A producer called asking if any of the tobacco diseases that we are familiar with will transfer or contaminate industrial hemp if planted following a tobacco crop.  He was specifically concerned with Black Shank in tobacco transferring or infecting industrial hemp.  I reached out to Nicole Gauthier to see if she knew if there was any correlation between heavily infested Black Shank fields and diseased hemp.  She was unaware of any research that had been done in this area to prove one way or the other so it led to several conversations and eventually us deciding to do some field trials to see if we can collect any data to support or disprove this theory.

I got in touch with 3 producers in Harrison County to see if they would allow us to have industrial hemp plots in their black shank "hot" fields.  We are getting ready to begin planting our hemp into these fields and hope that we are able to establish some sort of baseline when it comes to hemp diseases. We will have 3 separate plots across the county to look at disease in industrial hemp and hopefully we will be able to continue this project for several years.  This project is ongoing and if results begin coming about it could be very helpful to many producers not only in Harrison County but across the state where tobacco has been king for so many years.