WeedLife News Network

Over a year after the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill allowing certain institutions to grow hemp, seeds finally went into the ground this summer at Virginia Tech.

ALBANY — The state's first legal hemp crop in more than 70 years is thriving on 30 fertile acres of upstate New York, and demand is building for its seeds and stalks.

The renewed interest in hemp comes as CBD extracts gain popularity even in places where medical marijuana isn't legal.

Every part of the hemp plant has great market value‒the seeds, stalks, leaves and hurd (the woody core of the stalk). Traditionally, Natives used hemp to make medicinal salve, fishing nets and clothing.

Despite its eco-friendly nature, hemp is still not allowed for widespread cultivation in the US; rather only small-scale pilots are allowed in a few states around the country.

A farm in central New York is the first to legally grow hemp in 80 years as part of a new pilot program to explore hemp's industrial use.

Although hemp is illegal at a federal level, 13 states have jumped on board the hemp train, and for good reason.

In Kentucky, the University of Louisville's Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research has started growing industrial hemp in an effort to spur its fuels and manufacturing research.

Though commercial marijuana became legal in Alaska in February 2015, hemp is not yet legal.

Oregon medical marijuana dispensaries have sold an estimated $102 million in recreational cannabis since January, when the state imposed a 25 percent sales tax on pot.

Hemp and marijuana are not the same thing.

Wild marijuana grows in yards, gardens, and weedy industrial sites across the Twin Cities.

Hemp is a low impact, fast-growing and clean plant to produce, and extremely versatile.

A recent change to federal law allowed states to grow test plots of hemp only at university or government sites and Virginia is one 28 that are doing so.

Textile mills in regions such as Western North Carolina lie dormant while Americans import about $500 million worth of hemp annually.

The Delavan facility is working on hundreds of genetic strains, and plants are harvested about five times each year.

Murray State University hosted a Hemp Education and Field Day earlier this month, giving area residents insight on the hemp plots being grown at the university.

A report released in May showed that nationwide, retail sales for hemp products in 2015 reached $575 million, which was a more than 10 percent increase from the prior year.

Kentucky is experimenting with industrial hemp – as dozens of farmers grow test plots covering 45-hundred acres.

Environmental cleanup could be as simple as using natural resources, such as Indian mustard seed, sunflowers and hemp.