The #1 factor that sets our harvest date is the weather. Harvest must be done during a block of time of 3 or 4 days with no rain in the forecast. Rain is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it’s hard for the farm crew to work in the mud and rain, equipment breaks down, people get cold, water weighs down the plant and slows down the entire process. More importantly, the presence of moisture is bad for harvested hemp, which needs to dry and cure properly. Excess water that soaks in when harvested wet slows down the drying time considerably, and introduces the risk of mold if not handled correctly. Our boutique family farms are much smaller than large-scale agricultural commodity farms, so much more work is done by hand, over the course of several days, so harvesting during a window of time with no rain (preferably right after at least a week of sunny weather, which perks up the hemp plants coming into the harvest) is key to producing the best results from the harvest.

Once harvested, the hemp plants must be carefully dried. Depending on the weather, we may hang them to dry in covered areas for a few days, to let the fresh air flow cure the plants more slowly, preserving more of the native terpenes of the plant. If the weather is not cooperating, or the harvest is too large, we use large air dryers as well to speed the process along. With both methods, care is taken to handle the drying plants as minimally as possible, and make sure the entire plants is dried uniformly to prevent any mold from occurring.
The drying process typically takes about 8 days when done manually. Once the plants moisture content is reduced down to about 8%, the vegetative material is put in large sacks, and transported to our C02 extraction facility, to be changed into the newest batch of CBD oil and softgels that our customers have come to expect after 4 seasons of making the best CBD we can!
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