Separating males from females does precisely nothing to prevent flowering in either sex.
Ya that never occurred to me… separating sexes only delays pollination… flowering happens no matter what…
I would assume what is meant by “preventing flowering” is that the plant’s life cycle is ended before flowering begins…
So really everything is dependent upon what General Washington meant by “separate”…
And it could go either way…
Was he removing the females before they flowered to keep the fiber as strong as possible…
Was he literally separating them into a spot where they continued to grow… for the purpose of delaying pollination and creating sinsemilla…
Couple of things to consider…
we are probably talking about a large amount of Cannabis Sativa plants… there would be enough of them to meet both needs…
I am not intimately familiar with Farmer Washington… but it is certain that he did have some “farm hands” who where doing a good portion of the labour involved… What was his role at the farm? Was he more of a director or overseer… how much advice was he taking from his “farm hands” on the subject…
Bumped because the column is back on the main page.
Happy Independence Day! Mount Vernon historians argue that the hemp which Washington grew was not the same as the hemp which gives us pot today: George Washington Grew Hemp · George Washington's Mount Vernon
The tour guides at Mt. Vernon–who seem knowledgeable and passionate about their subject–were adamant that George Washington did not smoke pot.
When the Washingtons wanted to get really high, they turned to laudanum.
I found a gem on this fascinating page “Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years” … it only covers up to the Roman Empire, so of little use to the discussion at hand … I’m offering this to point out that smoking pot was a well known use during Washington and that Socialist’s time …
So … persecuting pot-heads started at least 2,500 years ago … woot … I don’t feel alone anymore …
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I kinda take issue with the claim “Female marijuana plants are the ones that contain enough THC to be worth smoking.” … male plants start forming pollen right after the summer solstice, and at this time they are as potent as the female plants … once the male plants are done they quickly die leaving the female plants to make the seed, and it is during this time the female plant becomes more potent … and if the female plant isn’t exposed to pollen, she will become even more potent as time goes on (i.e. sensimilla) …
For the average pot-head who’s been smokin’ water leaf for two months … maling season is a welcome blast and well worth smokin’ the little devils …
Actually, what probably happened was that the farmer with the spoiled apple cider fed it to his animals – that’s common practice in farming – you don’t waste anything! And many things that humans can’t eat are quite acceptable to herbivores. Like the husks of sweet corn – as a kid, we fed these to our horses and they considered it a real treat.
So some farmer fed the applejack to his animals, and then noticed their drunken behavior. So then he tried drinking some, and recognized the intoxicating properties.
Responding to an 8-1/2 year old post is maybe pointless, but it’s still ‘fighting ignorance’.
Strains “approved” for hemp have low THC: strains “selected” for high THC have high THC.
Back in the 70’s, when people were casually smoking dope at my campus in AUS (this was before smoking indoors was banned), the THC levels where much lower than in current commercial strains (and resin wasn’t casually available there).
The story was that in the 60s-70s dopers from Sydney smoked wild help from the Hunter Valley (introduced by the early military government in hope of providing supplies to the RN), until the local farmers (who didn’t like people from the city, or dopers, or particularly dopers from the city) ripped it all up.
FWIW, the story never was that the farmers were smoking wild hemp: in fact, the story was that they ripped it up.