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I’m affraid This is dissapointing but the lighter leafs are from the willow, the darker spot is the cbd brench. After cutting it grew another brench in there... talking about stubborn willows hehe
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So I live in Minnesota, which used to reign as one of the world's leading producers (behind Wisconsin) of industrial hemp.
Like many states, in response to the 2014 Farm Bill, Minnesota's Dept. of Agriculture started to grant licenses for trial growers of the crop.
The number of licensees is still minimal, in my opinion, especially since the program is in it's 4th or 5th year now. I believe the number is roughly 50-something for 2019 growers. I am going to be working on a new project farm this spring.
Most of these farmers are mimicking Canada's production techniques, which is usually plant a lot of acreage and let it be. No irrigation. No nutrient or pH monitering. No friggin' LOVE.
They do this much like corn, leaving merely inches of space between plants. They use mostly diecuous strains, letting the males die off after sexin' up the ladies. They use combines at harvest, and basically speed dry the junk in corn dryers before baling it and shipping it.
Of these crops, the ones that cater to the CBD market are concerned with quantity above quality, getting the same amount of oil from a million straggly plants as opposed to a much smaller number of well tended to ones......
We will be taking more of a horticultural approach to the whole thing......with raised-bed plasticulture, trellis netting, and drip irrigation for our plants, which can breathe a little easier with our afforded seven feet of spacing. We have four acres set aside for our initial field. The size we ended up with at this spacing unintentionally ended up being exactly 420ft x 420ft, so we will be taking that as some sort of divine intervention!
We are starting with several high CBD clones from Colorado.. We will be running a little experimental breeding operation with efforts being focused on trying to get some genetics of the local, hearty, feral hemp strains to pair with known cultivars
So....what does this have to do with Willoweed® cloning? Lol. Im glad you asked.
We are aiming for a near-completely organic program. I say nearly because our freshly rooted clones will have no doubt been dipped in some lab-made rooting gel prior to Rockwell insertion....
So. Let's talk willows. About a month ago, I mentioned to my "boss" that perhaps we should consider pollarding, if not completely coppicing, all of the 60-80ft+ white willow trees that line the outer edge of our swampy woods. The woods make up the southern edge of our future field, and the shade those behemoths cast is no joke.
After felling the first tree, I realized I could have an abundance of rods (and potentially many thousands of cuttings) at my disposal if I chose to take the time fiddling with the "no good garbage branches", as my 'boss' initially called them...
I plan on doing a lot of stuff with my haul, including planting various living "fedges", trellises, arches, and ultimately, a willow nursery for yearly basket material and willow water material harvesting. I might also try to sell cuttings if I can find the market.
So while fiddling around with research, I noted that willows easily pressure-graft to each other. I will try to get some pictures of this naturally occuring in our woods.
Live willow sculpture artists take advantage of this phenomenon by tightly wrapping the joints where the weaved rods make contact, followed by some sort of sealing (wax, tape, latex...) Within only a couple of years, they will completely merge and look awesome! Then you can cut them down and harvest your own self grafted artwork! There is even a company overseas that "grows chairs" using similar processes!
I started harvesting branches and shoots about a month ago, and this project consumed me immediately.
My fiendish search for learning all things willow quickly (on day one) yielded bountiful information on Willow Water. It's a kick-ass organic rooting hormone solution made using willow shoots, which are high in salacytic acid, amongst other things.... It has been used for centuries to aid in a quicker, healthier rooting process for all sorts of tree and plant life; both during initial root development of seedlings, and to promote stronger rooting amongst clones......clones......clones......
The light bulbs went off and I immediately called my boss to suggest what to do with some of those new growth shoots...He agreed so I started limbing shoots and branches immediately....trying to get my dormant cuttings done before the first budding took place (which was today, coincidentally).
....that same night I had us a 100 gallon batch of the stuff slow-brewing in a stainless steel bulk tank. Try finding a recipe for a batch of that size LOL.....it's currently waiting patiently to soak into those three thousand Rockwell cubes that will be housing our clones upon receipt! (Next to our aerated 'worm tea' vats!)
We will also use willow-H-2-oh in our "water wheel" planter, then will be injecting it into the watering lines for at least the first two or three days of planting. ( I'm sure a couple of research plants will be fed the stuff right up to harvest time, just for kicks) I might sell some locally to old ladies cloning roses, or something; but am looking forward to using a lot for mad science shizz around the farmstead. The first experiment that came to mind was to see how much quicker I could get my weavings to graft to each other when I introduce willow water to the mix, along with scraping the bark away at contact points, which I didn't see one in any pressure grafting videos....
I have lots of tree and plant grafting planned for the coming weeks, using all sorts of rootstock, indoors and out. From the 6ft+ diameter tops of freshly pollarded trunks, to 2nd year shoots from last year's "coppicing", (at the time, I didn't even know the word) down to unrooted pencil to thin cuttings. I have motly white willow, but also have varieties of pussy willow along with cottonwoods and box elders, which both also possess super-rooting powers
...
So, as you might have guessed cannabis grafting has been on the Forefront of my mind for many weeks now, and ultimately tonight I stumbled upon this awesome blog... I flipped through those 12 pages faster than any book I think I've ever read I was so intrigued.
I will eventually make my own post concerning my story and the success of my research, plus the failures I will undoubtedly incur along the way!
Stay tuned!
Best of luck on your endeavors!
Find me on FB facebook.com/RyanKorkowski
Heya buddy,Hey NS hows it going?!
Welcome back, NS!
All good, went to the Doc and now I have another test and another specialist to see.
Welcome back NS! Glad you're on the mend from the move. Looking forward to updates whenever you have the energy.