Hannibus Insights: 5 Questions Hemp Farmers Must Ask.

At Hannibus, we make it our mission to empower Hemp and Cannabis farmers, especially those from underserved communities, with the knowledge, products, and services they need most to succeed!

Growing Hemp is a complicated, multifaceted, and sometimes costly process with many different variables to consider.

To Get It Just Right:

To get the most out of your Hemp yield, one must take a careful look into your business structure & market strategy for the Season ahead.
This requires meticulous planning and acute awareness about each stage of your Hemp Grow operation, now this might sound intimidating, but I assure you it isn’t as scary as it seems.
In Fact, it is as simple as asking yourself some of these essential logical questions, tailored to help you get the insights necessary for a seamless growth season and an excellent yield out of your Hemp Harvest.

Hannibus Insights: 5 Questions Hemp Farmers Must Ask

Hannibus is here to help you better understand what steps you need to take before diving into your first season of growing Hemp by providing you with the five questions a Hemp Farmer should ask for the best potential Hemp Harvest.

Question 1:What is the Prime Harvest Time For Hemp in My Specific Growth Region?

This should be the first question every Hemp farmer Should be asking:
Hemp is an Obligate short-day plant, meaning the plant requires day lengths shorter than a certain critical length to trigger its flowering cycle. 

There are considerable differences in the Daylength period necessary for optimal Hemp Cultivation in the different Growing Regions across the states.
This crucial period differs for the different Hemp Strains.

It’s super essential for farmers to decide when they want to harvest and understand the day length in their region 7-8 weeks before this harvest date.

Why so Important?

• Hemp Farms face the risk of frost & poor weather as the Growing Season comes to an end. 
• Most Hemp strains increase their % of THC the longer they grow in their flower cycle.

The Hannibus team will allow you to determine which Hemp Genetic Strain is best for your Farm to plant, grow. And ensure the best possible Yield from your Hemp Harvest plant- while remaining compliant within the state, federal & Agri-Development regulations!

Questions about Prime Harvest timing?
Please reach out for a meeting with one of our team members.

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Question 2: Hemp Harvesting Method: Machine or by Hand?

This question is vital to determine when a Hemp farmer should plant their Hemp and how many Hemp-plants should be cultivated per acre.

Hemp is an obligate short-day plant and has two distinct growing cycles: the vegetative cycle & flowering cycle.

During the flower cycle, the plant puts off its flower buds (colas) and produces the sticky resin where the CBD lies.

During the vegetative cycle, the Hemp plant invests all its energy into creating more biomass.

Meaning that the longer your veg cycle, the bigger your Hemp plant grows.

Machine Harvest:

If you plan to harvest by machine,
you need to pick a Hemp cultivar that will stay under 4’ or so at the time of harvest.

This means planting more plants per acre,

You can easily achieve this by picking a cultivar with a relatively high critical day length.

This helps to trigger its flowering cycle, 14 & 1/2 hour days.

For example, to limit the number of vegetative weeks, the plant will grow and move toward an earlier harvest time, say early September.

Hand Harvest:
If you prefer to harvest by hand, then you’d want the largest Hemp plant possible to yield as much weight per plant as possible. 

In this scenario: you would pick a hemp cultivar that requires a lower critical day length period–
Thirteen hours of day length, to trigger.

This ensures that you get the highest amount of vegetative weeks possible for your Hemp to grow extremely large before changing to its flower cycle. 

This will also mean that your Hemp Harvest period will be later, Mid October.
Be advised that your regional weather is acceptable at this time of year if you choose to go this route.
Feel free to reach out for a consultation about the optimal Hemp Harvesting Method.

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Question 3:What Is The Day-Length at Certain Times in my Growing Region?

All this talk about Hemp being an obligate short-day plant:

It’s crucial to know your growing area’s day-lengths during the planting season (usually May & June), so you know what hemp cultivars you can plant and when!

Planting too early could trigger the plant’s flower cycle prematurely, resulting in 6″ tall plants with flower buds.

Planting a cultivar(strain) that triggers too late for your region, and you could end up with 10′ tall trees and no flower-bud by the time your first frost hits! 

The day length in your region during the time hemp triggers into its flowering cycle is usually late July and August.

Hannibus will help you determine your growing area’s day length at any time during the year, don’t hesitate to schedule a consultation with one of our team members!

Question 4: Are Clones Worth The Extra-Money?

Clones Can Serve You More than Seeds; here are four reasons why:
1st: Clones are all genetically the same. 
They come from the same mother stock plant and will all grow the same, and time-out at the same time the mother plant does.
.Seed material however has multiple phenotypes across the same cultivar.
Think of it like siblings from the same parents; one has green eyes and the other brown eyes, or one child grows to be 6’ 3” tall, the other grows to 5’ 11”.

The same applies to any Hemp Seedlings. 
The plants will grow differently and time out differently in their flowering cycle.

So while 1/3 of your field is ready for Harvest.
The other 1/3 needs two more weeks to optimize its Flower-Cycle.
And the final 1/3 needs another month.

2nd: Once you harvest all this plant material together, your CBD % that once was 12% on the flowers that were fully ready at the time of harvest. The amalgamated biomass is now 7% CBD because parts of your Hemp Biomass material were immature at harvest.

3rd: There is no risk of any plant pollinating the other plant from hermaphrodite with Clones- since all plants are genetically identical.

4th: Feminized Seedlings, on the other hand, are purposely bred with hermaphrodite plants- the hermaphrodite gene is introduced and so a % of all the seeds produced this way will be hermaphrodites. 

These plants will put off pollen sacks, pollinate, or seed out all the plants in the surrounding area.

If you plant 100,000 seedlings and, say, only 3% turn out hermaphrodite; there’s still a huge potential risk that all 100,000 plants would seed out because 3% of the hermaphrodite population has spread throughout your field… 
After all, you can’t tell a hermaphrodite Hemp Plant from a regular one until it’s too late. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!

Don’t hesitate to reach out for a free consultation or click here to learn more about our certified genetics.

Question 5: What Are My End Goals?

What Is The End Product of My Hemp Once I Harvest?

Are you planning to sell beautiful smokable Flower Buds that are boutique quality? 

This means hand-harvesting and Hang-Drying your Hemp.
Do you have the labor and space available to accommodate this?



Are you planning to Sell your Hemp-Biomass to an extractor? 
If so, will the extractor take Combine harvested material, or do you need to use gentler methods, such as a Shelbourne harvester?

#Will the extractor take the wet Hemp right out of the field? 

#Or will you need to dry it all first?
#Field dry or run-through machine driers?

Maybe you plan on extracting in-house:

-Full-spectrum Distillate? 
-THC free distillate?  
-Isolate? 

Hannibus: Planting Future Legacies…
We advocate planning with a proper execution strategy to ensure your Hemp Farm success.
This depends on you having a good sales plan in place before the first clone or seed gets planted into the ground.

At Hannibus, we provide strategic business planning and would love to help you build, grow, and scale your Hemp operation!

This ensures that we can help you adequately plan for getting the most out of your yield this harvest.  Contact us today for a free consultation or click here to learn more about our services.

To reach Team Hannibus, please call (512) 646-1415 or sales@hannibus.com.
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