Hemp Farming Offers a Feel Good Story

Hemp Farming Offers a Feel Good Story

By M.J. McAteer

Luke Greer wanted to be “the first car up the roller coaster” after the Commonwealth legalized the growing of hemp in 2018. By 2019, he already had his car in gear, climbing that first hill.

He had visited hemp organizations and cultivation operations and applied for a license. “You have to jump through a lot of hoops,” Greer said about getting the go-ahead to grow hemp from a daunting array of regulators. Still, after once training on a trapeze, he apparently had the necessary agility.

Luke Greer and his growing hemp.

Photo by M.J. McAteer

By last year, he harvested his first hemp crop and started selling hemp-derived items on his web site, Northern Virginia Hemp Company.

On a recent steamy afternoon, with dark clouds threatening, Greer showed off his hemp field, located on the family farm in Purcellville, not far from his father Nick’s antique furniture restoration workshop.

From the single acre he’s put under cultivation, he explained he could harvest 150-200 pounds of hemp, enough for 1,500-2,500 one-ounce bottles of CBD (cannabidiol oil) along with a handful of other products such as CBD gummies and skin cream.

These products, Greer stressed, will not cause a high. By law, the levels of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, must be kept very low, and the plants must be tested repeatedly for compliance.

Many believe the CBD in hemp is useful in treating anxiety and chronic pain in humans and some animals. Greer said many clients buy his offerings for their dogs and horses to help with problems such as seizures (dogs) and cribbing (horses).

Greer is not allowed to make any claims about medicinal benefits for his products. If he did, the authorities could come knocking.

On this sultry day, Greer’s current crop had grown to about thigh-high. Most plants are of a variety called Painted Lady, which smells like citrus and lavender.

Greer said before planting his first crop, he walked the hemp field at Virginia Tech’s research facility and sniffed every single plant.

“Painted Lady smelled the best,” he concluded. Happily, the deer disagree and shun the Ladies, while a cooperative flock of wild turkeys help keep down the insect damage.

“The potency is at the top of the plant,” Greer explained, fingering the sticky hairs the female plants produce. Male plants are banished from the field because pollination leads to more seeds and fewer flowers that are the source of CBD products.

His Painted Ladies can handle Virginia’s humid heat, and by harvest in October, will have grown to 5 to 8 feet tall and be nearly as big around. He’ll then send his harvest to an extractor, who processes and packages the final products.

Before starting his hemp business, Greer had been working as a heritage and conservation photographer, documenting historic sights that have been vanishing so rapidly from western Loudoun County. He’s now able to focus on his field because, even as a start-up, this one-man business has proven profitable.

Greer, 43, is living in the house where he grew up and has made a commitment to provide locally sourced and sustainably grown products. His company has been growing almost as rapidly as his plants, and he now gets about 15,000 visitors a month to his Web site.

Greer plans to gear up again when the commercial cultivation of marijuana becomes legal in the Commonwealth in 2024. He’ll apply for a license in 2023, the better to be among the first back in that car, safety bar down, ready to climb the first hill on his next roller coaster ride.