Hemp4Soil -It was Preparation Week

Last week we had a fantastic week doing hands-on work preparing for the project, which is due to actually start in April.

Over the last number of months, the project teams have spent much of their time, working in the background with local farmers to apply for a Hemp Cultivation licence for the Ten farms involved in the project - as well as preparing other important paperwork for the Department of Agriculture.

So you can imagine how excited we were to finally get out into the fields with the farmers and start getting the final details ready for the field experiment.

Setting up the field experiment in theory, is one thing, but actually getting out there, into each field, walking and measuring the plots in real life, is quite another.

Kate Randall from the University of Essex travelled to Ireland for a week to visit each farm with our local contractor, Fergal McNamara. Fergal will prepare each acre ahead of planting in May.

Each acre will be divided into 3 plots and each plot will get a different treatment.

Plot 1 will receive no treatment and will be planted with Hemp,

Plot 2 will get an application of just biochar and then be planted with Hemp.

Plot 3 will receive a treatment of Biochar which has been activated with Slurry and then be planted with Hemp.

In addition we will also be collecting soil adjacent to these plots, that will act as control samples.

In order for the results of the experiment to be consistent across the ten farms, we must be as exact as possible in applying the treatments - and each plot must get a similar application of Biochar Slurry and Hemp.

We decided to go with an application rate of a ton of Biochar per acre and 2000 gallons of slurry per acre.

Once we were happy with the ratio we had the fun job of testing how the Biochar and Slurry would mix and if it could be spread with a conventional slurry spreader using a dribble bar.

Once we visited each of the farmers and got details of the dimensions we set to the task of measuring the plots and marking them with poles.

The week culminated with a meeting with the Operational Group from Loop Head Together to present the work we had down and discuss the work for the weeks ahead.

We are looking forward to the project starting officially in April and we will keep you updated as the weeks go by.

Laura Foley - Project Manager and Co-ordinator

What exactly is the Hemp4Soil regenerative farming experiment happening on Loop Head? Learn more about it HERE.