Researchers in the Netherlands have developed a new variety of hemp that they hope will challenge cotton’s stronghold over textiles. What’s interesting about this strain is that is supposedly contains absolutely no THC (the psycho-active compound in marijuana). Generally, industrial hemp contains less than 0.3% THC — not nearly enough to produce the psycho-active effects experiencde with marijuana, which contains about 5-15% THC or more.
These researchers, moreover, aren’t financially motivated. Rather, they’re out to help the environment. As Radio Netherlands reports:
[...] investigators from Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) are extremely pleased with [their new] crop, as this new hemp variety may be able to break cotton’s monopoly position as the textile crop of choice.
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The plant is doesn’t contain a single milligram of THC, the main psychoactive substance found in hashish and marijuana.According to the WUR researchers, the disadvantages of cotton production should mean that farmers the world over will be more than eager to seize on the hemp variety they have created. Dr Den Nijs explains:
“It takes an enormous amount of water to produce a cotton crop. Farmers have to use vast amounts of pesticides and herbicides to grow it. Basically, huge amounts of chemicals are necessary in order to produce a decent cotton crop. Hemp is entirely different; it can be grown in more marginal areas and needs very little in the way of pesticides or herbicides in order to produce a decent crop. Furthermore, it needs far, far less water than cotton”.
Dr Den Nijs’s comment is a prime example of scientific understatement: an acre of cotton needs 25 times more water than an acre of hemp.
These developments underscore the environmental potential of cultivating industrial hemp: it’s easier on the soil, and requires less water and not toxic chemicals. Hopefully a completely THC-free strain will help erode one more rhetorical point of contention that big industry has with switching crop.
In fact, in terms of some other practical advantages that hemp has over cotton, HempFarm.org claims:
- 1 acre of hemp will produce as much as 2-3 acres of cotton.
- Hemp is 4 times warmer than cotton, 4 times more water absorbent, has 3 times the tensile strength of cotton. It is also many times more durable and is flame retardant.
- Hemp breathes well and wicks moisture away from the body better than cotton.
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