Original title: Evaluation of Yield and Morphological Responses of Monoecious Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) to Topping Across Cultivars and Years: Are There Mechanical Harvest Implications?
The study tested whether cutting off the growing tip of hemp plants, called topping, changes their shape or seed harvest. Researchers compared three cultivars, or varieties, over three growing seasons in Northern Italy. Topped plants were about 14% shorter at harvest, but topping did not significantly change seed yield or the measured seed-quality traits. Weather and cultivar choice had stronger effects on crop performance.
Imagine trimming the top of a row of plants before harvest. The cut plants end up shorter, but the amount of food they produce may stay the same. In this paper, trimming the growing tip made hemp plants shorter without significantly changing their seed yield, which could make their shape more suitable for machine harvesting.
Hemp growers need plants that can be harvested by machine without losing seed yield. Across the tested cultivars and seasons, topping reduced plant height while seed yield stayed statistically unchanged, suggesting a way to alter plant shape without sacrificing yield under these conditions.
The results cover three monoecious cultivars grown in open fields in Northern Italy over three seasons. They do not establish that topping improves actual machine-harvest performance, or that yield will remain unchanged in other cultivars, places, or growing conditions. The abstract reports reduced height as a structural change that would improve harvest suitability, not a direct measure of harvesting efficiency.
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Evaluation of Yield and Morphological Responses of Monoecious Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) to Topping Across Cultivars and Years: Are There Mechanical Harvest Implications? — Massimo Montanari, Elisa Fischetti, Antonio Scarfone et al. — Agronomy — doi:10.3390/agronomy16191958
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.