Over the last nearly decade the high cannabinoid hemp flower industry has diverged into three main sects. While it is possible for some overlap, the most successful in the industry have found their lanes and stick to them. Read up to explore the current markets in the US and internationally - and some major factors that come into play in each.
1. High-Quality Smokeable Hemp Flower
Growers who pamper their plants from start to finish to produce high end CBD, CBG, and CBDV flower can sell their products for as much, and occasionally more than THC flower. This niche sect of the CBD/Hemp industry is likely the smallest but most profitable for growers who do it correctly. Sales volumes are low so growers who stay small scale often thrive the most. There are folks who just really enjoy smoking very low THC flower for its relaxing or uplifting effects.
To succeed in this sect there are a few important considerations:
Growing Conditions
When the hemp flower craze hit the US, farmers across the nation swapped their crops for the new money maker - without realizing their environment just wasn't right. Cannabis may be called a weed, but to make pretty flowers it is still picky.
- Sun Grown: Cannabis favors dry climates. If you are growing outdoors in an areas with high humidity or rainfall during the final stages of flowering - you may not want to shoot for top shelf flower. It is difficult to pull of mold or other pathogen free harvests in wet climates. Also plenty of sunshine in the plants final days bring out the best flowers. There are plenty of farms located in ideal cannabis growing environments and competition is high.
- Greenhouse Grown: Greenhouses are great option if you are in a moist climate, and there is plenty of greenhouse grown flower that looks like it was grown indoors. That said, you will still need plenty of ventilation to keep plant health. Some commercial growers even use dehumidifiers. Keeping greenhouses cool is also a struggle as temperatures inside frequently rise above outside ambient. Insect predators are also a threat.
- Indoor Grown: Indoor grown hemp fetches the highest price tag but also costs the most to setup and operate. Indoor gardens can also be the most challenging. Insect predators spread rampantly, environmental controls can fail easily, and plants are less forgiving when grown in smaller pots or containers.
Post Harvest
One often overlooked aspect of growing quality smokeable hemp flower is the drying and curing. In the early days of hemp flower, growers packed barns and warehouses with little environmental control other than a few heaters and fans. While keeping the mold at bay was the main objective, plenty of flavor got lost. Hot dried cannabis takes on the flavor of hay.
- Drying: The current hemp flower consumer craves a flower dried with care. Slow drying on stem in a climate controlled room that never gets above 75 degrees is a must. Many growers hang flower for upwards of 10 days in environments of around 60% humidity. This allows the aroma and flavor compounds such as terpenes to remain intact.
- Curing: Growers will often store flower on stem in boxes or bags for weeks before trimming - opening daily to "burp" and flip the flower in containers. Craft growers swear by the technique to bring out the most in their flowers.
- Trimming: Hand trimming is without a doubt the best way to have high dollar flower, but it is also often uneconomical. Unless you have a great crew of incredibly fast trimmers that work by the hour, a gentle machine trim and hand cleanup is the best option for high quality without some of the cost. Do your research on trim machines before jumping in head first as they are not all created equally. Completely machine trimmed flower will almost always end up selling for a low price tag.
Selling Your Flower
Many growers jumped into the hemp industry expecting their flower to sell itself after harvest. This is entirely not the case. Do your homework if you want to make any money.
- Direct to Consumer: The most successful hemp flower farmers are those that have direct to consumer sales. They are able to sell small quantities from grams to ounces which greatly increase the revenue from crops. This also requires a substantial investment into packaging, website design, marketing, and a social media presence, but once again brings in the most money per pound of production.
- CBD Shops: Most CBD shops in the US have switched over to selling THCA flower, but there are a few that still sell low THC products. These require lots of travel and growers often don't get paid, but this market still somewhat exists. Internationally there still seems to be a demand for high quality flower in shops.
- Dispensaries: In adult use cannabis states, hemp growers can jump through hoops to have their flowers sold in dispensaries alongside THC flower. This is a great option, but once again requires lots of leg work and sometimes you just don't get paid as shops often do net 30's or longer.
2. Sprayer Packs: Where Mid and Low Grade Hemp Goes
With the mass proliferation of hemp flower production over the last 6 years - farmers produced tons of low grade CBD flower. A small consumer demand for a product that won't get anyone high led to a serious backlog. Industrious brokers figured out a home for it. Enter sprayer packs.
Post drying and processing, flower is essentially sprayed with psychoactive cannabinoids and sold under the guise of being THC rich, or marketed for whichever cannabinoid it was laced with. Delta 8 THC, Delta 10 THC, and THC-O have been a few of the more popular ones recently. Terpenes are also often introduced back onto flower to give off aromas of traditional THC varieties.
This market is still very much intact and now very open. Hemp growers actively advertise their sprayed flower and consumers can't get enough of it. This is where the majority of hemp flower being grown goes. It is also allowing for the industrious to export hemp flower to areas with strict growing controls where it is treated as regular weed.
While you can definitely get the highest price tag for your material if you do treat it like high grade smokeable flower, it is often done at larger scale with less care. Here are a few considerations for this market:
- Flower Color and Size: Growers often seek out light green colored flower that will not discolor as much after spraying. Purple flowers turn almost black after being sprayed. Large, dense flowers are always ideal not only for resale purposes, but also because they tend to do best in trim machines. This flower sells for prices that don't allow for wholly hand trimmed material.
- Cannabinoid Content: Growing low total THC varieties such as CBG strains allows for flower to travel across Europe unchecked. A flower with 20% Delta 8 THC, and 0.1% total Delta 9 THC is still theoretically legal. Otherwise the CBD/CBG/CBDV content does not matter at all.
- Brokers: Unless you want to spray your own, most of the flower goes through brokers who beat everyone up on price and plow through mass quantities of the flower. It is nice on one hand to be able to unload a few hundred pounds at a time, but the price generally reflects the bulk purchase.
3. High-CBD/CBG/CBDV Biomass for Extraction
While the hemp for biomass market took a severe plunge after record harvests in 2019, prices are finally back on the rise again. Farmers who are still in the industry grow large scale acreage at low costs. Income per acre is relatively small, so the goal is to get as much high content material per acre on as many acres as possible. While the amount of labor spent on plant care is significantly less, the overall work load for sowing, growing, and harvesting hundreds of thousands of plants is still extremely high.
For biomass growers some very important considerations are:
- Genetics: Extractors may have made out like bandits running virtually free material during the glut, they now are feeling the squeeze from higher input costs. Everything from the solvents to extract to the material itself has gone up. They seek out the highest testing material as possible the higher the cannabinoid content, the lower their extraction costs. This makes selecting high cannabinoid producing genetics very important. Biomass material that does not reach 10% is significantly more expensive to extract from than material at 12%.
- Seed Starting: Seed propagation is relatively inexpensive in areas where propagation services are offered, but it still requires a fairly large overhead for millions of plants. Some growers use their own greenhouses or facilities to start their own, but a work force is required to maintain healthy starts. Some farmers have moved to direct sow methods where seeds are planted directly into fields, but this is a very difficult to master skill that often results in crop failure.
- Planting: Even with mechanical planters, such as the wagon wheel planter, it takes many many man hours to plant large scale acreage. This part of the process always requires additional help, so farmers must line up hands prior to planting.
- Rogueing: While it may not be a real word, walking fields for hermaphrodite female plants is a very real expense. From around the 2nd week of flower on, successful biomass farmers send out crews to check fields for any male pollen producers. The inspections carry on for the majority of flower to keep plants from producing seeds. This cost of checking large acreage adds up when each plant needs to be inspected multiple times.
- Harvest: Generally the biggest expense for all hemp growers is harvest season. Whether plants are chopped by hand or mechanically, it takes many hours to plow through acreage. Hand harvest is by far the most expensive, but combines with specialized attachments are a massive expenditure.
- Drying: The amount of space it takes to dry large quantities of cannabis is absurd, so unless you've got warehouses, specialized driers, or can field dry - don't even consider growing for biomass.
