Organic grow plan for licensed industrial hemp farms

Today, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture began mailing out over 2,700 industrial hemp grower licenses for the 2019 grow season. If the record number is any indication, it could be the start of something big in Tennessee.

We are already getting lots of calls from farmers looking for buyers of flower and biomass. One of the requirements many buyers, including our business, will want is organically grown with no evidence of pesticides or other banned inputs in organically grown hemp.

One mistaken use or exposure to a banned input could render all your hard work unusable for certain buyers or the consumer, so we created a working draft of an Organic Grow Plan for licensed industrial hemp growers that outlines a few relevant National Organic Program standards used to certify a crop as organic by the USDA. It is not a full exhaustive plan and are not requirements, but it can be a great guidance to ensure quality and get you on your way to certifying your hemp as organic.

Half Hill Farm was the first certified organic farm to grow industrial hemp in Tennessee. We are a licensed grower, processor and permitted manufacturer that makes quality CBD hemp oils and other products. We are currently partnered with an indoor grow and building a CO2 extraction and testing lab at our Woodbury, TN facility. We are one of many retailers and manufacturers who will want quality Tennessee grown flower and biomass for our stores and products and hope this document can help ensure your product passes quality testing.

Collaboration: If you are a certified organic grower of hemp, or use organic practices you feel need to be added to this document, please leave a comment with the addition or contact us directly. If you have favorite organic products you use that you’d like shared, or have questions, add them in comments. We’ll edit changes into the document. We want this document to be open sourced and available to everyone. If you are one of the many new hemp growers in Tennessee, congratulations and we hope the very best for your farm’s new direction!

The birds of Half Hill Farm

Right before it rained yesterday, we set up the two 16 family Purple Martin houses in the orchard. With any luck we’ll get a few to hang around with us this year. The birds of Half Hill Farm will eat literally thousands of insects a day this year, far more than we can kill with pesticides. They won’t catch everything, but birds play an important part in the balance of life on the farm.

Besides the Purple Martins we hope to host, we also have four bluebird boxes, but there are other birds I’ve noticed working the property.

  • Northern Flicker: There are about 20 of these beautiful woodpeckers feeding on ants and beetles in the grass. As you walk through the property, you can see their yellow undersides and distinct white spot on its tail as the fly ahead of you.
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler: several were here in February appearing to eat juniper berries.
  • Cedar Waxwing: These are beautifully colored birds that ate lots of juniper berries in late January and early February.
  • Wild Turkey: We’ve seen a flock with as many as 30 slowly walk through the property. Like the Crows and Bluejays, I don’t know if they’re up to any good.
  • Eastern Phoebe: These cute little birds do acrobats and live under the deck on a diet of a few hundred flies a day.
  • White-breasted Nuthatch: We think it likes a piece of cardboard in the compost pile, but it’s the only one we’ve seen. It can walk on the underside of things.

Purple Martins are nature’s bug zappers

purple martin housePart of our organic farm’s integrated pest management plan calls for the use of hosted beneficial birds as natural predators. Earlier this week I asked a couple of friends and folks at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) for some advice and was reminded about the amazing Purple Martin.

Growing up in the South, I remember Purple Martin houses on several farms. I never really thought there was a functional reason for hosting them, and later was convinced all they ate were mosquitoes.

I was wrong. State Zoologist David Withers sent me this great one pager from the Purple Martin Conservation Association that basically tells me the Purple Martin is one of nature’s best bug zappers. Check out TWRA’s wonderful online resource on common birds and how to host them.

Even if you are not an organic farmer, hosting Purple Martins can dramatically help reduce any flying insect pest on your property while reducing the use of chemical sprays and inviting a little of nature’s perfect aesthetic back to your home life.

We got two 16 family houses, both made in America, at our local Tractor Supply Company (photo: Vince snaps a Purple Martin house together). We’re using cut cedar posts from the property and will open the houses March 31 or as close to the time we begin seeing younger Purple Martins.

Here are a few points we’ve learned through some voracious reading over the past couple of snow days:

  • Purple Martins overwinter in Brazil and return year after year to the same nesting location.
  • They live exclusively in human made housing (East of the Rocky Mountains)
  • Houses must be over 10 feet off the ground, a minimum of 30 feet from a human dwelling (120 feet maximum), about 45 feet from any tree or bush and have nothing touching the pole, including support wires. Nothing around the housing can be taller.
  • Entry holes must be a specific dimension or competing birds become a problem (3 inches wide and 1 3/16 tall).
  • Purple Martins prefer white colored housing.
  • To attract a colony you must open the house when last year’s young return – 3 weeks after the first adults arrive. In Tennessee, adults arrive March 1-15. Adults will also colonize, but you must be persistent to scare off competing birds.
  • Purple Martins diet includes “dragonflies, damselflies, flies, midges, mayflies, stinkbugs, leafhoppers, Japanese beetles, June bugs, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, cicadas, bees, wasps, flying ants, and ballooning spiders.”
  • Once hatched, Purple martins develop in about 30 days.
  • You can handle the chicks to manage the nests – parents do not mind human handling or scent.