Jeff Thomas, Tater Farms, Ancient City Hemp, UF/IFAS Hemp Pilot Project Partner Farmer

Correspondence to: (904) 315-8705, jeff@taterfarms.com

Also featuring Dr. Christian Christensen, Center Director, UF/IFAS Hastings Agricultural Extension Center

This insights video is part of the blog series Perspectives from the Hemp Industry.

The Big Challenge

“We made a huge mistake of trying [photo period sensitive hemp in the winter] without lights. They get 12 inches tall and flower and then with no yield.”

“Disease is a huge issue… We had some absolutely gorgeous plants that were unbelievable. And the next day, they were melted because they didn’t get harvested in time with Botrytis.”

The Exciting Experience

“There’s just something that’s I think really cool about growing this out in the field… It has a huge potential if we can work out a lot of these marketing, sales, and growing problems.”

“You can smell it a mile away, so everybody knows you’re growing it. So, that’s another exciting thing.”

The Business Goal

“We basically got into [hemp] as an alternative crop to figure out if we can make money on it and then to expand once we found out and answered a lot of those questions. So essentially our business model was to learn how to handle the crop, grow it and harvest it.”

The Marketing Wisdom

“I actually took product biomass to different labs and different locations and had it processed… You’ve got to go out and experiment and you’ve got to meet the people that are out there. You’ve got to hand them some product and then see what they do with it and see the results.”

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