Hemp company ‘extracts’ value | Crops

That ‘s what Ed Liegel and his son, Sam Liegel, are counting on. They formed Driftless Extracts in 2019 to capitalize on the emerging cannabidiol market. Long-term they plan to expand into industrial hemp. The production of natural fibers such as hemp will have positive impacts on the local economy, Sam Liegel said.

He and his father are both agronomists. Ed Liegel founded Valley View Ag Services in 2002, a seed and crop-consulting company. His son joined the company in 2013 but a year later said he needed to either buy Valley View from his father or pursue a new direction.

“The hemp industry was new and we had a infrastructure in place,” said Sam Liegel. “But we would need a lot of funding.”

It just so happens his brother is a financial advisor and could help raise money for a new company. A recent investment by Kemin Industries of Des Moines is expected to help boost Driftless Extracts. A global ingredient manufacturer, Kemin supplies more than 500 specialty ingredients for several industries. Kemin’s nutrition and health division is adding Driftless Extracts hemp ingredients to its portfolio.

For the past couple of years the Liegels have been working with growers in Wisconsin’s Driftless and Central Sands areas to use hemp for personal and industrial products. They’re working with five third-party processors to produce cannabinoid extracts and powders as well as hemp-fiber products.

A few of those growers produce certified-organic hemp. They’ve been selected based on how efficiently they can produce hemp on a commercial scale, Liegel said. The company extends one-year contracts to growers.

Philip Yoder of Hill Point, Wisconsin, began growing certified-organic hemp for the company in 2020. The crop can provide extra income, said Yoder, who has a 60-head herd of dairy goats and a small herd of beef cattle.

Yoder has grown hemp for cannabigerol – CBG. Cannabigerol serves as the precursor molecule for the two most abundant phytocannabinoids. It’s grown in the same manner and approach as growing hemp for cannabidiol production.

The difference is that cannabigerol varieties do not increase in cannabidiol or tetrahydrocannabinol content as they approach maturity. They simply contain more cannabigerol in their flowers so the risk of exceeding the legal limit of .03 percent for tetrahydrocannabinol is almost completely mitigated, Liegel said.

Both cannabidiol and cannabigerol are said to provide many of the same potential health and wellness benefits – such as reducing pain, stress and anxiety. But studies investigating their therapeutic potential show cannabigerol’s effects are more potent because of the way it binds with endocannabinoid-system receptors, according to the National Hemp Association.

Cannabigerol has the potential to garner good returns on investment, but there are challenges. Raising hemp is labor-intensive, Yoder said. He transplanted hemp plants into plastic to help reduce weed pressures. It has a drip-fed fertilizer, which increases workload. If he grows hemp again he said he plans to use a grain drill to plant seed, as well as widen the rows so he can use a field cultivator between them.

Hemp yields can be limited by various fungal diseases and insects. Some cannabis sativa varieties have good natural disease resistance, Ed Liegel said, but timely fungicide applications are important.

“We use them to avoid botrytis, especially when hemp is nearing maturity,” he said.

Eurasian hemp borers can decimate a hemp crop near harvest time. Crop rotation and a few biological insecticides can be used to help control the pest.

“We prefer systemic soil-applied insecticides, though there are also foliar options,” he said.

Another challenge is to harvest and test hemp crop for cannabidiol in a timely manner. If plants contain more than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol, they must be destroyed by law.

Dennis Gruber farms near Steuben, Wisconsin. He grew hemp for Driftless Extracts for the past two years. Producing hemp to scale and harvesting are his biggest challenges, he said.

“But I like trying new things,” he said. “Hemp is a fun plant to grow. You can see genetic changes in it much sooner than in animals. “

He earned a master’s degree in animal science. This custom-raises hogs as well as grows corn and soybeans, and organic corn and soybeans on 250 acres. Hemp provides another income stream for him, he said.

He used bladed weed whackers to harvest his first crop of hemp. In 2021 he used an automated cutter-catcher on a skid-steer loader. The crops were no more than 3 acres.

“If we plant 10 acres or more we’d really need a more-automated way of harvesting,” he said.

Another challenge with hemp is finding buyers for hemp-based products. Driftless Extracts has sold hemp-based products in every US state. But it would have been much easier if the US Food and Drug Administration established regulations that blanketed the entire industry, Sam Liegel said.

There appears to be some progress in that area. Members of the US Congress in the past few months have called for the FDA to establish a regulatory framework for cannabidiol and other “cannabis-derived substances.”

This is an original article written for Agri-View, a Lee Enterprises agricultural publication based in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit AgriView.com for more information.