High Hopes for Cannabis

[Sensai_Milla]

High hopes for cannabis

20/11/2008 1:00:01 AM

GROWING cannabis becomes legal in NSW today - provided you are a licensed farmer who will harvest hemp for industrial use.

After years of debate, the State Government has approved large-scale hemp farming and will consider licence applications under a new scheme.

Hemp needs little water, grows quickly and the fibrous stems can be used in clothing, cosmetics, livestock and animal feeds, and building materials. The police-approved cannabis varieties all have low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound people smoke to get high.

"Industrial hemp has the potential to provide farmers with a much-needed additional fast-growing summer crop option that can be used in rotation with winter grain crops," said the Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald. "It's a potentially lucrative industry due to [its] environmentally friendly nature."

The new licensing system has been developed to prevent industrial hemp being grown to camouflage illegal crops of marijuana, which looks almost identical although it is cultivated to bear more foliage. Properties growing industrial hemp will be audited and inspected regularly.

Two hundred people have contacted the department to express an interest in hemp growing. But the peak farming bodies of Australia and NSW said they did not have policies on hemp growing and were unaware of a major interest in it.

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/national/...is/1365286.aspx

[mu!]

about fucking time too! now the other states need to follow and give the poor farmers a much needed & beneficial alternative for cropping

[Ace]

See also/already posted here: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=19469

[apothecary]

about fucking time too! now the other states need to follow and give the poor farmers a much needed & beneficial alternative for cropping

Pretty sure VIC, QLD, TAS and WA have all had commercial trials if not full licencing schemes for at least 5-10 years now...

[PhoenixSon]

yep

[luciddreamer]

Pretty sure VIC, QLD, TAS and WA have all had commercial trials if not full licencing schemes for at least 5-10 years now...

Waaaa? Where's all our industrial hemp them? The only place I've been able to find hemp clothing is up in the middle of nowhere (Foster in VIC if any of you know it).

Why is it that all these hemp products are so scarce if people are growing it already?

Cheers

Tom

[apothecary]

When did I say people are growing it already? I only mentioned its legal status.

It appears that most candidate farmers are either put off by the stringent controls required by the government, lack of DPI guidelines, lack of local market, or if they can overcome these hurdles usually end up selling their product overseas for a better price.

At this point in time, profitable hemp farming in Aus is all very theoretical. Despite what you may hear touted by the hemp-heads, growing hemp for food requires just as much water as a lot of other crops, growing hemp for fibre is very labour intensive, and growing hemp for biofuel is labour/knowledge/cash intensive, growing hemp for carbon sequestration is not recognised at ALL in Aus so you'd have to find an overseas buyer of your carbon credits, etc etc.

Some trials I researched can barely make it past the germination stage. Others fail due to using poor strain-set for their environment.

I think those wishing to make a viable business out of industrial hemp (myself included) need to do a LOT more research across the board, and should concentrate realistically on the NNSW/SEQLD region as being ideal, developing strains and tailoring commercial trials around the rainfall and climate profile of this region.

If you run the numbers in your head it seems good, but which bank is giving out commercial loans to prospective hemp farmers? None of them, that's who!

[PD.]

There were trials around this area many years ago and like sina said i dont think much got past that stage at all so hence there being no commercial farming of the stuff. Different crops are trialed all the time, hybrids strains of already well performing cereal crops are the main point of focus in this area afaik, they produce a viable and reliable source of income for farmers that dont really like trying risky crops when they tetter on the edge of financial security anyways. One crop failure is all alot of farms need to get behind for years so risks like a under reasearched crops such as hemp is just a waste of time and effort and could mean the loss of the farm!.

How sweet it would be but i cant see hemp production reaching the commercial stage for many many years and even then its a long shot imo.

[luciddreamer]

Ahhhh, ok. That sucks. I was under the impression it was a great plant to use for this climate.

Hm, I'll have to research some more on this....

[apothecary]

I am not saying it's impossible by any means. There might be some strains better suited to Victoria, I guess possibly along the lines of the strains native to south-eastern Europe, grown in winter while it is relatively wet. But strains along these lines have not fared favorably in terms of biomass/Ha compared to the same strains grown closer to their native climates even though they will grow.

[luciddreamer]

What we need is the same people who breed Marijuana to do the same with hemp lol.

Those guys have done some amazing shit.

[apothecary]

Human selection and breeding for good growth profiles for hemp has probably been going on much much much longer than the same human hand on good stoner profiles.

It's just that many of them aren't ideal for the majority of Australia. Gasp, yet another overseas crop that fails to grow identically to where it did originally!

[BlackDragon]

Sensi seed bank has done quite a bit of hemp breeding, if im correct they were also looking at leb(Bekka, Bekaa valley) genetics to breed into hemp for oz climates. Might pay to drop them an email to see how they have faired. Im sure they can point you in the right direction, Im sure Alan could help if you could get hold of him.

Bd.

[luciddreamer]

Gasp, yet another overseas crop that fails to grow identically to where it did originally!

Didn't it grow in Central Asia originally?

[apothecary]

http://www.woyano.com/view/1954/World-Hemp...orical-TimeLine

1500BC, Scythians, known to have spread as far as Ukraine and South Russia, i.e. just a bit left of Central Asia

EDIT: and Kazakstahn apparently.

Edited November 27, 2008 by Sina

[Neoshaman]

Could some one clairfy this , but I remember reading some time back that low thc seeds strains are not seen to be as viable for farming purposes as the thc is one of the plants main chemicals it uses to protect the seed , hence many of the seeds produced by these low thc strains arre unviable forcing farmeers to b uy many of the seeds they need for the next crop. Don't get me wrong i think industrial trails and industrial hemp is great but the article I read said 8% was the minimum needed to ensure seeds remained viable year after year , I've just got to work so I don't have time to look the article up at this moment however I'll trry and find it and post a link tonight

[incognito]

i bet the group in most opposition to hemp farming are the commercial cannabis growers!

imagine all the hemp pollen wafting down on all of ur lovely female plants.

could really fuk up the quality of commercial dope crops.

[Neoshaman]

i bet the group in most opposition to hemp farming are the commercial cannabis growers!

imagine all the hemp pollen wafting down on all of ur lovely female plants.

could really fuk up the quality of commercial dope crops.

isn't most commercial stuff grown inside , i haven't even seen outdoor for at least 2 years

[luciddreamer]

http://www.woyano.com/view/1954/World-Hemp...orical-TimeLine

1500BC, Scythians, known to have spread as far as Ukraine and South Russia, i.e. just a bit left of Central Asia

EDIT: and Kazakstahn apparently.

Ah ok, got it.

Well at least I got Kazakhstan right lol

But it still wasn't in Australia right? I mean you said it won't grow where it originally did.

isn't most commercial stuff grown inside , i haven't even seen outdoor for at least 2 years

True, plus if they grow outdoors it's likely to be crap anyway.

Like brick weed from Mexico is the only outdoor commercial crop I could think of.

Just too bad for the people growing a couple plants in their backyard. I think they can suffer for the good of the planet IMO.

Oh and thc_acetate, I don't know about seeds but I know THC protects the plants from bugs and stuff.

Edited November 28, 2008 by luciddreamer

[PD.]

True, plus if they grow outdoors it's likely to be crap anyway

LOL!

[Neoshaman]

Oh and thc_acetate, I don't know about seeds but I know THC protects the plants from bugs and stuff.

Think i read it on Jack Herer's website but trying to source original article , I think it was in realtion to temperature extremes that they said the seeds would become unviable such as frost , arid dryness , although servere bug infestitations would inhibit seed development also wouldn't it

[BlackDragon]

Maybe the evaporation of the oils/turpines "cools" and protects the seed within(hence the aroma we smell being low bp turpines). Maybe much like the gaseous layer of oils that surround and protects eucylyptus leaves from the extreme heat to prevent desication? Just a stab but seems comon among "oily or resinous" type plants.

Anyone willing to entertain that idea?

Bd

[luciddreamer]

Well I would but I have no idea about that lol. Never really seen a Cannabis plant in high heat so yeh.

[Smiling Cloud]

I planted thousands of cannabis plants as part of a trial for a company called agrifibre. I was about 15 and when my mates dad (who owned the company) turned up with a uteload i nearly pissed with glee. After the millionth plant the joy wore off.

A big problem that affects the amount of hemp growing is that there aren't any processing plants around. And the processing plants are unlikely to be built if there isn't any hemp to be processed. Catch 22.

Also, while any person who has seen pictures of outdoor plants in australia would testify that cannabis grows prolifically here, it does not without hard work. The company i worked for had to work very hard to make the plant suitable to grow here. The amount of research and trials will make the first lot of seeds very expensive as compared to other crops.

And for every different use, fibre, oil, food etc a different strain of cannabis needs to be grown, which means more research, more trials and more money. So while hemp advocates say that there a million and one uses for hemp, it doesn't mean that the same plant that is used for fibre will be the one the used to make hempseed oil. So in effect it is like growing any other commercial crop. If i personally had a choice of growing sorghum or hemp i would choose sorghum for sure. You don't have to pay to have officials crawling all over your farm all the time or abide by VERY strict rules with sorghum. And at the end of the day farmers are going to grow what is going to make them money with the least amount of fuss, they already have enough to deal with.

I think hemp is a great idea in theory but once you look at the logistics its not all its cracked out to be.

And to all you smokers who advocate hemp, remember that pollen can just as easily get into an inlet fan as it can an outdoor plant, so be careful for what you wish for!

[luciddreamer]

Hm, interesting....

So basically they COULD do it, but it would need to have money put into the crop development AND processing plants.

Say if they had this in place - a good strain and processing plants - do you think it would be better to use hemp then?