Hawai`i Industrial Hemp Research Project
III. The Year 2001 (first half)
| In 2001, the focus of the project moves to the examination of germplasm from around the world.
Whereas the European accessions exhibited little variation among varieties in the Hawaiian environment, the Chinese and Japanese materials we acquired are highly variable. |
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The mixture of types we can grow makes our site ideal for genetic population synthesis, the foundation for future breeding efforts.
As happened in the US in the nineteenth century, European and Asian germpools are being brought together. Genes for photoperiod response meeting genes for agronomic traits. Meanwhile, birds continue to challenge the crop. |
| With some new funding, we construct a workshop...
...rustic, practical, cost effective. |
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...and we install a refrigerator for storing our precious germplasm collection. |
| We continue on the agronomic front, optimizing the integrity and vigor of the experimental plots. It's been an uphill climb.
We are growing on pineapple land with an initial pH of 4.5. The soil is a heavy red clay. When it rains, it gets difficult. We've limed and added compost and tilled it repeatedly to break up the pan and it has responded well. Historically, the term "hemp land" meant the best soil. There's a plethora of testimony in the old literature on hemp that lands that grow hemp benefit by it. Hemp will shade out the weeds and clean fields |
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The Hawai`i Industrial Hemp Research Project is on the frontline addressing the germplasm crisis in hemp.
North America lost its adapted hemp germplasm. The genetic variation available in the project's expanding germplasm collection will be key to recovering hemp which will be productive in cornbelt latitudes. |
| The End... |  |
...so far. |