The Trigg County Cooperative Extension Service in conjunction with the Trigg County Ag Committee host events throughout the year to increase public knowledge of agriculture.   It is important to all involved in agriculture to inform the increasingly urban population about their farming practices so that they can understand and appreciate how important farming is to the local economy.  The tour is designed to give attendees a firsthand look at modern farming and conservation methods.  The tour this year was centered around hemp production and processing.

The tour began at Harton Farms, they are primarily a dark tobacco producer with around 350 acres a few years back they also branched out into growing industrial hemp in partnership with another Christian county grain farmer.  The operation works with several large row crop farms in the area to rotate their tobacco acreage.  They were the first in our area to try growing industrial hemp and are highly regarded for is knowledge on growing the crop. We were able to get a tour of part of his operation and a quick rundown on what Mr. Harton saw as the most important issues with producing hemp in our area.  We were also able to look at one of his fields on the tour where he highlighted some differences in varieties and showed how to tell the difference in male and female plants.  The second part of our tour was at Vertical wellness a Hemp Processor that opened in Trigg County in the fall of 2018.  They produce CBD oil sold under several brand names including several of their own.  On the tour we were able to get up close to one of their extraction lines and walked through the process of what they do with the crop after it leaves the farm.  They discussed their future plans and how they plan to expand in the near future, one of the biggest hits with our farmers interested in growing hemp was their plans to add a dryer which could simplify on farm processing for our producers.  In all we over 300 people were in attendance and we all left knowing a little more about this new industry.