GUSTAVUS, KINSMAN Cops pull 1,800 pot plants growing amid cornfields

The seizure should reduce the availability of marijuana locally, officials say.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GUSTAVUS -- Members of a tri-county law enforcement task force pulled up 1,835 marijuana plants from the interior of seven cornfields in Gustavus and Kinsman.
It was the largest seizure of pot plants in Trumbull, Geauga and or Ashtabula counties for several years, officials said.
If the plants were allowed to mature, they could have produced $1.8 million worth of marijuana at current retail prices, officials said.
"Someone is going to be crying tonight," said Geauga County Sheriff Dan McClelland, standing in front of two trucks loaded with uprooted plants.
The pot, hidden deep in cornfields, was likely intended to be sold locally, he said.
Members of the Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga Task Force -- an outgrowth of the counties' drug task force -- were tipped off by farmers that marijuana was being grown in the area, officials said.
The presence of pot was confirmed during an airplane fly-over this weekend.
A team of deputies went from field to field Monday, uprooting plants in some cases planted hundreds of yards into the corn.
"This is going to have an impact on the marijuana market in the three counties, and that is our goal," McClelland said.
The landowners or farmers are not considered suspects, officials say. Rather, they are victims, losing a portion of their corn acreage to the illegal weed.
How it's done
Typically, the pot growers sneak into fields after the corn crop has started to grow and transplant marijuana that was started indoors, officials say.
Potting soil still clung to the roots of some 8-foot plants pulled up Monday. In one of the fields, the pot growers used wire stakes to keep the pot plants standing tall.
The growers come back to harvest the pot in the fall, before first frost.
Growers are difficult to catch because they visit their plants infrequently, officials say.
They may have become more brazen this year, with the news that the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department has laid-off many deputies because of budget cuts, said Trumbull County Chief Deputy Ernie Cook.
"It is possible they don't think we patrol here anymore," he said.
Routine fly-overs sponsored by the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation were not held this year, an apparent casualty of budget cuts at the state level, officials say.
The Trumbull Ashtabula Geauga Task Force has also been investigating thefts of anhydrous fertilizer from farmers. The fertilizer can be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.