On this week's Good Growing podcast, we talk with Phillip Alberti, commercial ag educator and one of Illinois' leading hemp experts. Now that hemp is legal to grow in Illinois we have some questions about what we're seeing in the farm fields and hearing about in the news. Growing hemp comes with lots of oversight, investment, and risk!

Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/RRiCa9ySTRE

3:19 What is hemp? Cannabis? Marijuana? Is this all the same? What is being grown here in Illinois?

7:02 Is it common for a hemp plant to start producing more THC?

8:04 Is growing hemp similar to growing marijuana?

9:04 Is hemp only grown for CBD? What else can you do with hemp?

12:30 How is hemp grown? What are the inputs?

16:04 Does a hemp field need to be inspected?

18:02 What happens if the field develops too high of THC?

19:57 Does Illinois use the USDA threshold for THC delta-9 when growing hemp?

21:11 The word is farmers are spraying their hemp with delta-8. What is that? Is it legal?

25:17 What causes THC to increase in hemp?

27:49 How do you harvest hemp? Who is the buyer?

32:54 Can someone process their own hemp for CBD?

35:29 There are so many wild claims about CBD. Is CBD regulated? How do you know you’re getting what’s listed when buying CBD.

41:33 It seems like the novelty of growing hemp may have worn off in Illinois. Is there still much interest among farmers to grow hemp in Illinois?

44:30 Can you grow hemp in a backyard? What are the base requirements?

46:27 Can hemp be covered under crop insurance?

47:27 Does hemp have any pests?

49:55 What should I do if I find a hemp/marijuana-looking plant in nature?

Check out the Good Growing Blog https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing

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Any products mentioned during the podcast are in no way a promotion of these products.