Mechanical peeling of the outer bast replaces the ancient (& current) practice of producing high-quality fiber. Degummed by the same machine that peels off the bast & having the potential to work in the field is the innovation needed to ramp up primary hemp fiber production in North America & now Mexico!
Dual-purpose hemp varieties like Wojko, Joey or Anka all yield good seed production. Harvesting in the field is timed by rows, each 4 foot wide section processing 64 stalks, 5 feet tall every second, yielding approx. 1 ton of ribbon per acre. The machine is easily scaled by adding more sections (8, 12, 16 feet wide).
4 raw commodities are obtained from mobile ribbon decortication, namely SEED, HURD, DEGUMMED RIBBON FIBER & CHAFF (for low-grade CBD oil)
We are proud to announce that, through the generous support of Hemp Traders to supply us fiber-grade stalks we were able to verify the basic concept & run through whole, dry stalks to produce the most beautiful ribbon to date! Plans are in the works to build a larger prototype & to work more closely
2021 has been a very challenging year for alot of people, us included. Fortunately, we were able to take the time we had to clean up parts of the machine that required band aid solutions to get it to work initially. Having witnessed how the system works, we lightened up parts that could be made
We believe we have a winning design to produce ribbon hemp & call upon the iHemp community at large in an attempt to obtain green stalks of monoecious or other dual-purpose variety to sample in our ribbon decorticator. The stalks should be dry but not retted & sown between 30-40 seeds per square foot. Ideally,
In an Orwellian twist, insurance providers decide that hemp & marijuana are the same & will not provide fire insurance if they find one hemp seed on their property- unless they pay their marijuana growers premium. Unable to risk his families possessions, Canfiber has been left without a local grower to finally test out its
A simple yet elegant design is all that was required to allow multiple rows of stalks to be fed into the RD2.0. Simulating what would happen if a mobile unit cross-cutted the rows, we were able to figure out the row spacing to allow for timing of the ribbon decorticating process to reset. By utilizing
After a series of settbacks due to COVID supply chain issues, we were finally able to begin testing in earnest. Unfortunately, with all new technologies there were bugs to work out. It wasn’t until Christmas that all the bugs were ironed out & a series of successful tests were recorded using a limited amount of
After all the issues that we had to overcome, we overlooked the fact that the cut tops would allow rain to enter the stalk more readily than if theplant was still entact. This oversight resulted in the loss of most of the acre that we had anticipated would see us through testing of the RD2.0
Working with a iHemp farmer in Agassiz, BC he allowed us to modify his John Deere 800 series windrower once it became clear the double-cut harvestor was in trouble. It took a solid week but we were able raise the header’s sickle bar to 50″ to cut the tops off. The unit tested out on
With the limited success with last year’s double-cut project, updates to the harvestor have been undertaken to allow cut tops to be conveyed away from the lower stalks. Relocating the sickle motor away from the discharge area while making it more efficient with a direct-drive was also implemented. With harvest came a dissapointing result as
With a influenza pandemic spreading across the world, we believe now more than ever that society has to become more self-sufficient & expand its material offerings. Once this pandemic has been contained, it is our hope that iHemp will be able to assist in the economic recovery by expanding product offerings using this amazing plant!