Would anyone plant industrial hemp?

I think the seed has some oil in it.

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

No, Paul, it has more oil.

A LOT more oil than corn. When they discuss hemp vrs. corn in biofuels, they are discussing using hemp oil rather than corn oil in the production of biodiesel.

Although hemp can be used in a three way for that. Extract the oil for biodiesel from the raw hemp, and what is left, put in the vats to ferment for ethanol, and what is left after that throw in the digesters for cellulistic ethanol. Whatever minute particals are left after that make good fertilizer.

Hemp is mainly a good source of oil, after that a source of sugars/starch, and after that, you have cellulose.

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

That really makes no sense.

Corn is turned into ethanol, to be mixed with the gasoline fuel market.

Some plants have started to gather the small amount of corn oil to be used in the diesel fuel oil market, but this is of course a tiny thing. Certainly not the point of using corn for fuels????

The rest of the corn remains for a high-protien livestock feed.

There is lots of work in trying to use the corn stalks or cobs to create ethanol from the low-level sugars in them, but that technology has eluded us so far, despite many promises.


Now, did someone mean to compare hemp fuels to _soybean_ processing plants that creat bio-diesel from soybeans? Or canola, sunflowers, or other _oil_ crops????

That would be the comparison you want????


Minnesota requires a small % of bio diesel in diesel fuel sold in this state. Along with the 2 soybean processing plants that do so, very near me is a rendering plant that turns the cooked lard from dead animals into bio diesel. It is rather difficult to do so as to keep it liquid and not dirty, but it certainly is an efficient use of something icky and useless these days.

Corn really is not a bio-diesel crop, so it is a rather silly comparison being made there.

To compare it to corn-fuels, you'd need to say how much sugar and starch you can ferment out of the hemp to make ethanol......

--->Paul

They grew hemp in WI during WWll and the quality was not very good. Maybe the quality could be improved with today's farming practices. However, most of the people that are interested in hemp are also the ones who are against using chemicals to increase production. Farmers can not afford to grow less profitable crops, especially when there is no established market.

Actually, Cellulosic Ethanol, the stuff that also uses corn stalks and cobs, has been around for ages. Most of the ethanol produced (and there was a LOT of it) during WW1 and WW2, as well as the Korean War, came from Cellulosic Ethanol plants.

The last Cellulosic Ethanol plant in the U.S. was here in Texas, and it was converted to a dino-fuel refinery in the early 70's.

It is not that Cellulosic Ethanol production isn't profitable; it is that it is not AS profitable gasoline or diesel production. You will only realize a 5-6% profit margin from manufacture of Cellulosic Ethanol; while if you build or convert nearly the same facilities for the purpose of refining gasoline or diesel, you will realize a 26-28% profit margin.

The technology that is eluding us (although there have been some breakthroughs recently using certain bacterium) is not in making production of Cellulosic Ethanol have a monetary return, but in making it have as much of a monetary return as the production of gasoline and diesel.

In other words, it is about greed.

As for the comparison of corn and hemp in the production of biofuels, corn is the third largest feedstock in the production of Biodiesel (after rapeseed and soybean). , the first largest feedstock in the production of fermented Ethanol, and the first largest feedstock in the production of Cellulosic Ethanol.

Hemp oil has an even higher conversion rate of oil to diesel than rapeseed. If legalized, it can replace rapeseed as the largest feedstock for the production of biodiesel. Hemp plants have a higher amount of cellulose than corn plants, and it can replace corn as the largest feedstock in the production of cellulosic ethanol.

Nothing will ever replace corn in the manufacture of fermented ethanol. However, hemp has a big advantage going for it:

Hemp can not only survive, but it can thrive and be productive on land unsuitable for farming corn, soybeans, rapeseed, etc. No farmland would have to be given up for the production of hemp. Instead, land that is currently non-productive can be used for the production of hemp, leaving our fertile farmland for the production of something silly, like, oh, FOOD?

That is the BIG plus for hemp; that it would never be a question of "Do I use this farmland to grow food...or fuel?" If hemp is used as the major feedstock for biofuels, then it is a simple answer: Can the land grow food? Then grow food! If the land can't grow food, grow fuel!

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Oh, forgot to add that hemp can be used as livestock feed as well. Ask any old hippy that has had his "patch" discovered by cows, sheep, goats, the local deer........

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Well think of cannabis in terms of Brassica family.|
rather then type it out and this is lacking a good bit,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica

Cannabis same deal, just not to that degree.
You have seed producers,
Fiber producers,
Drug producers and all in between.

Hemp is grown for seed or fiber hardly ever both.
Traditionally fiber, much cheaper crops can supply that fiber.

To try and sell it as 25,000 uses for one plant is not correct.
the Genus yes but no one "breed" meets the requirements for all uses.

another example would be sweet corn, field corn, and Indian corn...

I'm not against it, nor am I ill informed on it, but I wish folks would educate them self a bit more then spout misinformation.

not aimed at anyone, just saying.

That is true, ||Downhome||.

On the hemp production I was speaking of in my previous posts, I was speaking of seed producers. You can harvest the seed for oil, and the oil can produce biodiesel, while the meal left over can be used as a feedstock. (I actually feed my parrots hemp seed for the fat and protein value.) The waste "plant" has more cellulose than the waste "plant" in growing corn, so is a better feedstock for Cellulosic Ethanol than corn....or it can be fed to livestock.

But, if you tried to make cloth or rope from the waste "plant" grown for fuel production, you will be sorely disappointed. Also, if you try to smoke it, the only thing you are going to get is a headache, so you will be *sorely* disappointed in the literal sense.

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

I've heard that since the 1960's, on one 'miricale' crop after another, coming down the pipeline to be an alternativce to the corn/ soybean mix.

Turns out, any crop you grow and harvest, haul some of it away.... You need to be able to plant it. You need to be able to get through the field to harvest it. You need to replace the nutrients you haul away.

It sounds so good on paper. I wish you were right!

Just doesn't work out in the real world, and if one thinks about it, one sees it just can't be so.

--->Paul

Most definitely not. Why grow the reduced THC, when The full strength herb is Being decriminalized?

Grow the full strength herb, and market all parts. I use hemp as often as possible to support the other commercial initiatives as much as possible. It makes a wonderful fiber for clothing, yarn for knitting, paper, I eat seeds on salads, use the oil cosmetically, use hemp milk instead of soy for long term storage milk, etc etc etc. it has curative properties, as well as palliative properties.

My dad grew hemp here in northern Iowa during WWII for the war effort.He said it was not a good crop to grow here,

~smiles~ When I lived in Colorado, I was a licensed grower for the "fun stuff" type of cannabis. Got into it because my FIL has MS, and had gotten to the point where nothing really helped the pain. He got an MM card, which allowed him to grow a certain amount of plants for his own use. Since he couldn't manage to grow a cactus, he designated me as his "caretaker", which was Colorado legalese for "person who grows my stuff for me because I can't".

When I had harvested and cured his first three plants for him, and he tried it, looked at me, and said, "Baby, my back doesn't hurt", I nearly burst into tears. Daddy hadn't been able to say that for 25 years.

At any rate, I became the "designated grower" for several of Daddy's friends, also, two had cancer, one had Parkinson's, and another had MS like Daddy. I would joke that I was the only "grower" in the entire state of Colorado who was actually growing the stuff for people who actually *needed* it.

This background is so I can establish that I know what I am talking about when it comes to growing cannabis, even though I don't use the stuff. I know a lot of folks on here use it recreationally, or even for real problems. I do not and cannot; the stuff makes me vomit. Literally. I don't consider vomiting a good time.

Cannabis is a "poor soil" plant. Down in Texas, you can tell that a field has terrible soil if it is covered in threadwead, hogweed, and bitterweed, as those plants would be out-competed by useful plants if the soil wasn't a waste.

Cannabis is like that. It will grow well in poor soil that food crops would not thrive in. It is hardy and drought tolerant. When I had to come down to Texas for 2 months to take care of things for my mother, my *husband* couldn't manage to kill the cannabis crop, and believe me, he couldn't have done worse if he had tried.

Cannabis is a light surface feeder that even does well in clay or sand soils. However, it does not like to have wet feet, and will not do well in boggy or swampy conditions. It will thrive in poor, clay, and rocky soils, but they need to be *well-drained* soils. The reason it thrives so well in poor soils is that it has a *deep* root system; some of mine had root systems that reached 3 1/2 feet. That is also why it does well in dry conditions and is drought tolerant. It wants LOTS of sunlight, so it does not produce as well in areas with a lot of overcast.

If you produce cannabis crops on poor soils year after year after year, and don't put anything back, yes, eventually the soil is going to be depleted so much that nothing is going to grow there, including cannabis. (Although cannabis is actually good for monoculture, and can be grown on the same plot for 3 to 4 years.) However, cannabis requires much lighter fertilization than other crops, and is subject to nutrient burn if you are not careful. If I were growing it in acres, I would be leery of of using more than 150lbs per acre in Nitrogen.

You don't need herbicides with cannabis, as it is a heavy competitor.

Seed is sown with a grain drill and harvested by machine. So one can use industrial equipment for commercial growing.

You are right in that you aren't going to get something for nothing with ANY crop, and cannabis is not a "miracle" plant that grows on nothing but air and sunshine. However, for oil production in poor soils, it is better than either rapeseed or soybeans.

~smiles~ Is that a better analysis?

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

What the oil production per acre with hemp?

Martin

According to the numbers given by France and Sweden, the average is 400lbs of oil per acre on tilth unsuitable for corn or rapeseed.

E.T.A. I don't know the numbers for oil yield on good soils.

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Only 400 pounds? Canola studies in Oregon on various soils had production of from 1,900 to 4,800 pounds of seed per acre. At 40%, lowest figure would give 760 pounds of oil while highest would return 1,920 pounds.

Martin

[QUOTE=CaliannG;6345097However, cannabis requires much lighter fertilization than other crops, and is subject to nutrient burn if you are not careful. If I were growing it in acres, I would be leery of of using more than 150lbs per acre in Nitrogen.
[/QUOTE]


Yikes!!!!! I put 140 lbs of N on my corn crop to get 175bu yields of a starch crop. You need that much N for an oil crop, does not sound good!

Soybeans need no N added to make a good oil crop, actually leave a little N in the ground for a grass crop the following year to use. The legume thing.

I sure appreciate your rundown on it, thanks.

There are a few left over weeds around here, my uncle has some rope making stuff come up in his pasture for decades, and there were a few stems in my sister's 15 acres that also were leftovers. (Tho, previous owners of my sis' place, I'm not sure which strain that was.....)

With your info, I will never be a candidate to grow the stuff, my soils are heavy wet clays, it is difficult to grow turnips, tillage radish, and others that don't like wet feet. Sounds like it is not the crop for me.

-->Paul

On soils unsuitable for rapeseed or corn, in other words, you can't grow canola there. 400 lbs of process oil from that soil planted in hemp is higher than 0 lbs of canola that you would get from the same soil.

I never said that hemp would be a decent *replacement* for rapeseed on fertile farmland, only that it would be a useful and profitable crop on land unsuitable, due to soil fertility, for other crops.

The number I gave you was the *maximum* that I would be willing to put in without worrying about killing the crop. Cannabis really cannot tolerate anything higher than that.

No, I could never recommend that you even try it in saturated clay. At least not the oilseed varieties. There may be fiber varieties that are more tolerant of wet feet, but I don't know any.

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

If hemp can be grown for oil in soil so poor that the most adaptable brassica species is unable to grow in it, why does hemp grown for any other purpose demand more fertilizer than almost any other crop?

Martin

Sorry, you are going to have to cite your sources there. I've GROWN cannabis, in several different mediums. I have grown it in several different ways as well. Even in hydroponics, the only plants that use LESS nutrients than cannabis is the lettuce family, which I think CAN grow on air and sunshine.

So please cite your sources that cannabis, grown for either fiber of THC production, requires more fertilizer than "almost any other crop"?

ESPECIALLY for THC production, over-fertilization will cause a drop in trichomes (THC oil-bearing nodules) grown.

__________________
Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Take your pick of many for fertilizer:

www.bing.com/search?q=cannabis+fertilizer&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC

www.bing.com/search?q=hydroponics+cannabis+fertilizer&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE6SRC

For an individual link,
www.whitewidowfertilizer.com/bloom_marijuana_fertilizer.php calls for 15-9-30 which is way high for N & K.

Martin