Hemp is an old agricultural plant and has been used for hundreds of years for making
textiles, ropes and other fibre products. In the middle of the last century the Swedish
government prohibited all growing of hemp. Natural fibres were replaced by syntetic
fibres instead. Today there is a newly awakened interest for using natural fibres from
renewable materials. Growing of industrial hemp for fiber is allowed in Sweden
again.
I want in my Paper give Swedish growers an insight of which harvesting methods that
have been tried in Sweden and how they worked. In Germany, where hemp
cultivation have been allowed since the middle of the 1990´s, they have developed
specialbuilt harvesting machines that been adapted to German conditions. In Sweden
its mainly on Gotland new machines manufactures and experiments has been carried
out.
It’s very interesting to compare the growers experiences. I’ve been talking to five
Swedish growers and there are simularities but also differences how they harvest.
How the individual farmer harvest from a year to another is often also different. There
are many factors that affects the conditions of harvest that you can’t help. For
example precipitation, when the first frost is coming etc. Things that also matters is
the final use of the hemp. If it’s for energy production you don’t have to take notice
about the strength of the fibres.
Growers I’d talked to prefer to harvest their hemp in late autumn, in winter or even
spring, because the hemp in this season are more or less retted, and you don’t have to
dry it further. The hemp used for fibers or energy need a frost to stop growing and
drop the foliage. It´s a benefit if the leafs stay at the field, it means that the nutrition
not leaves the field and it’s a great advantage for the ecological cultivators.
I will not be surprised if the hemp will be a more extensive crop in Sweden in the
future. Hemp is a comprehe...
