Industrial Hemp Podcast

This week's Hemp Show is the third episode of our four-part miniseries covering the 2026 USDA Hemp Stakeholder Event, which took place at Cornell AgriTech on September 10. In Episode 1, we looked at what's in the national hemp germplasm collection. In Episode 2, we looked at the tools for measuring it. In this episode we learn about plant disease and the search for resistance. Nicole Gauthier, a plant pathologist at the University of Kentucky, has studied Fusarium head blight in hemp since 2019. It's the same disease that turns wheat heads white, and it carries the same toxin, DON, better known as vomitoxin. Her team found it moves easily between wheat and hemp, shows up heavier in hemp planted after wheat and survives in storage. Natalia Martinez-Ochoa, a plant scientist in Lexington, moved the resistance screening into a growth chamber after Kentucky heat spoiled the field trials. Her pilot made 96% of the inoculated plants sick, and her full screen of 50 accessions started in September. It continues work begun by the late Bob Pearce, who led the University of Kentucky hemp program. At Cornell, Jocelyn Schwartz, a PhD student in Chris Smart's lab, screened 189 entries for Septoria leaf spot, a disease the fungicides labeled for hemp in New York didn't control. She found nine stable sources of resistance, and the strongest came from Iowa Feral 20, a ditchweed. Finally, Taylere Herrmann, from the same lab, used a leaf-imaging robot called Blackbird to screen 108 accessions for downy mildew. Two entries showed no disease at all, and some of the resistant varieties are ones growers can buy today. Next time, in the fourth and final episode, we go from the field to the market: cannabinoids in roots and stems, cattle medicine from hemp hurds, jet fuel from hemp stalks, a breeder trying to make hemp uniform and what the industry told the scientists it needs. Learn More Fusarium Head Blight of Hemp, University of Kentucky Plant Pathology Fact Sheet plantpathology.ca.uky.edu Fusarium Head Blight of Hemp: A Destructive Disease Emerges on a New Host, Henry Smith, University of Kentucky uknowledge.uky.edu UK Hemp Research, Extension and Education hemp.mgcafe.uky.edu Diseases of Hemp, Smart Lab Webinar, Cornell Hemp hemp.cals.cornell.edu Septoria Leaf Spot and Hemp Downy Mildew Handouts, Cornell Hemp Field Day hemp.cals.cornell.edu The Blackbird Imaging Robot, Cornell CALS cals.cornell.edu National Plant Germplasm System ars-grin.gov USDA ARS Hemp Webinar Series ars.usda.gov Cornell Hemp hemp.cals.cornell.edu Thanks to Our Sponsors Jungmaven jungmaven.com Condor Seed condorseed.com IND Hemp indhemp.com Forever Green, KP4 Hemp Cutter hempcutter.com The Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast, also known as The Hemp Show, continues its four-part miniseries on the 2026 USDA Hemp Stakeholder Event, held September 10, 2026, at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York. Hosted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Plant Genetic Resources Unit, the meeting centered on the national hemp germplasm collection, a public seed bank of Cannabis sativa that is part of the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). Episode 3 covers hemp plant disease and the search for genetic disease resistance in the collection: Fusarium head blight, Septoria leaf spot and hemp downy mildew. Using recordings of the day's presentations, the episode features plant pathologists and plant scientists from the University of Kentucky and from Christine Smart's plant pathology lab at Cornell University. Nicole Gauthier, a plant pathologist at the University of Kentucky, has studied Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum, in floral and grain hemp since 2019. In one published survey, almost half of the hemp samples her team collected carried fungi in the FHB group. Isolates from hemp infected wheat and isolates from wheat infected hemp, with no differences, and they produced deoxynivalenol (DON), or vomitoxin, the mycotoxin regulated in cereal grains. In a two-year crop rotation trial at three sites, hemp planted after a wheat cover crop carried much more Fusarium than hemp after mustard or in tilled ground, measured by qPCR and spore trapping, and mycotoxin levels were high even when disease severity was low. Infection appeared in vegetative seedlings as early as May, rose toward flowering and after rain, and turned up in more than half of hemp samples held four to six months in storage. Natalia Martinez-Ochoa, of the University of Kentucky hemp research group led by the late Bob Pearce, moved FHB resistance screening of the national hemp collection from the field into a controlled-environment growth chamber after extreme heat prevented disease development outdoors. Her pilot study inoculated nine diverse hemp varieties, including monoecious, dioecious, feminized, CBD, fiber and dual-purpose types, by spraying Fusarium conidia onto flower heads once stigmas had developed, then rating head blight and mycelium growth at 7 and 14 days. About 96% of inoculated plants developed disease, and compact flower heads were hit hardest. Bialobrzeskie and X59 showed the most Fusarium head blight, while Ursa Alta and Lifter showed little mycelium. The full screen of 50 accessions and 500 plants began in September 2026, using an 8-hour photoperiod to synchronize flowering. At Cornell, PhD student Jocelyn Schwartz screened 189 hemp germplasm accessions and Cornell breeding lines for Septoria leaf spot, caused by Septoria cannabis, after three years of trials showed fungicides labeled for hemp in New York were not effective. Using area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC), she identified nine stable sources of resistance, with ratings public in GRIN-Global. An F2 mapping population from feral hemp Iowa Feral 20 crossed with susceptible FL58, made with silver thiosulfate to induce male flowers on XX females, segregated 3 to 1, pointing to a major dominant resistance locus on chromosome 3 that explains 65% of the variation and includes a cluster of NLR disease resistance genes. PhD student Taylere Herrmann screened 108 accessions for hemp downy mildew using the Blackbird high-throughput imaging robot with a convolutional neural network, plus visual leaf disk and detached leaf ratings. Two entries showed 0% disease, and resistant cultivars include commercially available Santhica 27, Santhica 70 and USO 31. Bulk segregant analysis found a peak on chromosome 7 near leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase (LRR-RLK) and wall-associated kinase genes. Episode 4 of the USDA hemp series turns to hemp markets.

This week's Hemp Show is the second episode of our four-part miniseries covering the 2026 USDA Hemp Stakeholder Event, which took place at Cornell AgriTech on September 10. In Episode 1, we looked at the diversity inside the national hemp germplasm collection. In this episode, we turn to measuring it: hemp DNA, hemp seed, hemp stems and THC. Dongyan Zhao of Breeding Insight, a USDA-ARS program hosted at Cornell, explains a new public genotyping panel that checks about 3,000 genetic markers for roughly $15 a sample. It can confirm a plant's genetic sex before a breeder makes a cross, and it shows that two seed lots with the same variety name aren't always the same seed. Roque Evangelista, a research chemist with the USDA-ARS Bio-Oils Research Unit in Peoria, Illinois, shares seed weight, oil, protein and fatty acid data from hundreds of accessions in the collection, now public in GRIN-Global, and shows how density grading can sort one harvest into seed, hemp hearts, oil and feed. Wayne Swink of the USDA-ARS Cotton Quality and Innovation Research Unit in New Orleans talks about a small decorticator built to measure how much force and energy it takes to break hemp stems, and why fiber is still one of the hardest things about hemp to measure. Finally, Korey Brownstein, a research chemist at the same Peoria research center, describes his open-source method for rapidly measuring 20 cannabinoids, and the problem it's meant to solve. "Lab to lab variation is a very real situation that we are dealing with, right?" he said. Next time, in Episode 3, we'll turn to disease: a fungus that moves between wheat and hemp, a growth chamber full of sick plants, and a disease-resistance gene from a plant most farmers would have mowed down. Learn More Breeding Insight, Cornell University breedinginsight.org Roque Evangelista, USDA-ARS Bio-Oils Research Unit ars.usda.gov Wayne Swink, Fiber Quality Analysis Webinar, Cornell Hemp hemp.cals.cornell.edu Korey Brownstein, USDA-ARS Functional Foods Research Unit ars.usda.gov NIST Cannabis Quality Assurance Program nist.gov National Plant Germplasm System ars-grin.gov USDA ARS Hemp Webinar Series ars.usda.gov Cornell Hemp hemp.cals.cornell.edu Thanks to Our Sponsors Jungmaven jungmaven.com Condor Seed condorseed.com IND Hemp indhemp.com Forever Green, KP4 Hemp Cutter hempcutter.com The Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast, also known as The Hemp Show, continues its four-part miniseries on the 2026 USDA Hemp Stakeholder Event, held September 10, 2026, at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York. Hosted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Plant Genetic Resources Unit, the meeting centered on the national hemp germplasm collection, a public seed bank of Cannabis sativa that is part of the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). Episode 2, "Measure It," covers the tools hemp breeders, growers and processors need to put that genetic diversity to work: hemp genotyping, hemp seed composition analysis, hemp fiber testing and THC testing. Using recordings of the day's presentations, the episode features researchers from Breeding Insight at Cornell University and from USDA ARS laboratories in Peoria, Illinois, and New Orleans.  Dongyan Zhao of Breeding Insight, a USDA ARS initiative hosted at Cornell, presents a public mid-density hemp genotyping panel developed with the Plant Genetic Resources Unit in Geneva. The DArTag panel, run through Diversity Arrays Technology in Australia, targets about 3,000 marker loci, returns results in about four weeks and costs about $15 a sample plus DNA extraction. Development costs were covered up front, so breeders pay only for genotyping. Hemp geneticist George Stack selected the markers with input from stakeholders. Replicated samples agree more than 99% of the time, but different seed lots of the same accession matched only about 83%, showing the genetic diversity within hemp accessions and the risk of mislabeled parental lines. The panel also confirms karyotypic sex, identifying XX mother plants for crosses, and supports population structure and pedigree analysis, marker-assisted selection, QTL mapping and genomic prediction. Roque Evangelista, a research chemist with the USDA ARS Bio-Oils Research Unit at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, analyzed more than 300 and then another 380 hemp seed samples from the collection for seed weight, oil content, protein content and fatty acid profile. That hemp seed data is now public in GRIN-Global. Asian accessions produced the largest seeds and somewhat higher oil, but large-seeded plants appear across gene pools, and Evangelista keeps extreme outliers in the data because breeders may be looking for them. Because hemp is indeterminate, harvested grain varies in maturity. Density grading separated heavy, mature seed, about 74% of one lot, from light seed with much lower oil but similar protein, which could go to seed companies, hemp hearts, oil pressing or feed. He also covers cold-pressed hemp seed oil, residual oil in press cake and near-infrared (NIR) calibrations for oil, protein and fatty acids. Wayne Swink of the USDA ARS Cotton Quality and Innovation Research Unit in New Orleans is linking hemp fiber traits to the DNA sequencing of the collection. His team built a bench-scale hemp decorticator, with a pneumatic actuator, a load sensor and a four-roller conditioner, that measures stem breaking force, energy demand and biomass balance between bast fiber and hurd. First data covered 15 stems, and true fiber quality testing is still ahead. Korey Brownstein, a research chemist at the Peoria center, presents a rapid, open-source method for 20 cannabinoids, including THCA, Delta-8 THC, CBGA and CBG, that avoids heat, uses ethanol extraction and sonication and handles about 100 samples a day. He took part in a NIST interlaboratory study and explains why total THC testing near the 0.3% legal limit, and the 2 ppm THC limit for hemp seed meal in laying hen feed, depends on which lab runs the sample. Episode 3 of the USDA hemp series turns to hemp disease.

This week's Hemp Show is the first episode of a four-part miniseries covering the 2026 USDA Hemp Stakeholder Event, which took place at Cornell AgriTech on September 10. In this first episode, researchers explain what's inside the national hemp germplasm collection and why it matters. Collection curator Zach Stansell tells how the collection grew from a single feral accession in 2021 to more than 800 accessions from around the world today. Shelby Ellison, a plant breeder at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, chairs the Hemp Crop Germplasm Committee, a newly formed advisory panel that tells the gene bank what to collect, study and protect, and she explains why hemp needed one. Then Phil Bentz, a plant genomics researcher at the University of Georgia, talks about sequencing more than a thousand plants from the collection and his conclusion that hemp and marijuana don't come from separate family trees. Finally, George Stack, a hemp geneticist who trained at Cornell and now runs a genetics consulting company, shows where the sharp line between hemp and marijuana actually sits: a single region of chromosome 7 that decides whether a plant makes CBD or THC. Next time, in Episode 2, we'll turn to measurement: a public DNA testing tool that costs about $15 a sample, a USDA lab that weighs and presses hemp seed, a machine built to break hemp stems, and why 0.3% THC is a harder number to pin down than it sounds. Learn More The USDA-ARS Hemp Germplasm Repository, Cornell Hemp Factsheet hemp.cals.cornell.edu Ellison Lab, University of Wisconsin–Madison alternativecrops.horticulture.wisc.edu Philip Bentz, The Plant Center, University of Georgia plantcenter.uga.edu George Stack, Cornell Dissertation on Hemp Genetics ecommons.cornell.edu USDA ARS Hemp Webinar Series ars.usda.gov National Plant Germplasm System ars-grin.gov Cornell Hemp hemp.cals.cornell.edu Thanks to our Sponsors Jungmaven jungmaven.com IND Hemp indhemp.com Forever Green, KP4 Hemp Cutter hempcutter.com  

This week on the Hemp Show, we're continuing our coverage of the National Industrial Hemp Council's Global Industrial Hemp Fiber Summit, held at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City during Fashion Week. It was two days of farmers, breeders, processors, machine builders, designers and brands, all focused on how to get hemp from the field into something somebody will buy. What it already is turns out to be a crop with farmers on one end, brands on the other, and a lot of empty space in between. Over two days, nearly every panel ran into that empty space from a different direction. So on this episode, we follow the missing middle and see what we know about how much we don't know, and maybe some things we do know. The following people appear on this episode: Paul Benhaim, The Hemp Plastic Company Patrick Atagi, National Industrial Hemp Council Ryan Zaczynski, 1937 International Zafar Riaz, Pakistan hemp project Nayyar Kazmi, Pakistan hemp project Ally Friedman, Bezos Earth Fund Joe Hickey, Kentucky Hemp Growers Co-op Association Clyde Carpenter, New York Fashion Innovation Center Tyler Mark, University of Kentucky Larry Smart, Cornell University Eric Singular, INCCert and North American Linen Association Buxton Midyette, Supima Trey Riddle, IND HEMP Lawrence Serbin, Hemp Traders and Pure Fiber Innovations Steve Groff, Cedar Meadow Farm Guillaume Delannoy, FRD-CODEM Alex Teodorescu, Cretes Andrew Bish, Bish Enterprises and Hemp Feed Coalition Jeremy Klettke, Davis Farms of Oregon Ted Haney, Federation of International Hemp Organizations Maciej Kowalski, Kombinat Konopny Tim Almond, Heartland Cameron McIntosh, Americhanvre Cast Hemp Greg Wilson, Hempwood Winona LaDuke, Indigenous Hemp Cooperative Ira Vandever, Turquoise Indigo Fibers Joseph Carringer, Canna Markets Group Learn More NIHC Global Industrial Hemp Fiber Summit https://nihcglobalsummit.com/sessions/ 1937 International on The Hemp Show https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/1937-international-hemp-textiles-and-global-supply-chains/article_b3e3350a-3963-4ff4-b654-bc386f490a70.html Bezos Earth Fund www.bezosearthfund.org New York Fashion Innovation Center nyfic.org North American Linen Association: Status of Flax Fiber in North America  www.textileworld.com/textile-world/fiber-world/2026/03/nalas-status-of-flax-fiber-in-north-america-report-finds-growing-interest-but-limited-production-processing-infrastructure/ Supima www.supima.com The Hemp Plastic Company www.hempplastic.com Heartland heartland.io Kombinat USA kombinatusa.com Sponsors Jungmaven jungmaven.com IND HEMP indhemp.com Americhanvre Cast Hemp americhanvre.com King's Agriseeds kingsagriseeds.com Forever Green, distributors of the KP4 Hemp Cutter hempcutter.com The Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast goes inside the 2026 NIHC Global Industrial Hemp Fiber Summit, held September 16 and 17 at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City during Fashion Week. Host Eric Hurlock follows the summit's Seed to Style theme from start to finish, using sound bites from farmers, plant breeders, processors, machine builders, fiber scientists, textile brands and policy leaders. They all describe the same challenge: the "missing middle" of the industrial hemp supply chain. That's the processing, decortication, fiber standards, certified seed and buyer commitments needed to turn hemp stalks into yarn, fabric and finished products. National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) president Patrick Atagi opens the summit, and Paul Benhaim of The Hemp Plastic Company tells the room that "nobody on earth has a hemp budget." Day one covers hemp textiles from global sourcing to fiber science. Ryan Zaczynski of 1937 International describes a large hemp fiber project in Pakistan, led by Dr. Zafar Riaz and Dr. Nayyar Kazmi, with heat-tolerant genetics, water retting and a first commercial crop of about 4,000 acres expected in 2027. Ally Friedman of the Bezos Earth Fund explains why climate philanthropy is funding a hemp life-cycle assessment against cotton and polyester. Joe Hickey of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Co-op Association, Clyde Carpenter of the New York Fashion Innovation Center, University of Kentucky hemp economist Dr. Tyler Mark and Cornell University plant breeder Larry Smart cover fiber consistency, spinning mill requirements, crop rotation economics and domestic hemp seed. The day closes with hemp's sister fibers. Eric Singular of INCCert and the North American Linen Association makes the case for shared bast fiber processing for flax and hemp, and Buxton Midyette of Supima explains how USDA cotton classing, forensic fiber testing and supply chain traceability give mills confidence. Day two opens with Paul Benhaim's keynote on hemp fiber's value bottleneck, the brands missing from the room, and his call to "finance the middle." A USDA panel covers the ARS hemp germplasm repository in Geneva, New York, and AMS performance-based sampling for fiber hemp growers. The equipment panel, moderated by Trey Riddle of IND HEMP, features Lawrence Serbin's Fiber King green-hemp field decorticator, Guillaume Delannoy of FRD-CODEM on hemp fiber in automotive composites, Alex Teodorescu of Cretes on decortication technology, and Andrew Bish of the Hemp Feed Coalition on market pull. Jeremy Klettke of Davis Farms of Oregon explains counter-season hemp seed multiplication in Argentina. Ted Haney of the Federation of International Hemp Organizations explains why certified seed helped Canada build a commercial hemp industry. The episode also contrasts two textile supply chain models. Maciej Kowalski of Kombinat Konopny runs a vertically integrated hemp apparel chain in Poland, while Tim Almond of Heartland sells spin-ready hemp fiber to yarn mills, made to a published specification. On the materials panel, Cameron McIntosh of Americhanvre Cast Hemp talks about spray-applied hempcrete, and Greg Wilson of Hempwood talks about hemp flooring manufacturing costs. Winona LaDuke of the Indigenous Hemp Cooperative traces a Patagonia hemp bag through five states and two countries. Ira Vandever of Turquoise Indigo Fibers describes Indigenous standards for hemp and Navajo-Churro wool goods. Joseph Carringer of Canna Markets Group closes with a call to "let hemp be hemp" in fashion and textiles. It's essential listening for anyone following hemp fiber, hemp textiles, natural fibers, regional supply chains and the future of the U.S. industrial hemp industry.

This week, the Hemp Show takes place in New York City, at the intersection of Industrial Hemp and Fashion Avenue. Last month, the National Industrial Hemp Council held its annual Global Industrial Hemp Fiber Summit at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. With two full days of presentations, panel discussions and networking opportunities, the "Seed to Style" summit attracted people from all parts of the hemp supply chain, as well as people from the worlds of fashion, design and global textiles. This episode offers a snapshot of what the intersection of hemp and fashion looks like in 2026. We talk to Shannon Mayer, dean of the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology at FIT; Patrick Atagi, president and CEO of the National Industrial Hemp Council; and Curie Chang, founder and CEO of Ofibera, a luxury hemp apparel company. Learn more National Industrial Hemp Council of America https://nihcoa.com/ NIHC Global Summit https://nihcglobalsummit.com/ FIT's Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology https://www.fitnyc.edu/academics/academic-divisions/business-and-technology/index.php Ofibera https://www.ofibera.com/ Bonus: NIHC Industrial Hemp Annual Market Guide https://nihcoa.com/new-nihc-industrial-hemp-market-guide-now-available-online/ The NIHC's first annual guide to U.S. hemp production and markets, which debuted in print on hemp paper at the Seed to Style summit at FIT, is now available online. ONE PLANT in Lancaster https://www.oneplant.film/lancaster Tickets: ONE PLANT double screening, Oct. 24, Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lancaster-farming-sunflower-present-one-plant-tickets-1998324956739 Thanks to Our Sponsors! Jungmaven jungmaven.com IND HEMP indhemp.com Americhanvre Cast-Hemp americhanvre.com King's AgriSeeds kingsagriseeds.com Forever Green, distributors of the KP4 Hemp Cutter hempcutter.com