Before actually storing any hemp, Billy Chavis, lead engineer and partner of Paragon Processing advises farmers to quarantine each batch of biomass product and test random samples—just to be clear about what’s coming into the controlled storage space. He recommends three separate samples from each bag to ensure well-rounded data points. This 24- to 48-hour process may play out in quarantined trailers, somewhere away from the storage facility. In following this lead, growers avoid the possibility of contaminating hemp already being stored inside.

Farmers should know precisely what is going into any storage space. Beyond just the actual mass of the dried hemp product, it behooves them to test each batch and to prevent any microbials (mold spores), heavy metals or pesticides from ever entering the climate-controlled space. Whether growers are storing other businesses’ hemp biomass or only storing their own products, this is an important defense measure and an added layer of data to maintain a rigorous paper trail for federal or state compliance or to defend against potential litigation. Paragon also conducts random testing each month for longer-term storage needs.