Sowing

The sowing date depends on the weather conditions and is determined by the temperature of the soil; hence the soil temperature must be around 8-10 degrees to ensure vegetative growth and limited competition with weeds. This means that commonly hemp is sown from mid-March until the end of May.

Follow the Kazakh principle, meaning sowing immediately after the soil has thawed from frost and the fields are passable (TFZ, 2020). The early sowing date is crucial in order to make optimum use of the water reservoir still available from the winter months for rapid juvenile development. Since in recent years, there has been an increase in pronounced spring drought and hardly any late frosts affecting the crop, practical recommendations tend to favour earlier sowing.

The planting depth for hemp should be eight times as deep as the length of the seed. If conditions are more humid it is recommended to sow the seeds shallower (Desanlis et al., 2013). The common sowing density is between 35 and 80 kg/ha (van den Oever et al., 2023). There is a distinction between sowing for technical applications, sowing for textile applications and sowing for seeds and phytocompounds.

For technical applications, hemp seeds are sown at a rate of 35 kg/ha, at a depth not exceeding 2-3 cm. This can be accomplished using either a pneumatic sowing machine or a mechanical seed drill machine. The row spacing mirrors that of cereals, typically 10 - 15 cm apart. It is important to ensure that sowing is done evenly at a consistent depth, as deeper or irregular sowing can lead to reduced yields and uneven plant growth (van den Oever et al., 2023). In contrast to sowing for technical applications, sowing for textiles involves a higher seeding density, typically around 70 - 75 kg/ha of seed, equivalent to approximately 400 seeds per square meter. This denser sowing is necessary to produce finer textile fibres. Additionally, different varieties are used for this purpose (van den Oever et al., 2023). In fibre cultivation, it is crucial to achieve high plant density and height by maintaining short distances between seed rows. However, experience indicates that for seed and flower cultivation, it is advantageous to have larger plant spacing (50-75 cm). In such conditions, the plants develop wider branches, typically resulting in a higher yield of flowers and seeds per square meter (van den Oever et al., 2023).