Hemp Decortication Machines: Costs, Features, and What Hemp Is Separated Into
Every bale of fiber hemp is a bundle of different products. Decortication pulls the stalk apart into its two main parts: the long bast fiber on the outside and the woody hurd (also called shiv or core) inside. It also leaves a stream of fines and dust. Hemp is only as valuable as the machine that does this job, so here is what each output is worth, which machines exist, what they cost, and where Kansas fits. Pull on the gloves. This is the step where a field crop either becomes an industry or becomes a pile of bales behind the shed.
What decortication actually does
Hemp stalk is two materials glued together by pectin. The traditional way to loosen them is retting: leaving cut stalks in the field (dew retting) or soaking them in water until microbes break the bond. Dew retting gives a coarse, light-brown fiber, and water retting gives higher-quality fiber [2]. A decorticator then breaks the woody core and strips it from the fiber mechanically. Some machines are built to work on unretted ("green") stalk [1, 7]. Loosen it, then rip it apart. Everything after that is detail and dollars.
There are four basic designs:
- Hammermill / impact designs smash the stalk. They are fast and simple, but they shorten fiber and make more dust.
- Roller-breakers crush the stalk between fluted rollers so the brittle core cracks off the flexible fiber. The FiberTrack 660 is a 6-roller unit [10].
- Scutching / turbine lines beat and comb the broken core away from aligned fiber. This is the classic flax-style approach for long fiber.
- Mobile or transportable units go to the crop, not the other way around. The TCI D8 and trailer-mounted FiberTrack are examples [7, 10].
Most industrial lines combine several of these with cleaning, de-dusting, fiber baling and hurd bagging [1, 6].
What hemp is separated into
Now for the part that pays the bills. How much of each output you get depends on the variety, retting and the machine. The best published guide we found is ANDRITZ's figure for its own lines on French hemp: about 50% cleaned shives, 25% cleaned refined fiber, 15–20% dust, and about 5% very short fiber [1]. Field trials measure the stalk before processing. Hurd is about 60–70% of stalk volume and bast 30–40% [2], and the Nevada review cites trials averaging 34.9% bast to 65.1% hurd, with a 22–35% bast range in New York [3].
Hemp outputs, typical shares and main uses
| Output | Typical share | What it is | Main uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long bast fiber | Part of the ~25% refined fiber [1]; bast is 30–40% of stalk volume [2] | Strong, cellulose-rich outer fiber (73–77% cellulose) [2] | Textiles and yarn (after degumming or cottonizing), rope, nonwovens, paper [1, 2, 7] |
| Short / technical fiber | ~5% very short fiber, plus shorter refined grades [1] | Fiber a few inches long or less, e.g. 2.5–4.5 in. staple [12] | Insulation mats, geotextiles, automotive composites (door panels, package shelves), fiberboard [2, 3, 12] |
| Hurd / shiv / core | ~50% cleaned shive [1]; 60–70% of stalk volume [2] | Woody core, high in hemicellulose and lignin [2] | Hempcrete (needs ≤0.5% fines and <20% moisture), animal bedding, mulch, paper, absorbents [2, 3]; biochar is at the research stage [4] |
| Micronized hurd | A fraction of the hurd stream | Hurd milled to powder | Filler in bioplastic composites, typically 10–30% hemp [2]. Formation Ag shows powdered hurd for plastics [9] |
| Fines / dust | 15–20% [1] | Fine particles from breaking and cleaning | Briquettes (dust bricketing is part of ANDRITZ lines) [1]. If it can't be sold, it is a disposal cost LOR estimate |
| Seed / grain (harvested before decortication) | US 2025 grain yield averaged 966 lb/acre [5] | Not a decorticator output; it comes off the combine | Hemp hearts, oil, and seed cake for food or animal feed [2] |
| Flower / leaf (separate crop or pre-harvest) | US floral hemp averaged 1,966 lb/acre in 2025 [5] | Cannabinoid-bearing material | Extraction (CBD). Not part of a fiber line. Dual-crop rigs strip flower before fiber [9] |
Decortication machines compared
These are real, current systems with published specs. Where a maker publishes a price we show it with its source and date. Everything else is quote only. No guessing at prices, and no sales pitch dressed up as a spec sheet.
Decortication systems: specs and published prices (checked Oct. 11, 2026)
HurdMaster MD1000 (Latvia) [8]
- Type
- Micro, gear-driven, manual feed
- Throughput
- 50–100 kg/hr (≈0.05–0.1 t/hr)
- Output quality / fiber length
- Shiv 5–30 mm; output roughly 1:1 shiv to fiber; stalks up to 3 cm
- Footprint
- 80 × 200 × 125 cm; 320 kg; 220 V, 1.5 kW
- Price (published)
- €13,500 ex shipping and tax
- Notes
- Hurd-first machine for hempcrete and bedding. 8–10 week delivery
Formation Ag FiberTrack 660 (Colorado) [9, 10]
- Type
- 6-roller breaker, modular; trailer-mountable
- Throughput
- Up to ~1 ton/hr (feedstock dependent)
- Output quality / fiber length
- Vendor says up to 95%+ clean fiber, 98%+ clean hurd, sized hurd, with add-ons Vendor claim
- Footprint
- ~3 × 3 m machine; ~5,000 sq ft for a full system
- Price (published)
- From $139,000; ~$230,000 end-to-end (2020 figures)
- Notes
- 60-in. input; one to two feeders. Prices are six years old, so get a current quote
TCI Decorticator D8 (Australia) [7]
- Type
- Transportable, conveyor-fed
- Throughput
- 1–5 t of stalk/hr
- Output quality / fiber length
- Fiber leaves in coarse tufts; needs degumming for textiles
- Footprint
- 2,500 kg machine
- Price (published)
- $350,000 ex factory (currency not stated; Australian maker, so likely AUD)
- Notes
- Green or dry stalk; marketed as a mechanical alternative to retting
Canadian Greenfield HempTrain™ (Alberta) [6]
- Type
- Turnkey “non-destructive” kinematic plant with bale opener, cleaning, hurd sizer
- Throughput
- Up to 3,000 lb/hr (≈1.36 t/hr)
- Output quality / fiber length
- Long fiber up to 36 in. (1,000 mm); hurd 1/8–2 in.
- Footprint
- <2,200 sq ft; ~16 ft tall; ~90,000 lb; 175 kVA, 480 V
- Price (published)
- $3.5M system value; territory licenses $5–7M
- Notes
- Throughput drops with high-fiber (>15%) or long (>3 ft) feedstock. “0% dust” is the vendor’s own claim Vendor claim
ANDRITZ Laroche teXline (France) [1]
- Type
- Industrial dry line: cleaning, decortication, refining
- Throughput
- 2.5, 5 or 10 t of straw/hr; a 1 t/hr line upgrades to 2.5
- Output quality / fiber length
- Refined fiber with <1–5% shive; shive with <2% dust and fiber for building use
- Footprint
- Quote only
- Price (published)
- Quote only
- Notes
- Retted or unretted straw; needs 12–16% straw moisture; takes square or round bales
IND HEMP’s Laroche line (Fort Benton, MT) [11, 12]
- Type
- Industrial Laroche line in a 52,000 sq ft plant
- Throughput
- 5 t/hr on two IND HEMP pages; 4 t/hr on another Sources disagree
- Output quality / fiber length
- “Gold” technical fiber sold at 2.5–4.5 in. staple
- Footprint
- 52,000 sq ft on 10 acres
- Price (published)
- Not published
- Notes
- An operating US example. It also runs cleaning, classifying and milling
Used Laroche Exel line (Gibbs International, KY) [13, 14]
- Type
- Industrial line (2014 build), for resale
- Throughput
- 2.5 t/hr; up to ~30M lb of straw a year
- Output quality / fiber length
- Fiber ~2–3 in. with <3% hurd; hurd suited to bedding
- Footprint
- Installed in Milton, KY
- Price (published)
- Quote only
- Notes
- Sheet claims “up to ~$7,000,000” annual revenue Vendor claim
Temafa (Dilo Group, Germany) [15]
- Type
- Complete bespoke decortication plant
- Throughput
- Not published
- Output quality / fiber length
- Fiber for building insulation
- Footprint
- Not published
- Price (published)
- Quote only
- Notes
- First full hemp line ordered by Hanffaser Geiseltal, 2026
Left out on purpose: Bast Fibre Technologies refines and purifies bast fiber for nonwovens and buys its feedstock from outside decorticators. It isn't a decorticator maker [16]. For Renergi, PureHemp, Cavac/Lin-hemp, Hemp Inc. and HempTech we could not find current published decortication specs or prices we could check, so we left them out rather than guess. If any of them sends us a spec sheet, we'll add it. The door is open. The standard doesn't move.
Cost tiers and what drives ROI
Capex tiers (published figures; not adjusted for inflation)
| Tier | Example | Capital cost | Capacity | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro / farm | HurdMaster MD1000 [8] | €13,500 | 50–100 kg/hr | Hurd for your own hempcrete or bedding; test plots |
| Small–mid, modular | FiberTrack 660 [10]; TCI D8 [7] | $139K–$230K (2020); $350K ex factory (currency unstated) | ~1 t/hr; 1–5 t/hr | Co-ops and custom-processing services near growers |
| Turnkey mid | HempTrain [6] | $3.5M system; $5–7M license | ~1.36 t/hr | Long-fiber and sized-hurd specialty markets |
| Industrial plant | 4–10 t/hr modeled plants [17]; Laroche lines [1] | CAD $10–25M for 4–10 t/hr, including land, building and equipment; $25.4M for 10 t/hr | 2.5–10 t/hr | Regional hubs that need tens of thousands of acres |
Operating costs at industrial scale. Serecon's 2019 Alberta business case gives the clearest breakdown we found (all CAD) [17]:
- Power: about 190 kW per tonne/hr of capacity, including compressed air. A 10 t/hr plant used about $730,000 a year at $0.10/kWh.
- Straw: $100/t plus 14% inventory carrying cost, so $114/t. That came to about $4.2M a year at 10 t/hr.
- Labor: 10–16 staff on two 7.5-hour shifts, five days a week, or about 3,650 machine hours a year. Labor was only about 5% of net expenses by year 5 at 10 t/hr.
- Property tax on the $25.4M plant was about $570,000 a year (14% of operating costs).
The lesson: straw supply and electricity matter more than labor, and freight works against you once the plant has to haul bales far. A decorticator is a hungry machine. Feed it, power it and keep the hauls short, or it eats you instead.
Return on a decorticator depends on five things:
- Hours of use. A machine that runs 3,650 hours a year [17] spreads its cost over far more tons than one that runs a few weeks after harvest.
- Hurd buyers. Hurd is the largest stream by weight [1], so you need a buyer for it, whether hempcrete, bedding or absorbents.
- Fiber spec. Long, clean fiber (HempTrain, scutching lines) goes to textiles. Short technical fiber goes to insulation and composites at lower prices.
- Dust. 15–20% of the input can come out as dust [1]. You need a plan to bag, briquette or sell it, and dust control with explosion protection [6].
- Straw quality and moisture. Industrial lines want 12–16% moisture [1], and retting changes both quality and yield [2].
The Kansas and US market picture
Fiber hemp grown in the open, 2025 (USDA NASS) [5]
| Kansas | United States | |
|---|---|---|
| Area harvested | 2,700 acres | 21,693 acres |
| Yield | 7,570 lb/acre | 3,104 lb/acre (median 2,200) |
| Production | 20.4M lb | 67.3M lb |
| Price received | $0.11/lb | $0.21/lb (median $0.14) |
| Value of utilized production | $2.19M | $13.45M |
| Share under contract | 37% | 45% |
Three things stand out:
- Kansas is a fiber heavyweight. It grew about 30% of US fiber hemp in 2025 LOR calc and harvested 2,700 acres, up from 640 in 2024 [5].
- The yields are strong but the price is low. Kansas's 7,570 lb/acre is more than double the national average, but the $0.11/lb price is about half the US average [5]. That gap is mostly a processing problem: more local decortication capacity and more hurd buyers would close it.
- Some of the crop goes unsold. About 511,000 lb of Kansas fiber was harvested but not sold, and only 37% was grown under contract [5].
Local processors: Midwest Hemp Technology in Augusta decorticates stalks into hurd and long-strand fiber and supplies stables, zoos and farm stores [18]. Prairie Band Ag in Holton sells bulk hurd and bast fiber [19]. Since January 1, 2025, Kansas producers are licensed by USDA, while processors register with the State Fire Marshal under K.S.A. 2-3901 et seq. [20]. Budget for that step before you install a machine. Paperwork is part of the machine too, so bolt it down early, before the steel shows up in the yard. My take: the machine is the easy part to buy. Supply, power and patience are the parts you have to build, and those are in our hands.
Key takeaways
- Decortication makes three main streams: about half hurd, a quarter fiber, and a dust stream you have to plan for [1].
- Machine prices run from €13,500 to more than CAD $25M [8, 17]. Throughput, fiber length and dust handling are what you're paying for.
- Most industrial makers sell by quote only. Treat published prices as a starting point, and check the date and currency on each one.
- Kansas grows about 30% of US fiber hemp but is paid about half the national price [5] LOR calc. Better processing is the opportunity.
- Before buying, run a test bale, line up a hurd buyer, and register as a processor with the State Fire Marshal [20].
Sources
- ANDRITZ Laroche, “Bast fibers for the change” teXline leaflet (08.2024): https://www.andritz.com/resource/blob/598276/074097c0f7ffbeafb5a69124f86b3b34/flyer-bast-fiber-technology-ftc-nonwoven-and-textile-data.pdf (PDF)
- University of Missouri Extension, Market Opportunities for Industrial Hemp (Dec. 2019): https://extension.missouri.edu/media/wysiwyg/Extensiondata/Pub/pdf/miscpubs/mx0072.pdf (PDF)
- Solomon et al., Industrial Fiber Hemp Varietal Evaluation in Western Nevada, Univ. of Nevada, Reno SP-25-01: https://naes.agnt.unr.edu/PMS/Pubs/2025-7009.pdf (PDF)
- Puglia et al., “Assessment of hemp hurd-derived biochar…”, Heliyon 2023: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14698
- USDA NASS, National Hemp Report, released April 16, 2026: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/hempan26.pdf (PDF)
- Canadian Greenfield Technologies, HempTrain™ specifications and licensing: https://canadiangreenfield.com/hemptrain/
- Power Equipment Australasia, “Aussie machine set to revolutionise industrial hemp industry” (TCI Decorticator D8): https://power-equipment.com.au/aussie-machine-set-to-revolutionise-industrial-hemp-industry/
- HurdMaster, MD1000 FAQ: https://hurdmaster.com/frequently-asked-questions-faq/
- Formation Ag, FiberTrack 660 product page: https://formation-ag.com/products/processing/decorticator/fibertrack660
- HempToday, “U.S. tech developer says time is right for its mid-size decorticator” (July 28, 2020): https://hemptoday.net/fiber-track-660-decorticator/
- IND HEMP, About IND HEMP (Fort Benton, MT campus): https://indhemp.com/about-ind-hemp/
- IND HEMP, Technical Fiber grades: https://indhemp.com/technical-fiber/
- Gibbs International, 2.5-ton/hr Laroche decortication line, Proposal No. 16111-M: https://www.gibbsinternational.com/textile-equipment-for-sale/hemp-fiber-processing/25-ton-per-hour-laroche-decortication-line-proposal-no-16111m-laroche-exel-
- Gibbs International, specification sheet for the same line: https://www.gibbsinternational.com/files/2.5-ton-per-hour-laroche-decortication-line.-milton660774930.pdf (PDF)
- Innovation in Textiles, “New Temafa line for hemp straw processing in Germany” (May 12, 2026): https://innovationintextiles.com/new-temafa-line-for-hemp-straw-processing-in-germany/
- Bast Fibre Technologies, FAQ: https://www.bastfibretech.com/faq
- Serecon Inc., HANA Business Case to Attract Investment in the Hemp Fibre Value Chain in Northern Alberta – Phase II (Sept. 2019): https://woodlands.ab.ca/Home/DownloadDocument?docId=1287f370-cc41-42c6-90ff-81d112a59303 (PDF; figures in CAD)
- Midwest Hemp Technology, About MHT (Augusta, KS): https://www.midwesthemptech.com/about-mht
- Prairie Band Ag (Holton, KS): https://prairiebandag.com/
- Kansas Department of Agriculture, Industrial Hemp: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/plant-protection-weed-control/industrial-hemp
Prices and specifications are as published by makers, sellers or the press on the dates shown and were checked Oct. 11, 2026. They are not quotes. Items marked LOR estimate/calc are our own arithmetic from the cited figures. Items marked Vendor claim are the maker's statements and have not been independently tested. This is not investment advice.
