Hello OG community,
I work with the Kootenay Society for Sustainable Living. We’re a non profit organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of our natural resources, and the restoration of soils, habitat and biodiversity. We also actively promote the use of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds in order to preserve genetic diversity and maintain the ability to acclimatize plants to micro climates and to adapt with ongoing climate change.
We run a research and demonstration mini-farm in the Kootenay area of BC where we teach small scale sustainable farming through workshops and tours. Our goal there is to inspire visitors and workshop participants to start growing their own food/crops and increase their food security, then empower them with the demonstration and teaching of the hands on skills needed to succeed.
Our research consists of determining the crops that best grow in our mountain climate, and maximizing yields of both calories and biomass. We dedicate 60% of our growing area towards compost crops that produce significant amounts of structural carbon in order to build sufficient compost to increase our soil organic matter, and recycle nutrients. By doing so we’re working towards a closed-loop system that no longer relies on the importation of fertility, and true long term sustainability and food security. With Biointensive principals we maximize yields and efficiency while minimizing water, fertilizer and other natural resource consumption which significantly reduces the area required to grow a complete diet and income; meaning we can dedicate more land towards conservation efforts, reforestation and soil restoration.
In 2018 we established the Biointensive Centre and ran variety trials on as many open-pollinated varieties of crops as possible. We concentrate much of our efforts in compost crops like cereal grains, quinoa, amaranth and sunflowers. Crops that will produce a significant number of calories and significant biomass for the compost pile. With the recent legalization of cannabis in Canada we’re extremely interested in the potential of cannabis to produce calories through seed production, biomass for composting, and as an income production crop for local medicinal purposes. Cannabis shows the potential to be a super crop; providing calories, superior nutrition, soil remediation, fast biomass and production of structural carbon, and provide some income. We’re excited to start research and adaptation of cannabis in to our mini-farm system in order to maximize it’s potential and to produce a locally adaptable open-pollinated variety of cannabis to share in Canada and to anyone living in a high elevation or cold climates.
Our focus will be to empower others to grow cannabis at home, and help kick start the home grown cannabis revolution that is sure to come with legalization. The ultimate for us would be developing an open pollinated cannabis that can be grown for buds/medicine/income or grown for seed for nutrition, so farmers and gardeners can choose whether they grow males or not. In both cases they’ll grow a lot of biomass for the compost pile and maintain a balanced and sustainable garden! We really focus on biomass production in Biointensive Agriculture and now that Cannabis is legalized we think it can be a superior multi purpose crop. Cannabis can be adapted to any environment and has immense and versatile value for all farmers, especially in our short growing season and mountain environment.
The first step to achieving these goals will be to acquire open-pollinated or landrace varieties of Cannabis that have all of their potential and genetic diversity intact. While we recognize the significant contributions of breeders to develop extremely potent hybrids, we feel that the preservation and distribution of landrace and heirloom varieties of crops, including Cannabis is vitally important. Cannabis seeds that can be shared in a region and grow true to type, yet will adapt to any local micro climate will ensure Cannabis will flourish over the long term and remain capable of adapting to changing environments and climate change.
Our hope is that some of you may be able to help us with this endeavor. Whether you have the capability of donating seed, would be interested in trading for other non-cannabis heirloom seeds we produce on our mini-farm, or would be willing to work with us in identifying which landrace varieties we should focus on; any help, guidance or advise will be very much appreciated. In 2019 we plan to conduct variety trials on any and all landrace open-pollinated varieties we can acquire, with a focus on identifying the genetics that respond best to our climate. We keep very accurate data on all stages of growth, and weigh the “edible” portions and the biomass in order to help us decide which varieties will produce the best harvest of both.
By the end of 2020 we will have identified the strongest varieties and the optimal spacing in order to maximize efficiency of space, time, and yields. We will also have had the opportunity to save seed in year 2 and will have begun the process of acclimatizing the variety to our climate, and have the ability to distribute the seed in our community.
As a non-profit we aren’t in this for the money, we simply want to empower our future generations to produce their own healthy food (and medicine). If you are at all interested in our work we would love the opportunity to create a partnership in which we can adapt these landrace varieties to the Northern climate and then send them back to you for sharing with people that live in high altitude or cold environments.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Kootenay Society for Sustainable Living, the system of farming we teach (Grow Biointensive), or want to learn more about who we are and where we come from, please visit our website @ www.growsustainability.org.
The future for Cannabis is bright, thank you to everyone working to preserve these important heirlooms! Thanks for reading!
JC
Landrace plants often have an almost annoying amount of variation in them, which is great for maintaining diversity, but not good for predictable results. I’m also not sure how you are going to grow the numbers you need and be in the good books with the law right now, never mind when you go to sell them. Holy cow you have some challenges ahead of you lol!