Lack of Seed & Urging Compliance

Lack of Seed & Urging Compliance. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Even with the cooler temps and some rain over the weekend, high winds fanned wildfires again here in the northwest. Winds of over 60 miles per hour caused flames to push firefighters back as blowing dust created it's own problems. Washington Governor Jay Inslee reached out to the public before leaving on a 9-day trade mission to urge residents in fire areas to heed any evacuation orders.

INSLEE: I want to urge people in the area of any Washington wildfire to heed evacuation orders and not take unnecessary risks in the upcoming days. If you hear your town or area is under a Level 3 please immediately follow that evacuation notice that means there is very serious and very real threat.

Hemp production is showing a lot of promise and interest but due to the fact that it's classified as a controlled substance due to its relation to marijuana fertile seed is both hard to get and expensive. That makes growing hemp extremely difficult and slow going. Oregon farmers can now legally grow help for the first time since 1970 but it will take a number of years to get enough seed to make a viable crop. Hemp has a large list of end products including hemp seed foods, hemp oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper, and fuel. Hemp does not contain enough of the same components of it's cousin, marijuana, to make it useful as a narcotic.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.