{"id":7194,"date":"2017-02-03T18:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T18:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2400471&amp;preview_id=2400471"},"modified":"2017-02-03T18:16:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T18:16:01","slug":"pro-talk-colorado-agriculture-office-shares-pot-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/pro-talk-colorado-agriculture-office-shares-pot-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro talk: Colorado agriculture office shares pot knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/pro-talk-colorado-agriculture-office-shares-pot-knowledge\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\" id=\"sticky-outer\">\n<div class=\"large-11 small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Feb 3, 2017, 6:43 am \u2022 Updated: Feb 3, 2017, 10:57 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/03\/colorado-agriculture-grow-marijuana\/72962\/#disqus_thread\" class=\"commentsNameLink\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <strong>Kristen Wyatt<\/strong>, <em> The Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n<p>DENVER \u2014 North Carolina wants to know if marijuana could one day replace tobacco as a cash crop. Louisiana is wondering how pot holds up in high humidity. And Washington state has questions about water supplies for weed.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado agriculture officials this week briefed officials from about a dozen states \u2014 some that have legalized weed, others that joked their states will legalize pot \u201cwhen hell freezes over\u201d \u2014 to go over the basics of marijuana farming and swap stories about regulating a crop that the federal government still considers illegal.<\/p>\n<p>The Colorado Department of Agriculture is also working on the world\u2019s first government-produced manual on how to grow marijuana. There\u2019s no shortage of how-to books catering to pot growers both in and out of the black market, but Colorado\u2019s forthcoming guidebook aims to apply established agronomy practices to the production of marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you start with no knowledge at all, it\u2019s rough,\u201d said Mitch Yergert, head of Colorado\u2019s Division of Plant Industry, an agency within the Agriculture Department that regulates marijuana production.<\/p>\n<p>Yergert conceded that Colorado agriculture officials ignored marijuana entirely for more than a dozen years, from the time voters in the state approved medical pot in 2000 until recreational pot shops started opening in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody in our agency ever grew marijuana, so how are we supposed to develop best practices?\u201d Yergert said.<\/p>\n<p>But marijuana\u2019s commercial popularity, coupled with increasing concern over pesticides and unsafe growing conditions, forced the Agriculture Department to stop considering marijuana a running joke and start seeing it as a commercial crop in need of regulation. Colorado sold about a billion dollars\u2019 worth of marijuana last year, making it a cash crop, the same as many others.<\/p>\n<p>Now the state agriculture department is sharing what it has learned about weed with other agriculture departments.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a recent soil-conservation conference in Denver, Yergert briefed agriculture officials from other states about how to inspect marijuana and hemp growers, and just as important, how to regulate a plant that remains illegal under federal law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou kinda gotta get your mind around it,\u201d Yergert said.<\/p>\n<p>Yergert even took the agriculture officials on a tour of a large Denver pot-growing warehouse, where a marijuana grower showed them the plant\u2019s entire cycle, starting as clones in one room before getting transplanted to bigger and bigger tubs.<\/p>\n<p>The grower, Tim Cullen, also showed the agriculture officials how the plant is trimmed and its psychoactive buds dried for smoking. Finally, the farm regulators saw how marijuana waste \u2014 errant leaves and such \u2014 are rendered unusable before being thrown away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is blowing my mind right now,\u201d said Erica Pangelinan of the Northern Guam Soil and Water Conservation District. Pangelinan was using her cell phone to snap photos of wooden frames used to hold drying marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Guam allows medical marijuana, but many states on the tour don\u2019t. Still, the touring agriculture officials say they need to be prepared in case laws change to allow pot-growing at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re just looking to see what\u2019s ahead,\u201d said Pat Harris, director of North Carolina\u2019s Division of Soil &amp; Water Conservation.<\/p>\n<p>Some states represented on the tour plan to grow pot themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re getting in the marijuana business in Louisiana, so we need to know what we\u2019re doing,\u201d said Brad Spicer of the state\u2019s Office of Soil &amp; Water Conservation, where the state Legislature has authorized two universities to grow the plant for medical use and research.<\/p>\n<p>Yergert warned the agriculture officials that regulating weed still isn\u2019t easy, and that agriculture departments should be prepared for push-back from their own staffs on working with pot growers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur guys were saying, I can\u2019t pick my kids up from school because I smell like pot,\u201d Yergert said.<br \/>Another problem? Stony silence from federal agencies that state agriculture offices usually turn to for help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt hasn\u2019t gotten a lot more warm and fuzzy,\u201d Yergert said. \u201cI think they look at us as, \u2018What an annoyance!\u2019 I mean, they deal with drug smugglers and international cartels, and here\u2019s the Colorado Department of Ag coming wanting a permit for something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cullen, the pot grower, urged the agriculture officials to look past the hurdles and see pot growers as farmers thirsty for guidance on growing healthy, profitable crops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking for the same types of things that a farmer\u2019s looking for. We want fast-growing, high-yielding, disease-resistant plants that are easy to work with,\u201d said Cullen, who is one of Colorado\u2019s largest pot growers and is advising the Agriculture Department on its forthcoming pot guidebook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want your help. We\u2019d rather not rely on the 19-year-old at the grow shop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The agronomists standing in the room of pot nodded, saying they\u2019re open to sharing advice \u2014 though their knowledge must remain academic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can tell you how to grow it. But I can\u2019t use it. I\u2019m drug-tested for the state department of agriculture,\u201d joked Max Jones of North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/><em><br \/>Kristen Wyatt can be reached <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/apkristenwyatt\" target=\"_blank\">@APkristenwyatt<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking to the pros: The Colorado Department of Agriculture is also working on the world&#8217;s first government-produced manual on how to grow marijuana. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5062,77,5577,6933,6815,9,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[5063,2655,5580,6934,6820,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}