(Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com).
Greg Garrison reports for al.com
One of the first industrial hemp fields planted in Alabama in mid-May, just below Chandler Mountain in St. Clair County, has an herbal scent, almost like a hint of basil.
Its neat rows of mostly thriving plants range from two feet to four feet tall. They appear almost jolly.
“It looks like a field of 3-foot-tall Christmas trees,” said Ed Glaze, who oversaw the planting of the crop. “They look very cute.”
Fran Summerlin, owns the former horse farm that now has a five-acre hemp field, walks through the rows with her dogs, Zella and Zeke. Deer prints are evident in the dirt between the plants, but there’s no evidence that they’ve eaten any of the leaves.
“Deer don’t like hemp,” Glaze said. “We can’t see where they have eaten anything.”
Nor have bugs noticeably bothered the plants. No pesticides are allowed on the hemp.
“We’ve had no issues with pests,” Summerlin said.
The hemp farmers are more than halfway through the growing season for the first legal crop of industrial hemp, which looks like marijuana but is a species of cannabis that lacks anything but the tiniest trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive ingredient that gets people high.
They are farming hemp for CBD oil, or cannabidiol, which is purported to have a variety of positive health effects and is now widely legal.
Glaze and Summerlin are learning to grow their first crop. Many of the farmers across the state who have been licensed to grow hemp are experienced at growing cotton, soybean and other crops.
“We’ve got some really good farmers in the program that we know can grow anything,” said Alabama Department of Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate.
“I think people seem pretty pleased,” Pate said. “Most of them think they’ll have a crop. There are smart people hoping they can make a little money. With CBD oil taking off, there are plenty of people wanting to buy it.”
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