It is getting to be that time of year again and most everybody’s plant should be in flower/pre-flower. I’m always interested in how well plants do in different regions as well as everybody’s different growing techniques. I’ll start by showing off our fields. Hemp Recap Video as of August 10th. We were able to get a drone and nice camera this year to help market our extra biomass.
Field Details: We are located in Michigan and have between 40-45 acres of hemp planted (about 15 acres of CBG and the rest CBD). This is our second year using Oregon CBD genetics and they are worth every penny. We had a major propagator located in Indiana start all of our seedlings at a great price and they delivered them to us hardened off ready to go in the ground (if anyone needs their contact for next year let me know). We planted about 1500 plants/acre using a Kennco planter (way overpriced and poorly designed IMO). The field is certified organic and we have grown the hemp using all organic inputs. Our soil type is pretty sandy but there are a couple of clay knobs throughout where growth isn’t as strong as I would like to see. We have just finished our second pass looking for males. Just to be on the safe side we will do a third pass over this next week. So far out of our 66,000 plants we have found about 25 males. Of those 25 males I would say 10 of them were true full blown males packed with pollen sacs, the remaining 15 were more intersex (hermaphrodite). We are looking forward to harvest.
Can confirm that this planter was poorly designed lol. Growing in the sandy soils is amazing. Way better than our crop in heavy clay last year.
I live in clay country. Tilling it is really the worst. I put down weed cloth, burn holes in it, drill a planting hole with an electric drill, and use two handfuls of a compost heavy grow mix around the base of the plant. It works great, except when it doesn’t. I planted a new area this year. Several spots had poor drainage and a few plants died. The drainage is especially important in clay, because it holds water.
Another thing I have come to notice is that becoming rootbound in a container will make a fem seed plant turn male. I had several in the ground this year, too. I pulled those plants and the roots were spiraled around the planting hole. The weed cloth will soften the ground over time, but it did not happen fast enough in some spots.
The upside to clay’s holding of water is that it can go longer without rain. I don’t have irrigation set up yet, maybe I can get by without it depending on the weather.
Sounds almost exactly like what we went through last year in Indiana. We tried to use a transplanter last year but it was literally like trying to stick the plants into gravel. This year we are mostly sand but we have a few clay knobs throughout the fields and you can notice a huge difference in plant growth. We lost some plants in the clay and the ones that survived look healthy but didn’t put on any size whatsoever (still around 8 inches tall). If you look at the video I posted you can see the growth difference in the areas with clay.
How many acres do you have? Seed or clones? Keep pushing man! Harvest will be here before you know it.
Looking great! Nice even canopy. How far along are those girls in the flower pic? All indoor or greenhouse? Any notable strains?
In that pic, they were probably 50 days into flower if memory serves. All stages done in greenhouse, as much as I’d prefer an indoor environment for the clones and mothers! Nothing too notable strainwise, we’ve got the ol’ reliables like Blue Dream and Jack Herer that always hold it down for us, Dutch Treat is one ive been running more and more. I’ve got Glue cuts, and GSC as well, but they don’t seem to do very well in our environment unfortunately.
flower sativa is gorgeous!!!
Plants look killer, great job on keeping them all uniform. 6inch raised beds? What type of soil are you growing in?
5600 sq ft of bed space for 48 plants
2 feet of gravel underground and 2 foot raised bed with a weed cloth and chicken wire barrier between.
This is year 6 on original soil which is amended annually. It was a garden mix from a local soil company they blew into the beds onto the fabric liner.
Proper preparation makes all the difference and your plants show it. Would love to see some more pics when they get heavy into flower. Any notable strains?
We harvest the one side and topped the one twice already. Rises smart beds, there was 90 on one side and 180 on the other side. Someone did take there babies so I just crammed dim in.
Gotta let the pics upload all the way before you hit reply.
Can’t see the pics.
Only about half an acre, from my own fem seed, baox and a cross I made of wife x t1.
I had planned on another half acre of cbg from clones, but I only managed to get a few plants in the ground before all my cuttings started to flower. This is my first time with cbg. I have read on here of others talking about the same problem.
Here’s the cbg plants. They have a little septoria and catepillar damage. I just started a regular regime of bt spray.
Yeah sorry had to turn WiFi on. The uploading circle of death was taking forever, it was almost like dial up.