Source: NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIV submitted to
DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE FIBER HEMP SYSTEMS IN NORTH CAROLINA’S HISTORICALLY TOBACCO-DEPENDENT UNDERSERVED FARMING COMMUNITIES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1029670
Grant No.
2023-68006-40379
Cumulative Award Amt.
$649,322.00
Proposal No.
2022-10349
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Aug 1, 2023
Project End Date
Jul 31, 2028
Grant Year
2023
Program Code
[A1601]- Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities: Small and Medium-Sized Farms
Project Director
Suchoff, D.
Recipient Organization
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIV
(N/A)
RALEIGH,NC 27695
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
This project will help develop environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable fiber hemp production practices in collaboration with North Carolina's historically underrepresented farmers. Demand for local fiber hemp is high and not being met by our farmers due to a lack of good agronomic practices. Our goal is to work directly with farmers to establish these sustainable production practices to meet demand. Specifically, we will work with black and indigenousfarmers who have either fully or partially transitioned away from tobacco and who are seeking to improve their farm diversity.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1021730310075%
2051730301025%
Knowledge Area
102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships; 205 - Plant Management Systems;

Subject Of Investigation
1730 - Hemp;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics; 3100 - Management;
Goals / Objectives
Fiber hemp production knowledge in the US was lost following hemp's prohibition in the 40s. Hemp is now effectively a new crop, which presents an opportunity to develop hemp production practices with a sustainable foundation, rather than making the incremental improvements seen within established crops. To meet the current and future demand for locally-produced fiber hemp, farmers need relevant, up to date management guides to ensure production success with practices that meet sustainability goals. For long-term sustainability, producers and industry need information that both addresses agronomic challenges (e.g. weed management, proper plant populations, and cover crop management) and meets soil health, crop quality, and economic efficiency goals. Engagement with historically underserved farmers - from the study design presented in this proposal to the final Extension and journal publications - is critical for the successful integration of hemp into North Carolina cropping systems. As such, the long term goal of this project is to develop sustainable fiber hemp production strategies for historically underserved farmers transitioning out of tobacco to address stakeholder needs and meet fiber hemp demand. We will employ a multi-faceted, integrated approach, working collaboratively with the region's historically underserved, small and medium-sized farmers to address the three key stakeholder production limitations (A.1.2). In doing so, this project will help build a regional knowledge base that incorporates localized hemp production constraints and best management practices anchored by the three pillars of sustainability (economic viability, social equity, environmental protection). To meet said goal, project objectives involve characterization of fiber hemp yield, quality, and economic impacts via small-plot research and large-plot on-farm agronomic trials and development of numerous extension materials and activities to maximize farmer engagement. Our specific objectives are:Evaluate weed management efficacy, economics, and soil health impacts of no-till fiber hemp using residue from different fall-planted cover crop species.Determine optimum nitrogen application rate in relation to fiber hemp yield, stem quality, and production economics, and evaluate fall-planted leguminous cover crops as a partial- or full-replacement for external nitrogen inputs.Understand the impacts of increasing plant populations on biomass and bast fiber yield, stem quality, and economic returns.Evaluate a holistic system, combining best management practices determined in objectives 1-3, to address stakeholder challenges and systems sustainability.Extension-focused on-farm trials, field days, and the development of diverse and far-reaching extension materials for objectives 1 - 4 in collaboration with underserved Coastal Plain farmers.
Project Methods
We will conduct on-station and on-farm agronomic trials to develop optimum nitrogen rate (leveraging leguminous cover crops), proper planting rate, and no-till weed management strategies for North Carolina fiber hemp producers. Once we have developed these practices, we will investigate a more holistic system where we combine the most sustainable practices and evaluate the system against a less sustianable, higher intensity production system. Each system will be evaluated for crop agronomic traits, soil health impacts, economics, and crop quality. Extension and scientific materials will be generated from this work and disbursed throughout the Southeast.

Progress 08/01/23 to 07/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:As this is year one of our project, we have not yet hosted any Extension or outreach events pertaining to the project. These events will occur starting August 2024 and into the Fall and early Winter. However, we have initiated conversations with potential farmer collaborators and have installed an on-farm trial with Eddie Moore, a Lumbee farmer in Robeson County, as a preliminary on-farm trial. Changes/Problems:Major change 1: In our initial plan for the density trial, we had populations up to 2 million plants/ac. We found that we could not physically get enough seed to germinate at such high populations. As such, we reduced populations that range by 300,000 plants/ac (300,000, 600,000, 900,000, 1.2 M, and 1.5 M plants/ac). We do not believe this will affect the end results as we do not see any appreciable gains after ~ 750,000 plants/acre. We had a learning curve with using our no-till drill. No-till drill into cover crop mulch can be challenging and requires a good understanding of the equipment and the soil at the time of planting. However, we are having excellent success in 2024 with planting and feel confident that we can maintain and build onthis success while also sharing this knowledge with farmer stakeholders. We proposed only to do on-station work in year one. However, since we had preliminary data from the prior field season and interest from a farmer, we decided to move forward with one on-farm trial. We still plan to follow the project timeline of four on-farm trials in year two of the project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?As mentioned prior, we will be planting our trials for 2024 until June.We will be hosting at least two fiber hemp field days during the 2024 field season (likely in August, date TBD) in which we will share our preliminary results and engage with other potential farmer collaborators. We will also share preliminary results with our NC Cooperative Extension agents during training events in the Fall and Winter 2024 as well as host numerous 2024 - 2025 Winter County Extension meetings. Both Ashlee and Sam (PhD and MS students) will present preliminary results at the 2024 American Society for Horticultural Science conference in September, the 2024 International ASA-CSSA-SSSA meeting in November, and potentially at the IND HEMP annual summit in Montana, October 2024.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We were able to get one year of field trials in during the 2023 field season while we waited for the grant paperwork to be completed. We hired Ashlee George as our Ph.D. student to work on the weed management (objective 1) and nitrogen rate trials (2). We also hired Samantha Carroll as an M.S. student focusing on plant densities (objective 3) - we obtianed additional external funding to cover Samantha's degree. We conducted field trials at the Cherry Research Station (Goldsboro, NC), Cunningham Research Station (Kinston, NC), and Horticultural Crops Research Station (Clinton, NC). The overall trials were a success and we are still parsing through the data. Preliminary results from the nitrogen rate trial found that height and stem yields appear to plateau at ~ 150 lb N/ac. We were excited to find that when the hairy vetch grew well and plots were sufficiently prepped, we could acheive fiber hemp yields comparable to our highest nitrogen rate from this cover crop alone. This means we may be able to eliminate all external nitrogen inputs simply by relying on the hairy vetch cover crop. Furthermore, we found that we could get excellent stands and weed management when no-till planting in the hairy vetch cover crop. We had challenges with the no-till trial due to equipment learning curves, however we still were able to show that stands could be successfully estableshed in a rolled cover crop. Our density trials showed a strong population effect on stem diameter: higher populations significantly reduced stem diameter. We believe that optimal densities likely need to be ~750,000 plant/ac based on final stem and bast fiber yields. We are in the process of planting our 2024 on-station trials. Though this is still technically year one of this grant project, we decided to collaborate with one farmer in Robeson County (Eddie Moore) due to his interest in the work. Eddie wanted to put in a nitrogen rate trial on his farmer, which was planted at the beginning of May. The project has on-farm trials being initiated in year two, however we felt that, because we were able to obtain good preliminary data and we had the interest from Eddie, we wanted to move forward with at least one farmer now.

Publications