Latest revision as of 17:17, 29 December 2017

aka Cannabis (usually in reference to the same plant, but for medicinal use).

Lots to say here. Obviously, remarkable medicinal properties, as well as innumerable uses of Hemp.

Please, folks, I know there are fans out there, add info in here!

Uses

So many. Also great nitrogen fixers [source?].

• Hemp Plastic

Stigma

The sociocultural stigma around this plant was likely deliberately engineered BECAUSE it has so many uses, from medicine to energy. There's a lot of money in the industries that depend on hemp NOT being freely available. There's a lot of money in the private prison complex. We sure built this society wrong, didn't we, folks?

Let's do it better this time. (And with hemp).

Cultivation

Uses for Males

Males aren't entirely useless. Here's a good article on some potential:

• Juicing
• Extracts/concentrates (some males have just as much THC)
• Textiles:

According to traditional wisdom, male hemp fibres are considerably finer and softer than female fibres, and as a result they were reserved to make the finer grades of cloth, while the females were used to make rougher textiles such as canvas and sackcloth. These fine textiles made from male hemp fibres were then used to make a variety of household items such as tablecloths, towels and bed linens.

• Companions

Cannabis has been used as a pesticide and repellent in a variety of ways throughout history. Its dried flowers and leaves have been used to make pesticide and repellent extracts, and pure cannabinoids have been demonstrated to exert antibacterial and antimicrobial effects. As well as this, cannabis can be used as a companion plant.

Various studies have been performed over the years that attest to the ability of cannabis to ward off unwanted pests. It has been grown alongside cotton to ward off cotton worms, surrounding vegetable fields to ward off cabbage caterpillar, interplanted with potatoes to protect against potato beetle and potato blight fungus, alongside wheat to repel root maggot, and as a general repellent against European chafer larvae. Cannabis also suppresses plant growth of unwelcome species in the surrounding area, such as noxious chickweed, as well as repelling harmful nematodes such as the potato cyst nematode, the root knot nematode, and the soybean cyst nematode.
It is thought that it is the terpenes produced by cannabis that are largely responsible for repelling insects and pests, particularly limonene and pinene. Both male and female cannabis plants produce terpenes in abundance, with the levels produced seeming to roughly correlate with their cannabinoid concentration, and some growers will interplant their males among their vegetables rather than consigning them to the compost heap.

Sustainable Outdoor Growing

Some growers who are fortunate enough to live in a country where outdoor cultivation is a possibility actually maintain males and females in the same garden, though far enough away that male pollen will not affect the females too seriously. If one or two males are situated a few metres away from females, preferably in a sheltered spot so that the wind does not have too much effect, the result is more likely to be a light scattering of seeds in occasional flowers rather than a fully seeded crop. In this way, growers can produce smokeable female flowers while also guaranteeing a supply of fresh, healthy seeds for next season’s crop.