To grow hemp at the acreage scale we had several considerations
- Tilling or No-till
- Irrigation or Not
- Fertilizers and soil amendment
- Weed suppression.
To Till or Not to Till...
Since our land in Victory had not been tilled since the 70's and actively hayed since then we decided to break the soil and till 4 foot rows.
Our Victory site had consistently grown hay for the last 50 years without the need for irrigation, so we decided not to install an irrigation system. Just in case we had a freely flowing box spring available.
To reduce water loss and suppress the growth of weeds we used a cover crop of flax and buckwheat (shown above mingling with the vegetative hemp). This was our approach to replace plastic mulch sheeting and enhance the absorbtivity of the freshly tilled land.
