Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
(N/A)
BURLINGTON,VT 05405
Performing Department
Plant & Soil Science
Non Technical Summary
Hemp acreage is quickly expanding in VT and beyond. At the conclusion of 2019, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets had registered over 9,000 acres of hemp and issued just under 1,000 registrations to grow the crop. The rapid expansion is a result of the passage of the 2019 Farm Bill which grants hemp "crop status", therefore removing it from the Drug Enforcement Administration list. The amount of research-based disease and pest information available to growers is limited and the information available is often based on areas with different climate conditions and disease/pest pressures. Many hemp growers are new to farming and are struggling with disease and pest identification and management. Researchers are unclear as to the scope of the problems and the severity. The goal of this project is to do a statewide survey identifying disease and arthropod challenges and to assist farmers with management strategies. Part of the work would be to test viable fungicides in replicated hemp plots to determine efficacy and cost, in addition to assessing genera of plant parasitic nematodes in the crop, a known pathogen of hemp.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
100%
Developmental
0%
Goals / Objectives
Agronomic practices -Determine effects on grain, fiber, or dual-purpose productivity as functions of * Cultivars - including suitability to growing conditions/regions. This entails evaluating and developing adapted, improved, monoecious cultivars for grain, fiber, dual purpose (grain + fiber), and essential oil production systems across the USA.
* Soil types
ÿ Suitability/adaptability to varied soil types, including disturbed and marginal soils
* Establishment practices
ÿ Conventional tillage vs. no-till establishment
ÿ Planting date ÿ¿ variety interactions
ÿ Planting rates (and depths) appropriate for fiber and seed crops
ÿ Row spacing
* Fertilization practices
ÿ Application rates
ÿ Application timing (especially relative to different production outcomes (grain, fiber, dual purpose (grain + fiber), and essential oil production systems)
* Canopy management
ÿ Utility/timing of topping during growing season to induce multiple tillering
* Water use and demand
ÿ Irrigation ÿ¿ variety interactions
ÿ Evapotranspiration and water demand
ÿ Timing availability effects
* Insect, pathogens, and other pest management.
ÿ Pest and pathogen sensitivity
ÿ Efficacy of seed fungicide and insecticide treatments
ÿ Effects of late-season fungicide applications on grain yield and quality
ÿ Economic thresholds for insect and other pest control
* Weed management
ÿ Pre/post emergence herbicides for weed control
ÿ Herbicide sensitivities
* Harvest and handling practices
ÿ Evaluate efficacy of field desiccation (e.g., using diquat or glyphosate) for grain crops
ÿ Develop best practice protocols for retting both in fiber and dual purpose hemp systems
ÿ Determine engineering needs for harvest, handling and processing
* Suitability for crop rotations
ÿ Evaluate potential for use in rotations or mixtures with other crop
ÿ Measure hemp performance and weed/insect/disease incidence following corn, cotton, soybean, tobacco, forage/pasture/range/fallow
ÿ Determine hempâ¿¿s effects on disease/pest cycles of other crops
Project Methods
Identify high performance hemp varieties to maximize yield and quality A variety trial (part of the multistate Hatch S-1084 project) will be used to determine the impact of varietal selection on tolerance to disease, yield, and quality in 2021& 2022. Thirty varieties of hemp grown for flower production will be selected as the treatments. The experimental design will be a randomized complete block with 4 replicates. Plots consisted of five plants spaced 5' apart in the row and between rows. For each plant harvested the whole plant weight will be recorded. Plants will be broken down into smaller branched sections and larger "fan" or "sun" leaves removed by hand, while smaller leaves left attached since they subtend from the flower bract. Remaining stems will be bucked using the Munch Machine Mother Bucker (Toppenish, WA) and remaining leaf material and buds collected. Wet bud weight and unmarketable bud weight will be recorded. The flower buds will be dried at 80 degrees F or ambient temperature with airflow until dry enough for storage without molding. A subsample of flower bud from each plot will be dried in a small dehydrator and wet weights and dry weights recorded in order to calculate the percent moisture of the flower buds. The percent moisture at harvest will be used to calculate dry matter yields. Metrics will be collected for each of three harvested plants within each plot and a plot average will be calculated. From each plot, dried flower samples from each plot will be sent to ProVerde Laboratories (Milford, MA) to be analyzed for cannabinoids and terpene profiles.Develop optimum nitrogen rates to maximize yield and quality The trial will be conducted in 2021 & 2022 at Borderview Farm in Alburgh, VT. Industrial hemp seed (var. Boax) will be seeded into 50-cell trays in the greenhouse approximately one-month before transplanting. The experimental design will be randomized complete block design with four replications. Plots will consist of five plants spaced 5' apart in the row and plot treatments will include five N application rates including a Control (0 lbs ac-1), 75, 100, 125, and 150 lbs ac-1. Nitrogen treatments will begin one-week following transplanting of the hemp and continue weekly over a 6-week period. Nitrogen application rates will be applied through fertigation using appropriate dilution of dissolved nitrogen fertilizer. Soil nitrate tests will be taken at time of planting and monthly until harvest in mid-October. Plant tissue tests will be taken for each plot twice: first midseason at time of flowering and then at harvest to be analyzed for primary and secondary nutrients as a means of measuring nutrient uptake. Harvest will occur as previously described. After the middle three plants are harvested and yield measurements collected, the remaining two plants will be chipped to be analyzed for whole plant nutrient concentrations. A subsample of chipped plants will be taken, dried, and sent to Dairy One in Ithaca, NY for nutrient analysis.Identify viable fungicides to control diseaseThe trial will be conducted in 2021 & 2022 at Borderview Farm in Alburgh, VT. The experimental design will be randomized complete block (RCBD) with at least five treatments and four replicates. Industrial hemp seed (var. Boax) will be seeded into 50-cell trays in the greenhouse approximately one-month before transplanting. Transplanting will occur in mid- June and plots will be 15'x 25' with 5 hemp plants per plot. Currently there are some EPA-registered fungicide products that are labeled for use on hemp, i.e. biopesticides such as Regalia® and Double Nickel®. In addition to the few products labeled for use on industrial hemp, VAAFM allows products to be used if the following criteria are met: (1) the active ingredient(s) has a tolerance exemption under Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA); (2) only contains an approved active ingredients; (3) is labeled for use on unspecified food crops; and, (4) has an agricultural use label for hemp intended for commercial sale (Pesticide Use on Hemp in Vermont (6 VSA Chapter 87), 2019). If the grant is awarded, all treatments will be confirmed with the VT Agency of Agriculture and an experimental use permit will be obtained to evaluate efficacy of the fungicides on hemp. Fungicide applications will begin at flower initiation, and repeated through harvest on a 5-7 day schedule, as directed by label. These are preventative fungicides so need to be sprayed before disease is present. Disease incidence and severity will evaluated weekly. Three adjacent plants will be scouted at five locations within each field in a W pattern to ensure all quadrants of the field are assessed. Five leaves and buds will be randomly selected including top, mid and lower sections on each of the three plants and evaluated for incidence (number of buds/leaves affected) and severity (% total bud/leaf damage) for each of the diseases listed in the scouting form (See Disease and Arthropod Pest Scouting Forms). Diseases that will be evaluated include foliar leafspots (Alternaria sp., Septoria sp. Phoma sp. and Ascochyta sp. among others), powdery mildew (Golovinomyces sp., synonym Erysiphe sp.), gray mold, caused by Botrytis cinerea (buds and stems), hemp canker or white mold Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (stems). When necessary, samples will be collected and brought back to the UVM Plant Diagnostic laboratory for further diagnosis/confirmation of the genus of unknown leaf spots, cankers and crown/root rots. Individual disease ratings will be used to calculate Area Under the Disease Progress Curve (AUDPC) standardized for the duration of disease evaluation.Assessment of arthropod, disease, and nematode pests in VermontTwo industrial hemp farms will be selected from five geographic regions in the state to ensure different soils, microclimates and field characteristics are represented. The farms enrolled the in the scouting program will fill out a baseline production survey and provide their VT Hemp Registration Number. The ten farms will be scouted for diseases and arthropod pests at three critical periods during the growing season; six weeks after planting date, at flower development stage and just before harvest, since the type of diseases and pests will likely change as plants grow from seedlings to flowering adults. Three adjacent plants will be scouted at five locations within each field in a W pattern to ensure all quadrants of the field are assessed. Five leaves will be randomly selected including top, mid and lower sections on each of the three plants and evaluated for incidence (number of leaves affected) and severity (% total leaf damage) for each of the diseases and arthropod pests listed in the scouting form. Stems, crown and root issues will also be assessed and noted. Soil samples will be collected at each of the 10 farms in June each year. Hazelrigg will extract both ectoparasitic and endoparasitic nematodes using a modified Jenkins method (Jenkins, W. R. 1964) and will quantify and identify the nematodes to genus based on the standard pictoral key (Mai, W. F. and Lyon, H. H., 1996) with the assistance of Dr. Robert Wick, Plant Pathologist and Director of the UMass Extension Nematology Lab. These unique baseline data will help determine which species are present in the state and their potential impacts to the crop. This assessment will provide valuable information for future research in hemp or other vegetable/small fruit crop.For all trials, yield data and stand characteristics will be analyzed using mixed model analysis using the mixed procedure of SAS (SAS Institute, 2018). Replications within the trial were treated as random effects, and treatments were treated as fixed. Treatment mean comparisons were made using the Least Significant Difference (LSD) procedure when the F-test was considered significant (p<0.10).