Sonoma County is banning hemp production!?!?!

[ChefJayTay]

KSRO Article
Why????
Does Sonoma County have a cotton fan club or something? Maybe it's those evil alpaca farmers.
This makes no sense to me.

[SonomaPatientsCoop]

Well... there are a lot of issues to be worked out...

First, the rush for hemp production is for CBD - not fiber or nutritional seeds. Legally to be hemp it must have virtually no THC. But there will be a very big fiancial incentive to produce something with closer to a 1/1 ratio that is preferred by many in states with legal cannabis. I know some other counties have already passed regs that growers must first grow out a portion of crop indoors so it can be tested to insure virtually no THC before it is planted en masse. SoCo has *zero* regulations regarding hemp.

Second- one of the major community complaints about cannabis has been the smell. This will exist with hemp as well, but instead of 10-20k sq ft we will be talking about farms in the tens if not hundreds of acres.

Third- male pollen from hemp plants can travel great distances (I have seen numbers ranging from 1 mle to more then 10). Male pollen can render a recreational or medical cannabis crop worthless. This is an issue that will need to be addressed in some form to prevent farmers from loosing everything, prevent lawsuits- including those against the county, and prevent even greater losses of tax revenue (by now most of us understand that SoCo regulations went so far it blocked pretty much all the small farms that dominated SoCo in years past, resulting in millions less in taxes and fees coming into the couty coffers (not to mention the lost tax revenues from the countless businesses that have seen lower sales since the industry collapsed).

[wisewomn]

SPC, if male hemp seeds cross-pollinate cannabis plants, would the resulting cannabis plants then qualify as hemp plants or would they still have too much THC?

This sounds a lot like the flap over GMO crops cross-pollinating organic crops and rendering them worthless or the Monsanto seeds pollinating regular crops and thereby making them subject to Monsanto's control.

In other words, a big mess.

Well... there are a lot of issues to be worked out...

First, the rush for hemp production is for CBD - not fiber or nutritional seeds. ... SoCo has *zero* regulations regarding hemp.

Second- one of the major community complaints about cannabis has been the smell. ...

Third- male pollen from hemp plants can travel great distances (I have seen numbers ranging from 1 mle to more then 10). Male pollen can render a recreational or medical cannabis crop worthless. ....

[Weiser]

Pollen from male marijuana plants will not ruin a crop of female plants. Of course that depends on the definition of ruin. The fertilized plants will just be less potent.