D3125: Don’t panic, it’s organic: Building resilient pest management strategies for organic hemp systems

Monday, November 11, 2024

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST

Location: Phoenix Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 6, PCC

Presenting Author(s)

Max R. Schmidtbauer

Undergraduate Researcher
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado

Co-Author(s)

JP

Jessica Prenni

Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Adrianna Szczepaniec

Associate Professor
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
MU

Mark Uchanski

Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Punya Nachappa

Associate Professor
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado

After a nearly fifty-year hiatus, the 2018 United States farm bill reintroduced industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) back into the agricultural landscape. Hemp has huge profit potential, however, there are still knowledge gaps with regards to best management practices. A recent, nationwide group of hemp stakeholders and producers were polled on research priorities, with many commenting on the dearth of information on organic productions systems and insect management. Hence, the long term-goal of our research is to provide hemp producers with information that will help them create robust and resilient organic hemp production systems, especially with regards to insect management. The first specific goal of our study is to characterize the benefits organic production systems have with regards to plant resistance to insects pests, and overall plant quality. We hope to achieve this through a series of insect counts and microbiome, phytohormone, and cannabinoid analyses conducted on the same variety of commercially available hemp, planted in both organic and conventionally managed plots. We hypothesize there will be distinct differences in plant quality and insect resistance between the two plots. The second specific goal of our study is to screen 30 breeding varieties of hemp in field for key pests, including the cannabis aphid (Phorodon cannabis). We hypothesize that there will be variation in insect resistance among the lines leading to variation in yield and quality metrics. Through traditional entomological and new age molecular approaches, we hope to reveal the benefits of organic management systems, and make recommendations to our growers.