What if you give cannabis to sheep?
It’s a question you might expect from someone who uses cannabinoids, rather than studying it.
But Oregon researchers are asking this question, specifically about hemp, in an effort to unlock its potential as a commercial crop.
The hemp industry in Oregon currently produces two main cannabidiol products, or CBD: oil and a more specialized smoky flower. Producers dealing in the CBD oil market often hire processors to extract hemp oil. This process leaves behind large amounts of plant material. And right now, this biomass has little value.
“No one knows what to do with this stuff … So if you only use it as animal feed, it will really be a cheap source of another animal feed,” said Serkan Ates, who teaches the Department of Animal and Land Sciences, University of Oregon.
Close-up of hemp.
US fish and wildlife
OSU scientists working with the school’s Global Hemp Innovation Center are exploring whether this spent hemp biomass can be used to feed sheep, dairy cows and poultry.
“We see that there is a lot of potential so far,” Ates said.
For the past two years, his team has been conducting research trials, replacing different amounts of animal feed with hemp in lambs and cows. They are testing the impact of this hemp on the growth, health and behavior of animals, as well as whether THC is present in animal systems.
“The material is available. We have a lot of cattle in Oregon, a lot of dairy farms. There are not so many sheep, but we also have sheep. So technically we should be able to feed this material with this livestock, ”Ates said.
The answers they find could open up a new market for an industry that has had a difficult start.
“I don’t know that fiber, or post-extraction biomass, is the most valuable part of the plant,” said Jacob Crabtree, CEO of Columbia Hemp Trading Company, based in Oregon. “But when you look at a sustainable market and you don’t waste any part of that plant and get the most out of it, you have to look at those markets.”
Growth pains
After the United States completely legalized industrial hemp cultivation in 2018, Oregon growers and processors jumped with both feet. But they quickly found that the pool was cold and much shallower than expected.
Hemp has not been the agricultural Xanadu that many had thought it would be.
“I think during the 2019 season it was like a gold rush. I’m not sure if I’ll see such a rapid change in the use of farmland from a crop that was previously banned,” Gordon Jones said. , which works with hemp growers as part of its position in OSU’s Oregon Southern Research and Extension. Downtown Central Point.
Thousands of acres were converted to hemp production statewide. The Rogue Valley in southern Oregon had some of the highest concentrations of hemp growing in the county. At first, pear orchards were removed, hay production was replaced, and fallow fields were suddenly paddled with the black plastic commonly used to grow hemp.
In 2019, some 64,000 acres were licensed by the Oregon Department of Agriculture (though not all of this was necessarily planted). But at the end of the season, the weather turned bad in the areas, ruining much of the harvest. Still, markets in general were flooded with hemp.
“I still talk to growers who, in their barns, have their 2019 harvest in large packages of chopped dried biomass waiting to be extracted or have barrels or containers of extracted cannabinoid, CBD, waiting and looking for markets,” Jones said. dit. “I talk to other growers who point out the compost pile and tell me that’s where their 2019 harvest was.”
FILE – In this April 23, 2018 archive photo, Trevor Eubanks, plant manager at Big Top Farms, prepares a field for another hemp crop near Sisters, Ore.
Don Ryan / AP
In 2020, licensed acres in Oregon were reduced to about 27,500. This year it is approaching 7,000.
There is volatility in the industry and producers are looking for stabilization so they can start to get an idea of how big hemp could be.
The development of a secondary market could help provide this stability.
“It could sell hemp biomass spent for less than five cents a pound. But the market it’s entering, the animal feed market, is a massive, massive, mass market internationally,” said Crabtree, the CEO. of the hemp company.
Do the sheep get the heap?
On the surface, spent hemp biomass is a high-quality feed, with as much protein and more fat than alfalfa, another commonly used feed.
“When we look at the perspective of chemical composition, spent hemp biomass, in most cases, is better than alfalfa,” Ates said.
To test the quality and effect of hemp feeding on sheep, OSU scientists replaced hemp with alfalfa in different amounts and for different durations. The sheep received 10% or 20% hemp for four or eight weeks.
Compared to control, preliminary results show that hemp worked well. After eight weeks, the sheep that were fed hemp ate mostly more than the group that received only alfalfa, with a slight improvement in body weight. Hemp also showed different impacts, some potentially positive and others somewhat puzzling, on important health metrics for livestock producers.
For dairy cows, the researchers fed the cows 15% hemp for four weeks. Cows ate less during and immediately after this period. Despite this, the first data showed that they produced more milk, but with a slightly lower fat content.
And at the American Chemical Society’s fall 2021 meeting, the researchers reported that for lambs, “10% (spent hemp biomass) can be included in ruminant diets without causing any detrimental effect on yield. with a possible positive effect on feed intake “.
More analysis will be needed before researchers can draw a comprehensive conclusion on whether hemp is really a more efficient food.
In this photo from May 19, 2015, a bag of crushed hemp about to become pulp and use it for paper and other products is on a table, at Pure Vision Technology, a biomass factory in Ft . Lupton, Colo.
Brennan Linsley / AP
“But even if it’s not more efficient … the important part is: can we replace alfalfa or any type of conventional feed with spent hemp biomass? If we can do that, you’ll be able to reduce the cost of food,” he said. Ates.
Researchers will test hemp as a feed for poultry in early 2022.
This annoying THC
Despite the positive results, hemp growers and ranchers cannot begin to use spent hemp biomass for animal feed.
“The question is the level of THC: whether or not the FDA, at the end of the day, will authorize the feeding of hemp to the animals. If they do, I’m sure we will be able to feed the animals with that,” Ates said.
THC is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, the things that make you drugged.
The hemp plant is the same species as marijuana. But the uses of plants and how they are regulated are very different. Legally grown hemp contains less than 3% THC. According to data from Columbia Hemp Trading Company, there is four times less than the hemp biomass spent (0.07% total THC).
There is still concern from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that THC should pass from animals to humans when lamb or milk is consumed.
“The FDA … has no guidance or what is called ‘tolerable dose intake’ … which is the total amount of any compound you can eat a day without consequences,” said Massimo Bionaz of OSU , co-researcher of the research.
THC was recorded in the livers of lambs and milk from hemp-fed cows, but the amounts were very small.
“Given the data we’ve gotten so far, yes, are there cannabinoids. Is that significant to humans? I don’t think so,” Bionaz said. “However, it’s up to the FDA, not us.”
