We knew having last years seed was a risk, so a handful was germinated on a plate- which sprouted in 2 days! Planting to the 10″ rows required a scramble to secure a seeder that would not only plant to the width we wanted (to provide data for a concept mobile processing unit). Unable to find or rent one before the planting date, a precision hand seeder was borrowed. That will never happen again as soon after a book named ‘the war crop’ printed during WW2 took out the guess work. We needed 4-6″ spaced rows to obtain a uniform thickness stalk that is sown early to crowd out emerging competition.  Sidenote- If current weather patterns persist, it means the 49th parallel shaves a week off past years (first week of May) planting time to take advantage of that precious rain! 

A theory has emerged that will allow a fiber crop to be planted early in the season, then harvested at 60 days. At harvesting, seeding will trail the coming mobile processor that will produce hurd-free ribbon that will be treated by enzyme retting & plant a dual seed/fiber crop. The second crop will grow to maturity at which point field retting will be performed to offer a choice to potentially interested parties.

The amount of grass that emerged after 2 days of nightly watering using 1000L water totes & a firehose was frightening, but we had no choice as drought conditions hit hard. Tiny hemp seeds had serious competition from what would become ragwort, canola along with a host of other aggressive plants vying for moisture. As you can see, hemp won! (to a degree). Ideally, planting early should beat  As far as the claims of hemp ‘crowding out’ other plants is unfounded in our plot. Perhaps after a couple years of sowing hemp this claim would prove true, but for now the ground is a mess of unwelcome plants.