# Yes!!!



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

With corn, beans and hay prices in the dumper, I've been looking for an alternative crop. What do you think?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-hemp-legalized-in-illinois-20181226-story.html

Ralph


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I think they will flood the market and it won’t be any more profitable then anything else


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Hemp is grown here now....and it is a lot of work. Surprisingly similar to growing tobacco. And yes, supply will soon outpace demand.

Regards, Mike


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

It sounds like they are going to make farmers jump through a lot of hoops just to grow the stuff; makes me wonder if it is even going to be worth the effort. Leave to government to take out all the profit out of growing the stuff.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

I was approached about growing it last year. I ran the numbers and basically the seed company was going to charge me around 300 per acre to expand their seedstocks. They were the only market in my area. Count me out. Feels like another alpaca or beefalo thing.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

hillside hay said:


> I was approached about growing it last year. I ran the numbers and basically the seed company was going to charge me around 300 per acre to expand their seedstocks. They were the only market in my area. Count me out. Feels like another alpaca or beefalo thing.


You forgot Artichokes.First few made money and was sold for seed for the next group.There is a book wrote about it.Happened in the 80's near here.Basicaly a scam,I think 30M was lost by farmers that jumped into it.


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Just read that article about the artichokes in the last Agweek. I found it rather interesting as Dad talks about it and also about a neighbor that lost his farm as a result of seeding artichokes and the high interest rates at the time. I may have to look for that book, think I'd find it interesting.

https://agweek.com/business/agriculture/4546807-1980s-farm-crisis-origins-myths-and-realities-jerusalem-artichoke


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

IHCman said:


> Just read that article about the artichokes in the last Agweek. I found it rather interesting as Dad talks about it and also about a neighbor that lost his farm as a result of seeding artichokes and the high interest rates at the time. I may have to look for that book, think I'd find it interesting.
> 
> https://agweek.com/business/agriculture/4546807-1980s-farm-crisis-origins-myths-and-realities-jerusalem-artichoke


They sold it as if you grow them someone will build a plant to process them in to bunch of different things.No plants existed and none were built.First few that planted some got Pd big bucks for them and they were resold as seed.Many of the first ones planted more acres because they made a lot on a few acres.IIRc seed was 800 per acre,It was like planting potatos.planting the tubers.

A banker and his farmer friend got dupped big time planted 320 acres of them.Didnt sell any crops off the farm for 2 yrs.They were never harvested,the 2 Nd yr they volunteered from the tubers left in the ground.Deer hunted in the field was mess.

Had a neighbor that thought it was great and went to work for them selling them he lost his farm.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> They sold it as if you grow them someone will build a plant to process them in to bunch of different things.No plants existed and none were built.First few that planted some got Pd big bucks for them and they were resold as seed.Many of the first ones planted more acres because they made a lot on a few acres.IIRc seed was 800 per acre,It was like planting potatos.planting the tubers.
> 
> A banker and his farmer friend got dupped big time planted 320 acres of them.Didnt sell any crops off the farm for 2 yrs.They were never harvested,the 2 Nd yr they volunteered from the tubers left in the ground.Deer hunted in the field was mess.
> 
> Had a neighbor that thought it was great and went to work for them selling them he lost his farm.


I'm guessing that's where that 10*10 artichoke plot by the machinery she'd came from. I'd never heard the whole story about them. Interesting stuff. I was just a crumbsnatcher in the late 70s.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

hillside hay said:


> I'm guessing that's where that 10*10 artichoke plot by the machinery she'd came from. I'd never heard the whole story about them. Interesting stuff. I was just a crumbsnatcher in the late 70s.


This happened here in the 80's in middle of farm crisis.Some jumped at it in desperation to save the farm and ended up breaking them.

Just heard about a friend of a friend loosing everything.He jumped into hemp in a big way and still has no market for it.He baledit up but no one to process it.2 yrs of crop.A few hundred acres.Pd big bucks for the seed.The straw that broke the camels back after buying some land at the peak and loosing his shirt on some cattle.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Seems that's the same business model. They are touting it as the way to be small farm profitable in my area. I would want to see a fiber processing plant before I ever consider it. I do have a rope factory 8 miles away. They buy their fiber all processed already.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Yep sadly lots of this sort of thing.

Crawdad farming was going to make everybody rich here, too... had a big crawdad farm over in Garwood about halfway to Shiner; lotta work and they operated about 10 years and folded up shop. Now it's just a poor swampy cow pasture.

Shrimp and tilapia 'aquaculture' farming was also a big thing... nothing ever came of it.

Kenaf for cotton substitute... they farted with it a few years and abandoned it.

Dad grew guar beans when I was a kid one year, when he got a good contract for them... bout like soybeans, but they use them for book binding glue. They never offered any more contracts though after that, so back to sorghum and cotton.

I read a big thing several years ago about some big research project they were doing to perfect "on the farm" ethanol production via sweet sorghum production-- plant it like grain sorghum, harvest it with a modified pull-type silage chopper designed to cut the stalks, strip the leaves, crush the stems, extract the sap, and blow the shredded stalks back onto the field. Pump the juice into a pull-type tank or tank on the machine. The main sticking point was they needed to develop the right kind of yeasts from wild yeasts, that could ferment the stuff in tanks dropped on the farm turn rows WITHOUT the highly controlled environment (temperature, etc) of a brewery. Just pump the juice out of the harvester tank into the bulk tank, dump in the yeast slurry, seal the top hatch of the tank, and walk away. Let the yeasts do their thing at the prevailing temperature/conditions for a few months. Later you'd bring in a portable "still" that would be built on a trailer, powered by a large engine, that would pump the fermented juice out of the tank, filter it, boil it, extract the alcohol, pump it into a smaller bulk tank for pickup by a semi, and dump the waste water overboard... That machine was going to be the expensive bit of the whole operation, but the researchers envisioned a "processor" or "co-op" of farmers going together to own and operate the machine to process the ethanol from the bulk fermenting tanks. A semi would come suck out the alcohol bulk tank when it was done, and mail the farmer a check.

Course, that's been YEARS ago and I've not heard a peep since, so I guess chalk that one up for another non-starter...

Later! OL J R


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

luke strawwalker said:


> Shrimp and tilapia 'aquaculture' farming was also a big thing... nothing ever came of it.
> 
> Later! OL J R


There was Talapia grown here for awhile.It went under yrs ago.i bought some at the grocery store.No wonder it went broke,tasted terrrible.Sure wasn't a walleye.

Now they have started growing shrimp,building " harbors".The plan is to build a few of them at 100? Million each.They ran into delays with permits with Mn EPA so the moved the first project to SD.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

The Wyoming Department of Corrections tried Tilapia here as well; set the program up at the women's center. That program only lasted a couple years; from what I understand they sold some fish to someone in the Denver area and never got paid.


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