well, my understanding is that since this is now a federally allowable crop, it is legal to grow in New Hampshire and we do have growers producing that, we can take in samples into the diagnostic lab. We can go out to the field and work with these growers. If the grower has a federal permit - that's the only way you can grow hemp in New Hampshire is with a federal permit - it's considered a legal crop.
We're not regulatory, so I'm not going to be able to test a plant when it comes in, to find out what the THC content is. But if they send me a copy of their federal permit when that sample comes into the lab, then my assumption is that that is a legal crop that they're growing. I'll look at it in terms of diseases that are present on it. That’s the way that a couple of my counterparts in different areas of the country are operating as well. That's the way they do it down in Kentucky and Virginia – I think Vermont too - as long as those growers are state permitted, if they have a state program or federally permitted, if there is no state program, then we can take those samples.
Ryan: So really, a lot of the extension resources will be available, regardless of whether it's a USDA program versus the New Hampshire state program, if it were adopted, that doesn't really change?
Cheryl: Right. One of one of the differences though… if this was a marijuana crop… We do have some medicinal marijuana production, right? We can't do anything with those, because that's a schedule one drug and, and as a federally funded program, we can't take any samples from them.
Ryan: Okay. So that's where the distinction of hemp becomes really important.
Cheryl: Correct.
Ryan: So as I was researching some of this, I found saw some notes about pathogen testing, that that may be a requirement. And for those of you that might not be aware, I'm talking about plant pathogens, plant diseases. I'm assuming the major concern there is that these pathogens might be releasing what we call mycotoxins, or toxins that are toxic to humans when we consume this CBD product. Can you talk a little bit about maybe what that testing would look like on what they're testing for?
Cheryl: Yes, and I think that testing is going to primarily be at the production side. In terms of some commercial testing labs available, I had a conversation back probably in February, early March, with a company that produces test kits and can also do testing. So you can send samples to them for testing. They do test for mycotoxins, they test for particular pathogens. Somebody wants to know, even before powdery mildew is visible: is there powdery mildew on the plants, right? And I think this is aimed at fairly big production when it's going into commercial products. If you have a big commercial processor that is taking a hemp crop in, it's going into some type of medicinal product, and they want to make sure that there's no mycotoxins in that. Or they want to make sure that it's a high quality and that there's no pesticide residues, then there is that kind of testing. But right now, I don't think there's any federal testing that's looking at that.
Ryan: Okay, so the growers in New Hampshire might really need to be on top of their pest management for these diseases, because down the production line, because these are being made into a lot of concentrated processed products, that might become an issue if they're selling a product with a certain amount of pathogen on it.
Cheryl: Right. So if that local producer is going to be vertically integrating their operation. So they're growing, harvesting, drying, processing, and selling an end product, then it's there in product is. As far as I know, there isn't a federal testing program that looks at that end product for any of those types of potential contaminants or problems. But if that grower is selling that crop to a commercial processor, and say, for instance, that processor is getting the oil and selling it again to someone else, or perhaps that processor themselves are developing a commercial product, they may have particular standards that that grower needs to meet. That grower would need to then find out what those standards are from that processor, and then meet those standards, whether or not that's having a testing lab tested or whether or not the processor themselves, gets a sample and then test it. I think that's still yet to be determined. We don't have any processors in New Hampshire, commercial processors.
You know, you had asked a question quite a while back, what are what are some of the risks? So you know, there’s no real risk in terms of there's not a lot of investment in getting a permit, but the real risk comes in investing in a crop. The seeds are expensive. They can be up to $1 or more, depending upon the clone. If you're buying transplants, they can be a couple dollars a transplant up to $4-6 a transplant depending, again, upon clone and who you're getting them from. If the grower themselves don't have a lot of experiencing in growing agricultural crops, that's a learning curve. And if they don't have a processor, how they're going to harvest that? how they're going to dry it in order to keep the crop in good shape? and then what are they going to do with it afterwards?
I forget what the exact average was last year what the percentage was, but crop loss was really high. And some of that was to do with the weather in the fall, when the crop was just coming into maturity. We had awful weather and hurricanes and extended wet weather that a lot of the fields ended up getting damaged or flooded, or lodging of the plants, or they just had a lot of mold on the crop, or they couldn't get it to dry adequately, once they did harvest it, and it molded.
Ryan: I mean hemp is a very high value crop, even in comparison to vegetables, so that is definitely probably going to fuel your disease management and things like that. You're putting a lot of money into this crop.
I guess that gets us into a little bit about I know, I posed a question on disease management, as I was digging around to see, okay, so because this is such a newly regulated crop, a lot of the pesticides that we have for other crops, nothing on the label says they can be used for hemp. I saw that they're updating the list on the EPA of what can be used. And as I was going through that, it seemed to be you know, there were about 20 or so bio pesticides, and only one conventional pesticide. So I was wondering if you could give me a little bit of an explanation of those differences for people who might not know what the differences between bio pesticide and conventional pesticide and then, what might be the limitations of pest management for a crop like hemp?
Cheryl: Well, some of it is, it's such a new crop. A lot of agro chemical companies are companies that are producing natural products that are considered bio pesticides, or some of our synthetic products that are “conventional products.” What we're calling biological products, they might be something that's a natural product, for instance potassium bicarbonate is an natural product that's used to mineral product that's used to control something like powdery mildew. You could have something that's some type of oil based product, it might have a soybean oil in it, or something like that. That is considered a natural product that might be used to control something like aphids or powdery mildew. Then you can have a synthetic chemical that can be produced and used on the crop.
Some of the reasons why we have so few synthetic chemicals: One is because the nature of the of the crop. Similar to medical marijuana, you have something that may be ingested, something that's used for medicine. The tendency is to not go towards conventional or synthetic chemicals, and trying to go to more natural disease and insect control. A lot of the different companies that produce some of these biological - or some people may refer to them as “biorational products” -is because it's considered safer. They have a wider label. Oftentimes, it's said can be used on crops that may not specify what the target pest is.
I think we'll see more coming along on this. There were more companies that were supposed to be registering products with EPA. From a discussion from this conference back in October, many pulled their applications through the EPA review process, because it had taken so long for the interim USDA rule to come out. And it is an interim rule. It's not a final rule. So there will be adjustments to it. I think we'll see more companies probably try and register products for use on hemp. But it's going to be a little bit slow coming.
What that leads to is that there are some products that have good track records for controlling particular pathogens or pests on other crops. They haven't been tested for a long time on hemp. Right? But I think I think we'll see that change. Right now it's those products that have probably been used in, maybe in medical marijuana in enclosed production or shelf, you know, protected culture and also maybe been used on herbs. In terms of edible crops, some of the rules of thumb that are happening in some states is they're looking at it and saying has to be product that's on the target pest, it has to be a product that has a very wide crop post range. Then it's also something might be registered for edible crops. Most of the states look at it this way, if it's on the approved EPA label, EPA list, and it's registered in that state, because not every state has every one of those products registered. So it's got to meet those two things. It has to be on the EPA approved list, and it has to be registered in your state as a pesticide. Okay, before you can use it in that state. So there's things on EPA list that we don't have registered New Hampshire.
Ryan: Okay, so growers really need to do their due diligence to figure out what's allowable in the state.
Cheryl: Right, and some of those pesticide companies may not have yet registered products in New Hampshire because the market is so small, right? There's a cost associated with registering a product in every state. New Hampshire has one of the lowest registration costs, I think it's, I don't know, we'll say it's $110 product. But if you only have three producers in New Hampshire, your payback on that may not be very high. Whereas if you're looking at 1000 producers in North Carolina, it's worthwhile to register those products in North Carolina.
Ryan: Okay. Yeah, I think that's pretty much most of the questions I had for you. Great, okay. Well, thank you for chatting with me. And I'm hoping for those of you that are listening. That conversation with Cheryl Smith was helpful when it comes to making future hemp legislation and just educational altogether.
Relative to New Hampshire is a production of UNH Cooperative Extension, an equal opportunity educator and employer. All music is used by permission or by creative commons licensing. UNH Cooperative Extension is a non-partisan organization, the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of the university, its trustees, or its volunteers. Inclusion or exclusion of commercial enterprises in this podcast does not equate endorsement. The University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Counties, and the US Department of Agriculture cooperative to provide Extension programming in the Granite State. This podcast was made possible by the UNH Extension Internship program - if you’re interested in supporting great work like this for the future, learn more at www.extension.unh.edu/internships.