OUR FIRST BLOG!

Winter field prep and clean up:
Normally the hardest part of hemp farming is the harvest, and planting weeks. Cleaning and field preparation for summer planting is always a task we procrastinate till we ABSOLUTELY have to do it. Generally, right after harvest, the crew at Royally Grown is EXHAUSTED! The culmination of the entire summer of battling the elements and outsmarting the weather has taken its toll. Then, for two weeks (18 hours a day) we hand harvest over 50,000 plants and proceed to hang each cola individually for 7-10 days to dry/cure. The last thing we want to think about is FIELD PREP only to do it ALL OVER AGAIN. We haven’t even begun to process our crops, and yet the next growing year is already starting.

 

There are multiple reasons to prep the field in the winter after harvest in a timely manner:

  1. Cleaning mulch plastic layer before the roots of the weeds can encapsulate the plastic making it more difficult to remove
  2. Disking and tilling the soil to kill native field grass before it grows tall/ planting cover crops to make it easier for field preparation in the springtime.
  3. During the spring months the rainfall makes the fields impossibly too muddy for the tractors to operate and properly disk the fields, which is why early field prep ASAP is a MUST!
  4. Pulling all equipment and irrigation hoses for maintenance and salvaging any leftover parts from the year to reuse for the following season (drip tape, connectors, valves, mainline, water pumps, sprayers etc…)

 

This year we are a little delayed in cleanup, which is perfect, because we can cover all of these points real time in the field with you guys. Stay tuned!

 

Royally Grown Crew