CAMROSE, Alta.(Staff) – The illegal crop hemp may provide an answer to farmers’ soil conservation problems, said the head of a prairie conservation organization.
“To me it’s got some great potential,” said Fred Kraft, regional director of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration for northern Alberta.
One look at Val and Morley Blanch’s hemp crop and Kraft knew the quick-growing plant could solve water conservation and erosion problems on prairie farms.
Last year the Gwynne, Alta. couple planted a 1Ú3 of an acre research plot of hemp. By fall the crop was almost 3.5 metres high.
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“When I saw it I thought it’s an instant shelterbelt,” said Kraft of Edmonton.
Kraft asked the couple to leave some of the plot standing to see how the crop would fare as a windbreak and snow catcher.
Even though the crop has shallow roots, it has withstood high winds and captured at least a metre of snow where the rest of the field is no longer snowcovered.
Kraft can see the crop’s potential if a farmer is trying to capture snow to fill a dugout or reclaim an eroded area of land.
PFRA won’t be organizing any of its own research, but if the Blanches get approval for windbreak research this year, the agency will help them establish wind-break trials.
For farmers the beauty of hemp over trees is they’re not permanent, said Kraft.
“A big problem is getting shelterbelts on farms. People don’t like trees,” he said.
