The Oklahoma Farm Bureau said at least 25 traditional growing operations have either partially or fully converted their spaces to include industrial hemp or medical marijuana.
According to Oklahoma Farm Bureau president Rodd Moesel, the state still has more than 600 traditional growers in the bedding plant business. Most of the dozens of the existing operations which now include hemp or medical marijuana have undergone partial conversions.
"We’ve had one or two that have converted their whole operation over," he said. "There have been a number of bedding plant operations and several container nursery stock operations that were growing shrubs and small trees that would have ended up at garden centers or landscapers that have made the conversion, so that’s going to certainly have some impact on supply."
Moesel said the supply effect may not be as apparent in the beginning of the season, but it could change as the season folds.
"If they were growing several hundred flats of petunias, several thousand flats of periwinkle and suddenly that production isn’t there — that’s being used to grow industrial hemp or medical marijuana — then there will be less of those petunias and periwinkles and geraniums," he said.