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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] gas prices
  • Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 06:59:57 EDT


> I can get, at minimum, two crops from the
> 90-110 day crop in the area I live now. For starters, it is a crop you
> start indoors/greenhouse and that means it needs a mere 60 to 75 days in
> the
> ground.
>

For a hobby stand of hemp perhaps. On a large scale it's not feasible. Corn
takes 90 days or so to produce dry seed and it can be started in the
greenhouse as well. Try it sometime (here admitting that neither of us is
going to try
this with hemp until things change) and you will see that the production cost
soars.


>
> And you do have the added advantage that this is one of those crops that
> doesn't deplete the soil but rather is a soil builder.
>

This falls into the TANFL category as well. If you pressed the oil and
returned all the press cake to the field, you would not deplete the soil
much. But
that isn't feasible on a commercial scale either. If you managed the labor
and expense to grow three crops of hemp on ground, got anywhere near an
agribusiness sustainable production level per crop, and the seed (which is
high in
protein) is carted off for processing, you'd be depleting the soil in very
quick
order. In fact you'd have to have chemical nitrogen fertilizer to get the
high yields to begin with.


When all is said and done, be it soybeans, corn, hemp, switchgrass, ... it is
idiotic to grow something as an agricultural crop and burn it as liquid motor
fuel. It is a function of our having made an addiction out of personal, on
demand transportation based on fossil oil and when we have tapped that
resource
to the limit (as we now have done), like any other desperate and mindless
addict, we pitch about for a fix. Serious alcoholics will swill mouthwash
and
shoe polish when denied the usual sources. We are seeing the same effect
with
car addicts. </HTML>




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