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In Summary
Travis Green & New Green Organiks, joins us on the HempList this week. Hosted By Chase Nobles, Founder of Kush.com
Travis has a experience growing everything from lettuce kits to hemp in the last few years and goes into how his focus is currently on providing local (Florida) high quality hemp products. Chase and Travis talk about Florida Hemp Regulations, Transitioning to Hemp from more traditional crops like lettuce, and even some great growing tips for new hemp farmers.
Transcript (auto-generated)
hey everybody chase nobles here founder
of kush.com i’ve got travis green here
from new green organiks how you doing
travis good to see you
doing fantastic today man thanks for
having me on i’m excited for the show
okay so we had some technical
difficulties
we’re back in business now um we’re
talking about florida hemp
and you know what y’all are doing down
there what are the regulations been like
i know they had a little bit of a walled
garden but maybe that’s not not
so true as we once thought it would be
what’s what’s happening with the
regulations down there in florida for
anybody listening
yeah it’s it’s a bit of a strange place
as they’re building
language and legislature and stuff but
um
they they were trying to make it to
where you know florida was a big
producer of kemp and we were trying to
support those
you know those those cultivators and
farmers um
and i think that the intentions were
good there they’re trying to create a
robust market but it is kind of creating
some sort of
exclusivity i think as well um
but i i don’t really if it is still in
effect because i’m honestly not sure
i don’t see it lasting for very long you
know because i think as
yeah as temp opens up federally too i
mean uh
not not federally but you know as
restrictions kind of lessen a little bit
i think that
it’s going to create like lots of cool
supply chain uh
changes you know florida’s been so
business friendly
you know across the board you know we’re
seeing a migration from
kind of the tech tech hubs on the west
coast moving to florida for the
for the tax benefits among you know just
kind of lifestyle and
uh you know the the the sunny weather
you got down there
um are you seeing any changes with the
florida market
happening right now it’s kind of with
covid with the you know the the lack of
you know not lack regulations but the
less
stringent regulations less taxes is that
having an impact on the on the hip
market
yeah i mean i think that they’re they’re
trying as hard as they can to let things
let things roll um you know and i think
that language
good language is being put in place and
i think we’re progressive so that’s
always good but
um i i think that it would be smart of
us to try and create
you know local agriculture solutions
because
um i feel as if industrialization is
kind of creeping into the hemp industry
already
and um and i think that you know if the
supply
is up here and the demand is down here
you know and we’re not educating these
people
to kind of even things out you know
we’re always going to get these these
big
price fluctuations and we’re going to
you know not be sure what kilos are
selling for you know what pounds they’re
selling for and
things like that and it makes it hard to
to to like uh
do your financials you know like what am
i going to make what are going to be my
costs here
you know and even for processors and
testers i mean it goes all the way and
through the whole industry
it makes it tough with those big
fluctuations so i would like to see
like smaller you know uh really high
quality
stuff being put on the market i think
that’s really gonna um move us in a good
direction
right and the cost stay fairly fixed
minus regulations
um but the the price the demand price
has gone down
quite a bit being in the farming space
what was that like to go through you
know kind of the price crash of 2019
which we all saw and felt and heard and
it’s lasted through 2020 2021 is looking
a little bit different but what was that
like living through that as an
entrepreneur that’s been in the space
this long how did you manage that yeah
yeah i mean honestly we just moved into
the hemp space
in uh 2018 2020 when we really started
getting into the hemp space when
you know we were allowed to do stuff
there and it was kind of
disheartening because you know we i
looked at all those numbers and i looked
at those averages per acre
and it was like a dream right you know
um that you can get into the
a space like the hemp space and make
really good money
um so you know in that first year when i
got into it was that big
tank so it’s pretty rough man and and
it’s um
it’s even rougher for people who put
everything they had into farming this
year in florida
and they ended up with a lot of
disappointment you know
exactly but uh i i think just that i was
gonna say it was felt across the board
you know and and
with you know we get probably 70 plus
users a day on the platform
and a lot of them are farming um so it’s
just been like you know how do you
forecast
in a market like that right and how do
you how do you how do you manage your
finances and say okay there’s some
security here there
you know there’s some risk here
especially whenever um
you know things are so volatile in the
space what do you think gets us out of
this
yeah um tough to say i think just you
know you guys put a lot of emphasis on
education and i think that is the key to
life in general but but i think it’s
really important in the hip space too
because
you know if we can really educate people
and empower them
you know sales are going to happen on
their own but the thing is is that
people are investing millions of dollars
into producing something that they’re
not spending millions of dollars
trying to you know uh bring people
understanding and education on what it
does
where you know where it comes from how
it works and the benefits because
you know there are some really really
powerful uh studies
you know that show hemp treating really
serious diseases and ailments and so
you know people should know that these
these are things that people most people
probably don’t know and so i think
consumer education is would be my
number one uh suggestion to get us out
of where we’re at you know
i think that’s a positive path so tell
us a little bit about what you do
you know you’ve been in agriculture for
a minute now
and it looks like you have a pretty high
focus on sustainability and like you
were talking about the small local
agricultural markets
what’s your focus been as a business
with newer green organics
yeah um you know we started that company
as just a really small market garden we
wanted to make
uh salad kits we wanted to grow salad
kits for people and like just seasonal
veggies so that
you know people had an option if they
wanted to get something organic and
healthy and local they can actually do
it you know
because you can’t really you couldn’t
really find that stuff especially back
then 2015 you couldn’t go and find
organic produce if you weren’t at the
right store
and so we we really wanted to just make
healthy uh
healthy lifestyle and healthy food more
available
and we’ve we’ve tried to do a great job
it’s really tough to be a farmer so it’s
just inherently really
hard work um but we think we’ve done
great you know we sell at local farmers
markets and co-ops and um
restaurants we also work with a lot of
really great chefs
like jesse rice here backwoods crossing
fantastic farm-to-table restaurant
um and so we’re just trying to get
you know healthy local stuff and put an
emphasis on like
locally grown things because you know we
see things like the dust bowl
in the midwest where this whole you know
large area of soil is just just dead and
unviable at this point and so
i think i think it’s you know if we want
to to move forward and have it have a
place to live in an industry to thrive
in we’ve got to take care of the ground
underneath us you know so
i think that’s smart that’s really
important what took you from
salads and salad kits into the hemp
space and did you know what you were
getting into when you did it
you know what um i i did a lot of
research
um so before before we were able to grow
hemp in florida
i actually considered moving out of the
state just so that i could grow him
so i was just gonna pick up and move and
uh
just that i could get into this space
but luckily like i said advocacy work
was huge and
and him you know we can grow him in
florida now but it was it was a big jump
man and luckily i was able to
um to get on and and manage a project
last year for another farm
so it wasn’t as scary because i didn’t
have that
big investment right the monetary
investment
um but it’s still scary because you know
i’ve heard a lot of people refer to the
hemp industry
in florida as the wild west you know
there’s not a lot of
you know infrastructure or laws put in
place so it was it was
it was a big jump man speaking of the
wild west
when it comes to smokeable flower what’s
florida’s stance been on it and has that
been a big market for your farm
yeah um you know florida is uh
florida’s if i feel like they’re you
know they’re just getting started so so
you most of the stuff that we get is is
is from out of state you know you go
into the cbd shops and
health and wellness shops and stuff and
it’s it’s it’s all stuff from out of
state so i think
the crop that we grew last year was one
of the first local florida buds that
uh you know hemp flower that uh
that got into the stores here so it was
pretty cool to
see that um you know that that changed
that transition
um but yeah you know we’re trying to to
make it to where
florida’s actually you know um producing
good high quality
whole flour you know yeah because i
think right now
the first year it was it was tough for
people you know because just
you know if you don’t have
infrastructure if you don’t have all the
knowledge you know there’s a lot of
places
uh along the way to mess up in terms of
growing and drying
hemp when when it comes to that
actual process of growing and drying and
you know getting it
into a finished good whether it’s smoke
blood or biomass for uh for extraction
you know did were there any hard lessons
that you had to learn in your first year
or two
and what were those and how if you if
you were talking to a friend in farming
what would you tell them if i was
thinking about getting into him what
would you tell them before they you know
took the lunch oh man there’s so many
things
um number one would probably be
you know focus on getting good genetics
try and get some reputable genetics
because that
you know we had some genetic variants so
we had a little bit of issues in our on
our field
that we were growing last year second
would be soil health
you know you’ve got to put a big
emphasis on soil health rather than
trying to just
constantly feed the plants you know let
the let the nutrients and
and the feeding come from the from the
ground so that you know
we’re not overworking ourselves and the
plants and soil
um and travis what does that entail with
oil health
because you know i’ve talked to a bunch
of people you know whether it’s
nutrients or you know
uh mycorrhizae the the the fungus the
the
the um what what does soil health mean
to you and how do you think about it
yeah um the the research that i’ve done
this year and last year has really
totally changed my perspective
um but i think that i can’t translate
into latin yet
oh that’s okay siri um i think that
as as long as we have good bacteria
good you know fun fungi um
we’ve got earthworms we’ve got mites you
know um
nematodes you know all these little
things that
live inside the soil and that really
move the soil around
and work it and make sure it’s like it’s
actually healthy and it’s you know it’s
it’s
it’s kind of like our bodies they’ve got
to be at a certain ph right
we want to kind of stay alkaline so that
we’re not our bodies don’t become acidic
and i think the soil is the same way you
know it’s it wants to be in that
alkaline good ph state
and um the only way to do that is to
have bacteria and things that you can’t
see
and so that’s why i think it’s been so
elusive for farmers in the past and
we’ve really messed up
especially with industrializing things
but
if we if we do you know a little bit of
digging
we can figure out what makes that soil
move and what makes it such a viable
thing because
if you think about it it’s really
important it’s growing our food it’s
growing our medicine
um so we definitely got to take care of
it you know
yeah and that’s i think that’s a big
difference between you know cannabis
farming and hemp farming
even though it’s the same plant but you
know thinking about it from like a
recreational cannabis farming to a hemp
farming
you you’re using the soil in a cannabis
farm you know
you can just especially if it’s indoors
you have such control
over what the inputs are on the nutrient
side
how do you manage nutrients and nutrient
deficiencies within
a field of plants and is that been a
challenge for the hint
or has it been uh you know easier
because of you know
large farming practices and all the
technology that’s been developed to be
able to you know maintain a crop like
that
yeah it is tough we struggled with that
last year um you know trying to figure
out what was
in the plants what was in the soil and
if you’re doing any kind of large scale
stuff you know you’re probably using
drip irrigation with an injection system
and again it’s really really hard um
to gauge it you know without you know
testing and stuff like that which can be
you know complex and expensive um
but you know it goes right back to
before you plant any seeds man you um
you know uh a good way that that we do
uh
we do what we do is we just make sure we
have like things like earthworm castings
um you know mushroom compost any kind of
organic material
that’s going to help build the soil up
um and then it’s not such a guessing
game throughout the season so
you know if you take that preemptive uh
that preemptive step
and just make sure you’re enriching the
soil first it is
it takes a lot of guesswork out of the
um the feeding schedule throughout the
season
and so you were growing other crops as
well um you know especially for the
for the salad kids and everything else
that you you’ve been doing
how do you think of the opportunity cost
of you know growing a field of him which
can have a huge reward
especially if you’re selling you know
the smokeable flower side or have really
high quality
bud but how do you think about the
opportunities compared to other
agricultural opportunities using that
same amount of land
yeah um i mean i
hemp is it is very interesting um
you know if you’re if you’re producing
any kind of flour it’s very very
profitable in comparison
you know um i mean almost an unreal
uh difference so you know
i i would always you know
suggest people to grow hemp over
anything else
because it is so useful um but you know
i would say
uh i would love to see people actually
getting into the fiber
and grain uh portion of the hemp
industry because i think it’s i mean i
don’t know the exact number but it’s
somewhere around five percent
of uh fiber and grain as opposed to 95
like cbd and flour so it would be cool
to see a lot of farmers shift over into
something like that too you know
i think that’s the next big phase you
know we’re
the last two years it’s been about cbd
two years prior and then you know the
the minor cannabinoids have really come
up coming but
such a huge market that’s quite untapped
on the fiber
and the material side of the hip place
it’ll be really interesting to see what
happens there
what does the future of new greens
organics look like when it comes new
green organics look like
for you know maybe three to five years
out from now where do you expect to be
what kind of products
can people get now and what do you
really want to make that you you know
haven’t had the chance to quite yet yeah
those see this is what i’m really
getting uh
getting into uh is is trying to create
products and good products that really
make
sense and uh right now we we literally
today
uh we’re launching our our website uh
which is
newgreenham.com uh so we we uh been
working on it and doing product
development and uh
just trying to get everything right and
to today we’re launching
uh so it’s pretty exciting but you know
now we currently we just do
um a couple sublinguals where we use
isolate and distillate
um and we do uh concentrates uh where we
do
um um again iceland just
but just in crystal and powder form so
that people can kind of uh
create their own cbd products uh and
then we just do flower and pre-rolls
um but you know in the future we
we’re getting into we’ve got a lot of
ideas um but
we’re getting into some interesting
areas where
i think that there’s not there hasn’t
been a lot of innovation done in terms
of fusing cbd with other products
um so you know we’re getting into the
honey space
we think that um cbd honey is
is is really beneficial especially if
it’s local bees and
and and really uh raw you know
antibiotic free honey
i think there’s a lot of good health
benefits there and to fuse that with cbd
i think is going to be cool um
and we’re also trying to create
something that people might be able to
get
more nutritional value than just cbd in
one kind of dose
so i think i think one one thing that
keeps people from taking
cbd oil is that and why it doesn’t
continue to sell is that you see
people kind of dropping off and saying
oh you know maybe i’ll get it next month
is that it’s kind of tough to
incorporate something new into your
routine so
you know we’re thinking about like
combining
cbd with other you know supplements and
vitamins and
you know nutritional things that people
already take on a daily basis that way
it’s not a new habit it’s already there
so that’s kind of our goal is to kind of
be innovative in how we approach the
product space
expanding into the wellness category
more than just you know hemp
specific products i think that’ll be
that’ll be an interesting place to look
you know we’ve been communicating with a
fair number of supplements companies
because they’re looking at this space
and
how much you know how much overlap there
could be and so i think that’s a smart
thing
and and i’m excited to see that now have
you thought about putting
a couple of beehives in the hitfield and
creating your own honey locally
yes and and we’ve talked about this too
um
you know we’ve talked about trying it
this year um
we just don’t know logistically how all
that stuff’s gonna work
so it’s no big deal
it’s no big deal you just need to you
need to get a couple of nukes and you
need to get a couple of hives and
they’ll go to town man i
i bet that they will love that so i
i hope you try it and i hope you report
back to the community here how it goes
yeah yeah absolutely yeah we think it’s
gonna be cool to let them kind of do
their thing
and uh see if they can be like mixed by
bees instead of
us you know so all right that would be
awesome that’d be awesome
well travis it’s been a pleasure talking
to you um everybody can find your
products on kush.com you got a
storefront up there you’ve got your
products up there and
it’s a pleasure to have you on the
platform um representing you know kind
of the local farming community and uh
excited to see where you all go and uh
you gotta keep it post we’ll have to do
another interview here soon
yeah chase thanks thanks for having me
on and uh really appreciate all you guys
are doing because
you know honestly this is this is
kush.com is exactly what the industry
needs uh
we need some cohesion you know we need
people to be able to come together and
facilitate relationships and that’s
exactly what you guys are doing
um you’re really empowering people in
the industry so
a lot of appreciation here man for what
you guys are doing thank you travis that
means a lot to us we’ve we’ve got a team
that works really hard on the platform
and uh
but we wouldn’t be anywhere without
people like you on there so it’s been a
pleasure to work with you and i’m
excited to see where you all go and good
luck with everything
and uh you know give give kush a call if
you need anything
yes sir thanks again man all right we’ll
talk soon travis