About our Founder and the American Feral Story
Advancing Cannabis Science: Jeremy Klettke's Journey in CBD Innovation and Policy Shaping
Davis Farms Founder & CEO Jeremy Klettke has spent decades studying the cutting-edge science around the endogenous cannabinoid system and how it is impacted by the entourage of compounds contained within the cannabis plant.
Jeremy’s recent focus has been on developing chemically diverse cannabis chemotypes for use in Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients and flavorants. Through this API-focused breeding, we have identified examples of single plants that contain over forty unique cannabinoids and include many of the sought-after minor cannabinoids.
Varieties that allow a farmer to take their crop to full maturity, full yield potential, and full compound expression without the fear of exceeding the THC threshold.
Davis Farms is nestled up to the back side of the Cascade mountains in the heart of Central Oregon. The main facility is located in the center of a large private ranch and wildlife corridor. Davis Farms considers it our duty to be stewards of this wild land. With this at the heart of operation, the majority of the property is managed for wildlife such as deer, elk, bobcat, coyote, horned owls, and mountain bluebirds. Our desire is to leave the land in better condition than we found it for the sake of our children’s children. In addition to our breeding & seed production facilities, we maintain a small working farm which includes; Several seasonal organic gardens, a greenhouse for year round food production, Honey bee colonies, horses, seasonal cattle, an ever growing brood of chickens, and a pack of the most lovable dogs you’ll ever meet.
Davis Farms of Oregon’s American Feral Story
Davis Farms recognized the need for the development of stable Type III hemp plants as early as 2014. Due to the lack of quality foundation breeding stock for this purpose, Davis Farms made it their mission to seek out and preserve the American feral lineages. The same plants that once created the sails and ropes of commerce to build this nation. The American Feral story is one of things that makes Davis Farms and the Mariposa line unique.
Commonly referred to as ‘Ditch weed’, these feral hemp plants are the living descendants of the industrial hemp our forefathers grew. These varieties had been surviving well and adapting to the environment through natural selection since as far back as the 17th century.
Decades of experience breeding high CBD and high THC cannabis for resin production led the breeders at Davis Farms to believe that most of the resin producing hemp plants were not well adapted to seasonal outdoor farming, and that one of the keys to building a sustainable CBD hemp industry would be field hardiness.
As a result, Davis Farms assembled a population of 423 viable feral seeds collected from seven states in the US and went to work selecting through them. From the original 423, there were 96 females and 5 males identified with promising traits. The 96 females were then mothered, cloned, and grown out across five acres to look at a good population from each mother.
From that initial seasonal field trial Davis Farms identified 22 female feral plants worth looking into and spent the next three years further selecting from the progeny of these 22 females and the original 5 males. The team at Davis then combined these plants with high resin producing CBD anomalies containing ratios of 20-25:1 and selected for hardiness, vigor, as well as terpene & cannabinoid content.
The result of this work is the Mariposa line of 12 compliant CBD rich hemp varieties. These varieties are truly unicorns among hemp, having CBD to THC ratios that average 30:1 and Total THC contents below the federal threshold of 0.3% at maturity.
The terpene profiles of these varieties are also of connoisseur quality making them well suited to the smokable flower markets.