Tim Cornie likes how his first-ever hemp crop looks.

“When it got a little warmer, it exploded,” the Buhl, Idaho, farmer said July 11.

Cornie said he expects the hemp plants, grown for grain, to be 5 to 5.5 feet tall at harvest.

“Now it’s right at probably 4 feet,” he said. “It really looks good.”

Cornie said field conditions “got really damp and cool” after the crop was planted in mid-May. “But it still did fine. … I’m kind of impressed by the resiliency of the plant.”

The 2021 Legislature passed House Bill 126. The law allows production of industrial hemp — and related research, processing and transportation — starting this year.

The state Department of Agriculture approved about 500 acres of hemp for 2022. It licensed 10 producers, six handlers and four handler-producers — including 1000 Springs Mill, which Cornie co-owns. The University of Idaho is licensed in Aberdeen as a producer and in Boise as a handler-producer.

The Shoshone-Bannock and Nez Perce tribes operate under separate USDA-approved hemp plans.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation spokesman Sean Ellis said he would be surprised if hemp is grown on all 500 state-approved acres given higher prices for other crops and increased production costs.

Braden Jensen, deputy director of governmental affairs, said the Farm Bureau is “interested to see how the first growing season goes for hemp producers in the state, and in seeing how interest in producing industrial hemp in the state grows in coming years as people become more familiar with the crop and how it may grow here in the state.”

Greg Willison, who has grown hemp in Oregon and testified before Idaho lawmakers about the crop, said the industry is using up a surplus. That could add opportunity for growers in coming seasons.

“This year is setting us up for a really exciting and collaborative Idaho hemp industry,” said Christina Stucker-Gassi, who manages the health food and farms program at the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.

Ketchum-based Hempitecture uses hemp fiber to make a sustainable insulation product for walls, floors and ceilings. The company is building a new headquarters and manufacturing facility in Jerome.

Founder and CEO Mattie Mead said the company now gets its hemp fiber supply from an established primary processor in Montana.

“As the hemp industry grows and matures in Idaho, Hempitecture is positioned as a buyer of finished, processed material,” he said.

Mead said that with more acreage, the company would like to see in-state establishment of primary processing, which is mechanical separation of hemp fiber from stalks.

Cornie said 1000 Springs plans to use hemp grain in a meal-replacement bar. The company is growing it on a field of 8-10 acres.

Half this year’s hemp field will be harvested using a stripper header that takes off the seed and leaves the rest of the plant standing. This will be easiest on the combine harvester.

Cornie said the other half will be swathed with a draper header that windrows seed and fiber together; they will lie down and dry before they go through the combine.

“Whichever we have more success with, we’ll have a better idea of how we plant and harvest acres next year,” he said.

“We’re getting our feet wet,” Cornie said. “We wanted to be educated before we do more acres in the future. We knew there was a learning curve, so we didn’t want to go whole-hog.”