Times Change: There’s A Hemp Display At The Illinois State Fair
No, it's not the kind you smoke. This is newly-legalized industrial hemp, the plant that for years was used for cloth, rope, and many other applications.
Now that it's been made legal again, visitors to the Illinois State Fair can see a whole plot of hemp (100 hemp plants and 8 CBD plants) growing next to the U of I Master Gardner's land on 8th Street.
Hemp production was legalized last summer and officials in April made applications available to would-be growers.
Agriculture Director John Sullivan says the two varieties of the cash crop are easy to differentiate. CBD plants need to branch out to produce buds for oils. Industrial strains are planted close together so they will grow tall with long, straight stems for production of fiber or hurd — dense, absorbent material.
An agriculture official will be giving presentations at the hemp plot daily from 1 to 3 p.m.
You might want to think of hemp as being marijuana's sober cousin: