Introduction - Suggestions for First-Time Hemp Farmer

Hi All,

New member of the Future4200 community. I hope this post doesn’t violate any rules or principles of this site. My family has grown hemp this year for the first time. We are long time dairy and grain farmers in Ohio and grew under 2 acres outdoors in Ohio. The strains we grew were Topaz and Canadian dream. It tested under the acceptable thc limit so we’ve harvested, dried and bucked it all. Still finishing the bud trimming process and getting everything weighed but we’ll likely have 200-300 lbs of flower, 400-600 lbs of biomass and a bunch of kief.

Looking for any existing posts that provide any strategy suggestions for how to maximize profit on the different types of products we have:

  • Hemp Flower (optimally we get good CoA back and just sell in bulk)

  • Biomass (based on flower CoA probably try to process into distallate or oil of some kind)

  • Kief (no idea what to do with this or value of this)

  • Hemp Stalks (after bucking, any value to package and sell for fiber?) - assuming these are worthless

Ohio law does not allow us to process ourself (though we’d like to do that next year). We’ve been contacting a lot of labs in Michigan and Kentucky to get info on cost to get CoA. I’m guessing a lot of suggestions will depend on CoA of the buds, but any feedback or past posts on beginning hemp harvest would be helpful as we finish the bud trimming and get the CoA back. I know we’ll need the hemp CoA sent in to get verified as hemp slanger and won’t try to sell anything on here til we go through that process. For now just looking for big-picture strategy and any other best practices and feedback from the hemp veterans.

We’d like to stay safe and just need a decent profit this year and then would like to expand how much we grow next year. We farm multiple hundred acres of crops so we can expand pretty quickly if this year’s crop works out.

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I’d focus on getting that COA firstly to see if you can even sell the flower as smokable, and machine trim and hand touch up up the flower with care (after you get the COA of course).

Don’t sell lbs with smalls and shake in the bag, there’s too much competition nobody’s going to want to buy that a second time. It’s a buyers market unfortunately for the farmer. quality is key. Don’t rush the trimming and curing of the flower

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Thanks Shattertramp. Yes we are working to find best CoA for the money as that will inform what we do next. Doing initial trimming with machine so there’s no shake in with our buds.

Are you suggesting we remove the smallest buds and throw it in with the biomass?

The stems have no market value, but fwiw if you pile them and let them rot in one spot over the winter, that piece of ground will be nicely fertilized for next year.

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That’s a great suggestion. Do you cut them up at all or leave the whole stocks and they’ll rot enough to help fertilize over a single winter & spring?

Do you have a way to sell your product? Most farmers go to market with no outlet to sell their product for money.

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We’ve got some contacts in Oklahoma and Colorado but nothing set in stone.

Making those connections early is very important. Too many hard-working farmers got stuck with no way to sell their product and had to deal with brokers SHUDDER for bottom dollar.

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Probably grinding them would be best if you had the grinder, but I just piled mine. I think the nutrients leach off of whole stems over time, which is different than traditional composting to decompose the biomass.

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In my opinion it would be a good idea to remove the smallest buds with chicken wire over a tote, sell smalls separately or make pre rolls to sell.

As someone who buys hemp flower to sell prepackaged 1/8ths smalls and shake in the lb is always a turn off

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That’s a great idea, thank you. Based on results of CoA we will likely do that.

I hear what you are saying, but fwiw I am more likely to cut larger buds into smaller buds to make sure there is no mold or bugs inside of them. All sorts of random stuff shows up in them sometimes, from bug poop to bird poop, sometimes a feather or two. I would rather sell smaller buds than give someone a gross surprise.

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Very true, also if the bud is over 3.5 somebody’s gonna have to cut it down before it goes in the bag anyways.
I’m more talking about the small smalls, like pea size and slightly larger.

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