Because of a farm bill from last year, universities and state agricultural departments are able to grow industrial hemp primarily for research purposes. One university, North Dakota State University, and their Langdon Research Extension Center began planting hemp for experiments during the summer time and have begun to harvest the crops.
Bryan Hanson is an agronomist at the university and leads the hemp trails through their courses. He said: “It’s very exciting for us to be able to start variety trials.”
Langdon Research Extension Center is the only center in the state to undergo hemp trials, however, it is likely that other centers of research will soon join in according to university professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, Burton Johnson. He also stated that the DEA has allowed NDSU to begin starting trials many years ago but only now are the experiments possible.
“The DEA wanted us to have a security fence and lights and all kinds of expensive equipment. That just wasn’t feasible,” he stated.
Actually, North Dakota gave money back to the Agricultural Products Utilization Commission since the funds were unable to be used. North Dakota is just one of fifteen states that have established some type of law allowing an industrial hemp program in the United States. Here are the types of plants that were planted during the summer: six Canadian varieties, five French varieties, and one Australian variety. The office
“The Canadian varieties look really good,” Hanson reported. “But we did have issues with emergence.”
They planted the crops in late May and began harvesting in the third week in August. The results are unclear, but according to Johnson, “they can harvest hemp for seed yield and biomass fiber yield or it can be harvested for both.”
“Some of these varieties reached 8 feet tall, taller than the corn at Langdon,” stated Johnson. “The taller varieties were 1.8-2.5 meters in height nine weeks after planting (around July 16th).”
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