Have you tried flax?
Is there a reason to prefer hemp other then the stick it to the man factor?
I just read a great article, or maybe heard it discussed on NPR, about this, hemp seed importation or production is still strictly controlled in the U.S. and there is only one company to go to and they are badly backlogged on orders. Unfortunately I have memory impairment and can’t think of the source but it might come to me, thinks are always popping up around the hurt parts of my brain, not making a pot head joke…
what’s wrong with sticking it to the man?
Stick it to the man? LOL! Haven’t heard that term, or thought about doing it since the 60’s.
It never really was in favor. The colonies were required to grow hemp so that rope and sail supplies for the Royal Navy would be available at their colonies. Not to mention the colonies were a better growing location than Merry England and they didn’t like depending on other European nations to supply them. Remember that requiring farmers to grow a certain crop is not a great indication of its popularity.
But as things went on Hemp was just a small drop in the pond. Good for sails. Good for rope, not much good for anything else and it was a bitch to harvest to boot. Hemp paper was considered crap compared to linen paper, pretty much only good for packing. Linen and Wool were preferred for clothing and other textiles (find me a hemp quilt in any of our nation’s textile museums). Once sail started to be taken over by steam hemp just had ship rope as its primary use. Hemp pretty much faded away.
In the 90’s a few of the ‘Legalize It’ crowd decided a nifty way to promote their cause would be to promote hemp to an almost ludicrous degree. Some of the claims were utter laughable and even a cursory check of their claims of what hemp could do would show Hemp was running at best a close 2nd to better options. Still, there was no reason not to make growing it legal so Canada made it legal (with some restrictions) and Farmers grew the stuff - only to find there was now a massive glut on the market. Seems the uses were being oversold and there just wasn’t much market for hemp once you got past the ‘forbidden fruit’ factor. The biggest buyer turned out to be bird seed, and all they wanted was the seed - not the oil, not the fibers.
Hemp advocates made some very silly excuses at the time. they complained that nobody in the paper industry was retooling for hemp (why would they?!) but generally just tried to put a bright face on things.
Now it would seem that Hemp is trendy for the health food market. I’m glad it found its niche by honest means and not, as its advocates would have us believe by miraculous properties.
It’s all groovy until the fuzz busts your pad.
1). We have a medical marijuana card so we can legally grow our ownpot.
2). Please read the link in the OP. I’m asking about HEMP (little to zero THC) not POT.
Creepers. I guess some Dopers on this board really are Dopers. As I’ve said time and again in this thread, I DO NOT want to grow something I can get high from.
Rock and Roll. I have the right to import hemp seeds, but from where? And to smok’in dopers, I DO NOT WANT TO GROW POT that I can get high from but rather hemp to make things with.
When I was growing up in Wisconsin during WWII, almost every farmer around was growing some hemp, and there were a couple of hemp mills nearby. There was a critical demand for it during the war, and the US Army still uses a lot of hemp-made products, which had since then to be made from imported hemp.
As I recall, it was a bit of an eyesore, because the fibers were resistant to degrading, and windblown hemp parts from overloaded trucks could be seen rotted and hanging off fences and utility wires.
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture lists two seed dealers who sell Sunn Henp seeds:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/resource/covercrp.htm
From the originally-cited article:
So, what’s your research plan? As in, how do you plan to convince the feds that you’re doing research? Remember, their big argument against industrial hemp is they can’t tell from the air which version you’re growing, which means they really don’t know what they’re looking for.
Also, make sure you’re not within a vaguely-defined distance from anybody who’s growing recreational hemp, as the two plants may cross-pollinate, resulting in your plants having poor fiber and higher THC content than is legally allowed. And, the other guy’s recreational stuff will end up smelling like burning rope (and being about as high-inducing).