Fuente: WIPO "industrial hemp" A shredding rotor rotatably coupled to a support frame is configured to remove plant leaves from plant stems fed into an aperture in the support frame. The shredding rotor includes many flexible shredding strands attached to a rotor axle. The shredding strands are sufficiently flexible to strip leaves from all sides of the stems without breaking the stems into pieces. Shredding strands are spaced far enough apart from one another to prevent plant material from becoming lodged between the strands. A destemming and shredding apparatus including two shredding rotors separates an incoming stream of plant materials into an output stream of shredded leaves and another output stream of essentially intact stems. A shredding apparatus having no more than one shredding rotor receives destemmed leaves at an inlet aperture and outputs shredded leaf fragments.