Indiana Has First Industrial Hemp Harvest Since World War II

Hemp is cultivated by Purdue University, but this crop marks the first time a production farm has harvested industrial hemp in Indiana since the WWII era. Mark Boyer worked with Purdue to help a research project come to fruition. The crop was harvested on September 14.

The seeds will be used and made into hemp seed oil, according to Agri News. The oil will be sent off for lab testing to review the nutrient panel and viability of the product. It isn’t expected that any of the crop will be sold this year – this is essentially a pilot harvest.

The crop was planted on June 7. A total of 11.8-acres were planted.

Boyer focused on the seeds for making hemp oil since he is an oil crop farmer. He focuses on plants such as sunflowers and canola that can produce healthy oils for consumption.

Boyer was skeptical about cultivating industrial hemp at first but now sees how much potential the plant has. He spent time doing research to determine all of the uses for hemp and was surprised at what he learned. The farmer is hopeful that hemp will remain in his crop rotation and continue to be a profitable crop in his oil crop farm.