120 days from seed to harvest
15/04/2009
A farmer near Bunbury, the third-largest town in Western Australia, has told local media that more land in the area should be devoted to producing hemp, arguing that if enough farmers produced the fibre, it would become feasible for a textile plant to open in the area.
Merv Robinson is set to harvest his first hemp crop in the next month after planting the crop as a trial. He said he had been surprised by how quickly the hemp had grown, calculating that it would only take 120 days to take it from seed to harvest.
He said that if farmers grew 500 hectares of hemp between Western Australia's capital, Perth, and Bunbury, a processing plant in the area would be viable. “If we can grow enough it could be a massive industry,” Mr Robinson said. “You’ve got to start somewhere and we’ve got to get enough farmers in so we can get enough seed.”
Mr Robinson said the crop was low maintenance, requiring less water than trees and little pest control.
But the lush green yield has caught the eye of a few outsiders as well.
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