July is National Hemp Month! This versatile plant is the stronger natural fiber in the world with over 50,000 different uses from textiles to food and building materials to supplements. This certainly isn’t surprising when you learn every part of the plant is usable, including the roots, stalk, leaves, and seeds. So, you might be wondering how you celebrate this month. It’s simple: learn about this impressive plant, hemp cultivation, and try out some hemp-based products!

Hemp Cultivation: Growing Great with Minerals

According to the National Hemp Association, hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre of growing, which is four times more than the rainforest! It is certainly is a robust plant! And minerals can even be used to help increase health and yield.

Perlite is formed by molten (magmatic) rock, also known as volcanic glass. Expanded perlite particles are lightweight and insulated glass bubbles that can hold water and air. This provides many benefits for hemp growers:

• Retains water in three ways: In between individual grains, in channels leading to the cores of the grains, and on the highly irregular surfaces of each particle.
• It allows you to feed your plant more. Because the perlite particles hold water, it aids in draining, which gives you the opportunity to give your plant more nutrients. Efficient draining also keeps roots very oxygenated.
• It’s lightweight. Because of its light weight—especially compared to other soil aggregates—perlite is easy to transport and mix.
• It’s stable for indoor and outdoor use. Add it to your outdoor plants, indoor pots, and even hydroponic gardens.
• It’s mixable. It mixes easily with soil and other amendments.
• It’s sterile and chemically inert. Growing with perlite promotes only the healthiest of root systems, ensuring a pest, and disease-free environment.

Vermiculite is a hydrated magnesium aluminum sheet silicate mineral closely related to mica. When subjected to heat, vermiculite expands and forms particles that are very productive in soil and soilless media mixes. Vermiculite’s benefits include:

• Acts as a magnet for nutrients. Vermiculite acts as a magnet for nutrients like potassium, calcium, and magnesium, making it an especially valuable and time-saving addition for passive hydroponics systems.
• Effectively re-releases nutrients. It provides cation-exchange capacity, releasing vital elements to the plant roots as required.
• Improves aeration. The expanded particles create matrixes in the soil, delivering air to the roots.

Diatomaceous Earth is the naturally occurring fossilized remains of diatoms. It supplies plants with soluble silicon content. Diatomaceous Earth benefits include:

• Increases plant health
• Does not decompose 
• Reduces abiotic and biotic plant stressors
• Greater yields

Harvest Hero Enhanced Perlite Mix

The recent introduction of Harvest Hero Enhanced Perlite Mix, a newly launched soilless growing medium and fertilizer formulated with a proprietary, 3-in-1 blend of perlite, diatomaceous earth, and essential nutrients, has changed the hemp-growing media landscape. This revolutionary new product supports the critical vegetative growth weeks by improving soil quality for a robust yield.

What makes Harvest Hero’s flagship product unique?

Harvest Hero’s flagship Enhanced Perlite Mix features the first fertilizer-coated perlite particle to hit the horticultural market. To top it off, they overlay the perlite particle with diatomaceous earth (DE), an Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) – beneficial substance. The DE imparts structural integrity by providing soluble silicon to plants cell walls while fending off abiotic plant stressors. The three products – essential nutrients, perlite, and diatomaceous earth is one of the most well-rounded soilless growing media to hit the hemp growing market to date.

Hemp Products: Oil Filtration

Recently, hemp has come into the spotlight in the form of CBD (cannabidiol) oil. This has caused many people to relate hemp to its cousin cannabis, but there is a difference! The 2014 Farm Bill legally defined hemp as the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of the plant that is less than 0.3% THC by dry weight. CBD oil is made by extracting CBD compounds from the leaves, flowers, and stalks. You may have also heard of hemp oil, which has little to no CBD content and is made by cold-pressing hemp seeds into a culinary oil.

cbdMD explains that CBD generally isn’t used to treat or cure a disease and is most often used to support your existing health and fitness routine. (However, there are some medical applications like the treatment of epilepsy that are verified with proper testing, evidence, and a doctor’s supervision.) It is frequently used to address the following:

• Anxiety
• Insomnia
• Chronic pain
• Skincare
• Animal wellness

Like all health products, it’s important to choose a reputable supplier and discuss options with your healthcare provider before starting a new treatment. 

Filtration Using Minerals

You can use a filter press with a slurry to filter hemp CBD and hemp oils. Mineral filter aid filtration (depth filtration) is mechanical, not chemical in nature. This filtration method requires the liquid to flow through a porous filter media and depositing the solids on the media. A filter aid is a finely divided material which when added to the liquor to be filtered helps control flow and solids removal. Irregularly shaped particles interlace and overlay in a fashion that leaves microscopic voids or open spaces. The size of these openings is so minute that the unwanted solids are strained from the liquid.

A filter press is made up of a number of plates that are each covered with a porous fabric coated with a thin layer of filter media, like diatomaceous earth, which traps particles while allowing fluid to flow freely.

The use of a filter cake requires a septum. The septum, usually screen or cloth, serves principally as a support for the cake. The filter aid forms a porous cake on a septum, stopping solids while preventing them from blinding the septum. This mechanical process can provide brilliant clarity and eliminates potentially dangerous contaminants when the proper media is used.

Diatomaceous Earth and perlite are two effective filtration media options. They are available in a variety of grades to meet the solids removal requirement of any application.

Support Hemp Cultivation and Production with Dicalite Management Group.

Dicalite Management Group is an international industrial minerals company with a unique multi-mineral platform including perlite, vermiculite, and diatomaceous earth. With an unequaled number of geographically dispersed processing sites and large ore reserves, we are the most vertically integrated supplier in our industry. This enables us to provide better, faster service for our customers. Contact us today at 866-728-3303 to speak with a sales representative about your mineral needs.