The European project LIFE Wood for Future, led by the University of Granada, promotes the planting of ‘Cannabis sativa’ in 10 hectares of the Vega del Genil and the Fardes river basin as test plots.

The objective is to diversify the sources of income of foresters and contribute to the decontamination and regeneration of the soil.

Granada, June 28, 2024

A group of populiculturists in the province of Granada, under the coordination of the Confederation of Organizations of Foresters of Spain (COSE), has launched a pilot test under an agroforestry system that combines, for the first time in Spain, poplar trees and hemp for industrial use. The objective is to increase the profitability of poplar plantations, within the framework of the European LIFE Wood for Future/Madera para el Futuro project to revalue poplar wood as a raw material for sustainable construction.

To this end, LIFE Wood for the Future, led by the University of Granada and participated, among others, by the Diputación de Granada and COSE, has funded the planting of ‘Cannabis sativa’ in 10 hectares of poplar trees owned by six farmers in the Vega del Genil and the Fardes river basin, in the Altiplano region.

The hemp is already being planted among the poplar groves, it will be harvested next autumn and its vegetable fibers will be used for the production of construction material (adobe or ecological bricks) for bioclimatic building, although in future campaigns, once the farmers become familiar with its management and obtain higher quality fibers, its use in the textile industry for the manufacture of sustainable clothing is not ruled out.

Patricia Gómez Agrela, manager of COSE, and Samuel Cerrudo Andújar, permaculture expert, explain that both species form an association that allows them to mutually benefit from this coexistence and, on the other hand, cultivating them together increases the capacity that both have separately to decontaminate and regenerate the soil, to extract from the soil heavy metals and other toxic substances from pesticides used in agriculture and water from sewage treatment plants, making it more fertile for future campaigns.

 

 

Soil regeneration and CO2 sequestration

Although there are other agroforestry systems -for example, the joint cultivation of poplar and garlic or poplar and corn-, industrial ‘Cannabis sativa’ is particularly suitable because it is a rustic species, which adapts to any type of soil; It tolerates very well the blanket irrigation with waste water usually used in the poplar groves of the Vega; and it is not harmed by the shade cast by the poplars, since what is sought is the growth of the stems that contain the fiber useful for the industry, and not its leaves or flowers. In addition, the roots of the trees and the hemp establish a symbiosis in which nutrients are exchanged.

Gómez points out that this project will make it possible to recover a crop that was already traditional in the province, while contributing to soil improvement and CO2 capture in one of the metropolitan areas with the worst air quality in the country.

Regarding its economic objectives, the joint cultivation of an annual or biannual crop, such as hemp, with a longer cycle crop, such as poplar – the cutting period is about ten years – will help foresters to obtain complementary income in a more stable way with a species that is very resistant to pests, requires little care and no fertilizer.

Industrial hemp is not psychoactive, as its percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is very low. It is a natural material that has been used for millennia and in recent years its cultivation has been recovered for various uses, such as the manufacture of fibers and fabrics, construction materials, bioplastics, biofuel and cosmetics.