What is the difference between industrial and high-CBD hemp quality?
What sets USA Hemp apart from the rest, and why should you choose us for your CBD needs? USA Hemp’s purpose is simple: to help others live their life to their fullest potential enjoying every step of the way. We want to change the world of natural medicine by changing the lives of other people we touch every day. We strive to educate the world on the incredible benefits of hemp extract and provide high-quality phytocannabinoid hemp oil (CBD) products direct from our farm to you.
USA Hemp is your best source for quality and affordable farm-to-table hemp CBD products . In 2015, we started by a family in Molalla, Oregon who wanted to grow cannabis and see the world outside our front doors change, even if just a little bit. We grow a crop we love and make natural medicine for everyone, the way nature intended. We love what we do and the USA Hemp is our way of bringing you a piece of that.
Phytocannabinoid Hemp Oil Starts With The Plant
When most people think of hemp, they envision a plant that’s been used by humans for centuries used for textile purposes like rope, paper, plastic, fuel, and now CBD. However, there are 2 kinds of hemp that exist.
The first kind is what the world is familiar with, the true industrial hemp varieties most commonly grown in Canada, Europe, and Asia. Those plants grow similar to bamboo or corn, very skinny and tall. They produce very little hemp flowers and little to no cannabinoids such as CBD, CBG, etc .. The average levels of CBD in foreign hemp is around 2-3% and 4% total cannabinoids.
The USA Hemp Difference
Then you’ve got American hemp, which was created around 2014. The reason these varieties were created was because of the 2014 Farm Bill passed by Congress, which made it legal to grow hemp through state research programs as long as the plants contained under 0.3% THC. Many farmers started cross-breeding certain marijuana phenotypes that produce high THC and total cannabinoid levels (sometimes as high as 28% THC and 32% total cannabinoids) with few industrial hemp fiber varieties. The result was a plant that looked almost identical to THC marijuana but contained almost no THC.
American hemp plants look almost identical to marijuana plants, growing in a Christmas tree shape along with producing big, aromatic flowers that can reach 20% CBD and 25% total cannabinoids while producing under 0.3% total THC, which is pretty much nothing. Looking at these plants in a field, it is impossible to tell American Hemp apart from marijuana plants unless a tissue sample of the flower is sent to an advanced analytical lab.
The main reason it’s important to know which plant hemp oil is sourced from is that there are almost no medical benefits to foreign fiber hemp varieties. That oil is normally extracted from the seed and one of the best things it contains is omega acids, which are great for dietary purposes.
Medical hemp comes from American varieties. The cannabinoids are extracted from the plant’s flowers only, resulting in a mixture of about 110 cannabinoids such as CBD, CBG, CBN, and many more. It gets a lot more complex too when it comes to growing methods, genetics used, different extraction processes, formulations, and carrier agents.
USA Hemp Harvesting Process
Properly harvesting hemp flower for smokable purposes is the most important and difficult step in the entire growth cycle. If it isn’t done properly within a short window, the result is a poor quality crop that tastes and smells like rotten grass while giving your throat a harsh, raspy smoke versus a visually attractive flower with pleasantly strong aromas and a fine, smooth flavor.
When harvest comes around the corner in the last week of October through the middle of November, we’ll carefully hand cut the best portions of our plants and take them to dry in a 20,000 sqft dark climate-controlled warehouse with atmospheric temperatures of 45-55 degrees and relative humidity of 40-50%. The cycle will take roughly 4-6 days per batch. Once we take our flowers from 70% internal humidity to 10%, we’ll remove them from the drying racks and trim the excess leaves from the flower before they make their journey into breathable food-grade bags, which they’ll spend roughly 3-4 weeks curing.
How To Cure CBD
During the curing process, the remaining bits of moisture in the flower center make their way to the outside portions of the flower, allowing the moisture level to be consistent throughout. In addition, this curing process results in the aromas and flavor fully maturing and expressing themselves, which translates to a smooth and tasty smoke, versus a harsh raspy and itchy smoke that tastes and smells like grass.
While the curing process takes place, we open all food-grade bags for 1-2 hours every 24 hours to allow fresh oxygen to replace the stale air in the bags, which helps the flavors and aroma fully mature properly.
After our flowers reach their full maturity, they are then placed in food-grade storage bags and vacuum-sealed to preserve the freshness until next year’s harvest season comes around. Our harvesting, drying, and curing process is complex, slow, and expensive, but we wouldn’t change anything about it because we know the result is the absolute best flower we can provide.
How Is CBD Oil Made?
When it comes to biomass for full-spectrum phytocannabinoid hemp oil extraction, the process is a bit different. The remaining parts of our plants that did not qualify for the smokable flowers are mechanically harvested with machines we developed (usahempcombine.com) at a rate of 20 acres per day. Our hemp harvesters gently separate the hemp flowers and leaves from the stalk and branches, allowing us to collect high-quality biomass without impurities. From there, the wet biomass is transferred through our forced air and heat hemp dryers, lowering the moisture content from 70% to 8%. At that point, the material is transferred into large tote bags and wrapped for storage until it is ready to be extracted via our in-house supercritical CO2 CBD and other cannabinoids extraction machine.
USA Hemp’s Farm Animal Rescue
Our hemp plants are incorporated into the landscape of the gorgeous Willamette Valley. Mountain water runoff and a variety of farm animals and native species keep our entire environment healthy. Our CBD hemp farm also doubles as an animal rescue farm. With alpacas, horses, peacocks, two dairy bulls named Ben & Jerry, and lots of happy pups, USA Hemp is a haven for dozens of animals. Every purchase you make at usahemp.com also contributes to the care and happiness of our rescue animals, and to the maintenance of the natural open space surrounding our farm.
