PRODUCTION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INDUSTRIAL HEMP (CANNABIS SATIVA) FOR FIBER PRODUCTION IN MARYLAND: OPTIMIZING PLANTING DATE FOR FIBER YIELD, QUALITY, AND WEED MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Management recommendations, namely timing of planting and harvest, are well established for a wide range of agronomic crops, but this data is lacking for industrial fiber hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), especially in the Mid-Atlantic region. With the re-introduction of legal hemp production in the US in 2014, farmers faced many challenges to growing this crop, both policy and production challenges alike. As hemp production was illegal since World War II, there was virtually no applied agronomic research performed on hemp in that time. Moreover, there are no pre-emergence herbicides approved for weed management in industrial hemp production, and research is needed to determine which cultural practices can be utilized to manage weeds in this crop. This void of applied research performed on fiber hemp has left many Land-Grant universities and Extension personnel unable to provide basic production recommendations to farmers interested in growing this novel crop. To begin providing such recommendations to Maryland farmers interested in incorporating fiber hemp into their crop rotation, the objectives of this research were to 1) determine the effect of planting and harvest date on fiber hemp yield, plant characteristics, and fiber quality and 2) observe weed populations under a competition or germination prevention scenario in fiber hemp across the planting date spectrum. Based on this research, we believe fiber hemp can be successfully incorporated into Maryland crop rotations, as early planting and harvest of fiber hemp will result in quality fiber hemp, management of weeds through available cultural practices, and minimal disruption to other agronomic crops.