River Cottage - Hemp

[gigglybug]

I watch the hemp episode last night and I was struck by what a fantastic plant hemp really is!!
Oil, flour and cloth from one plant, I need to grow some NOW!
They made it look sooo easy, i'm sure in reality it would be a bit more involved.

My MIL accidentally grew a hemp plant from her bird seeds but it looked nothing like to ones in the programme, it didn't have the long stalk. I wonder if this could also be use in some way? Any ideas before I go and raid her bird seed box

[Green Aura]

I don't know if it's still the case but you used to have to have a license to grow hemp, because it's closely related to cannabis.

[Silver Ether]

you beat me to it ... I thought the same thing...we had one grow from bird seed many years ago and the kids names it Chris Tarrent ...

[grahoom]

I don't know if it's still the case but you used to have to have a license to grow hemp, because it's closely related to cannabis.

I am pretty sure you do need a license, as you've stated. it's not closely related to cannabis, - it is cannabis!

Cannabis Sativa is generally used for "industrial" usage, but it still does have the chemicals present that are "illegal" in this country, so as such you'll get a slap on the wrist if caught growing it with out the correct license in place.

I find it amazing that hemp is not used more often, it's a shame that the war on drugs seems to have destroyed rational thought and rational argument. Hemp is such a useful resource, that I find it essentially immoral that it isn't used more!

I didn't catch the episode of River Cottage - I'll have to look it up online!

[Green Aura]

Hemp is as you say, Cannabis sativa but the plant licensed to grow has hemp is specifically bred to have very little of the psychoactive compound THC. Of course the plants are pretty much indistinguishable, which is why the license is needed - they come round and test it periodically to make sure you're growing the right stuff. If unlicensed they just assume you're growing pot and confiscate the lot

[grahamhobbs]

Here you get the impression you can only grow it behind a barbed wire fence, in France, you see fields and fields of it.

[jim]

Back in the days when ships used vast amounts of hemp rope for their sails it used to be grown in the "Glebe Field". Profits from the sale of the fibre provided a supplementary income for the clergy. Can't see many vicars these days subsidising their work by selling dope.........

Love and Peace
Jim

[Millymollymandy]

Here you get the impression you can only grow it behind a barbed wire fence, in France, you see fields and fields of it.

Where?

[grahamhobbs]

The region I know the best is the Touraine, and there is plenty of it there, just open fields of it....you have to take a double look as you drive along....

[homegrown]

When I was a boy my grandfather had hemp ropes, fishing nets made from hemp and cork, years later when I ran a menswear store we were selling Hemp clothes, and they also use hemp fabrics for furniture as it has a high resistence to UV light frequencies and takes a long time to rot or fade.

When I think of its vesitility I wonder why humans bother with nylon and other synthetic fibes, I guess it comes back to laziness, after all who can be bothered to work the land when a machine can make something for you.

If you can get the license grow to your hearts content and maybe have ago spinning the fibes for rope making and other projects

Cheers
Homegrown

[grahoom]

When I think of its vesitility I wonder why humans bother with nylon and other synthetic fibes, I guess it comes back to laziness, after all who can be bothered to work the land when a machine can make something for you.

The crazy thing is that if you want "plastics" then you can make it from hemp. The Oil that help produces can be used for fuels (in the past hemp oil was used for fuel), can be made in to plastics.

It's a shame that there seems to be such a stigma to the plant. It's quite silly.

For anyone with land - who might be interested in growing Hemp, I found this site

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/ac ... 1082224347

(It's a government run site) - It offers guidance and how you apply to get a license. (UK)

[Brod]

Back in the days when ships used vast amounts of hemp rope for their sails it used to be grown in the "Glebe Field". Profits from the sale of the fibre provided a supplementary income for the clergy. Can't see many vicars these days subsidising their work by selling dope.........

Love and Peace
Jim

Not just for rope, the word canvas has its roots in cannabis.
IIRC during the Elizabethian period the demand for rope and canvas was so high that there was a law stating that anybody farming over 5 acres had to set aside a percentage for growing hemp. Wonder if its still on the statute books ?
Another advantage of hemp is that its long tap roots bring up nutrients from deep in the ground as well as breaking up compacted soils.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Here you get the impression you can only grow it behind a barbed wire fence, in France, you see fields and fields of it.

Where?

And here, by the hundreds of hectares. One of my neighbours grew it this year - most from here goes for oil / oil cake cattle feed. It smells exactly like the illicit stuff, which can be a little overpowering.

[Colin]

Henry Ford used it to make cars
http://www.hempcar.org/ford.shtml

Ford recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely cultivated.

It looks like it could be in for a revival
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/drivin ... 076272.ece

[John Headstrong]

the book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer is a awesome resource for the many uses of hemp, and how it became illegal.

you can read it online here http://jackherer.com/chapters.html


to quote the back cover of the book

If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation; then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meet all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time... and that substance is -- the same one that did it all before -- Cannabis Hemp... Marijuana!