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For the Love of Dirt !
Growing Hemp 101 Part One
by Dolores Halbin , contributing writer
As we have been traveling the hemp road for the past few months , readers have asked over and over , how do I get started to turn my 5 , 10 , or 20 acres into hemp from corn and soy ? February is the perfect time to start , and we start with dirt ! Dirt and joining the Missouri Hemp Trade Association ( MHTA ), so you know what your dirt means .
Monthly meetings are held throughout the state , to be fair to members everywhere , rotating through the KC corner every three months . Meetings are posted on the website and Facebook page and live-streamed if you can ’ t attend . To write about hemp for October 2022 ( Follow the Yellow Hemp Crete Road ), I listened to the August meeting about six times with speakers Morgan Tweet of the Hemp Feed Coalition and Melissa Nelson of South Bend Industrial Hemp . Hemp has a big learning curve .
Dirt is first
Nelson says to start with soil testing on each acre . Dirt can and does change from one field to the next . Testing is available through your local agriculture extension office . The cost varies from county to county , starting at around $ 20 per test . Private testing companies can run into thousands of dollars , which surprised me . Home Depot or Lowe ’ s sell soil test kits for under $ 20 .
I have a gem , a 1903 book , Agriculture for Beginners . I picked it up at a yard sale a few years ago . The first two chapters are dedicated to dirt , highlighting its importance . In chapter one , section one — “ The Origins of Soil ” — the author seemed to predict the situation we are in today concerning our global topsoil crisis .
In its agricultural sense this word [ soil ] is used to describe the thin layer of surface earth that , like some great blanket , is tucked around the wrinkled and age-beaten form of our globe . The harder and colder earth under this surface layer is called the subsoil . It should be remembered , however , that in waterless and sun-dried countries there seems little difference between the soil and subsoil .
Plants , insects , birds , beasts , men — all alike are fed on what grows in this thin layer of soil . If some wild flood in sudden wrath could sweep into the ocean this earth-wrapping soil , food would soon become as scarce as it was in Samaria when mothers boiled and ate their sons .* The face of the earth as we now see it daintily robed in grass , or uplifting waving acres of corn , or even naked , water scarred , and disfigured by man ’ s neglect ... ( Agriculture For Beginners : Burkett , Stevens and Hill , Copywrite 1903-1904 The Athenaeum Press , Boston ).
* A fact check on Samaria ’ s situation traced the history to The Old Testament Bible , Kings 6:29 , a verse I never heard going to Mass as a kid .
Climate change has done what the — a little bit creepy — authors predicted , “ washing away this thin blanket .” In December of 2021 , the State of Nebraska was hit with a “ Derecho .” Other forecasters called it a hurricane . I call foul . We shouldn ’ t have hurricanes without the benefit of having a beach with an ocean attached .
Regardless of what they named the hellish weather , one-third of Nebraska ’ s topsoil was gone when it was over . The area , visible from space , was our Corn Belt . And things haven ’ t gotten any better for Nebraska farm country . In May of 2022 , hurricane-force winds clocked at 115 mph deposited what topsoil was left on roofs and covered windmill blades . Nebraska is one of three states left with full prohibition . They should rethink that . They could really use the regenerative cannabis plant about now .
56 February 2023