Hemp grown for fiber that wasn't smoked goes back to at least 1500 (minimum) and probably a lot further back then that since a number of the European landraces are significantly lower enough in THC to not be worth smoking.
Hemp was originally used in China in XXXX BC (I can't recall if it's 1000 BC or 3000 BC off the top of my head), for lamp oil, so really it has three different varieties (Oil, Fiber, Medicinal).
The oil variety types are quite a bit different then the other two since they mature quite quickly and produce a lot of very large seeds. They are shorter and skinnier at maturation as well. The fiber types are tall, don't produce as many seeds and take a lot longer to grow. Medical varieties are shorter then fiber varieties, but larger then oil varieties, they produce a lot of buds (or so says the person who tests them here) - and mature faster then fiber types(I'm not sure how their maturation compares to the oil types).
I tried an oil variety for a comparison study with my fiber types at one point and it really didn't work since it matured about 4 weeks before the fiber variety, and it messed up my sampling.
It's use spread to Europe where it was primarily used for fiber, and the type of fiber you get from it can not be distinguished from flax unless you use a microscope that can determine the actual twist of the fiber cells (I have a paper on this if you want the reference). So anything designated as linen in a museum has as much chance of being hemp as it does flax.
There was also a spread of the crop into India where the drug varieties were developed (probably around 1000BC)... we know it was used medicinally in China and India at ~1000BC because there are both chinese and sanskrit medical texts on it. China also has written records of fiber usage from 2500BC. But it was probably cultivated earlier then that since it has been found in a number of neolithic digs.
It's use as a fiber goes probably just as far back, tho the earliest I could find evidence for it in Europe was 240-435 AD as a pollen sample at Loddigsee, Mecklenburg, Germany. We also know that the Romans cultivated it as both fiber and medicine and both uses are listed by Pliny (120BC), which is backed up by pollen records from Lago Albano and Lago di Nemi.
The fact that it makes your throat close up isn't to surprizing, it has the problem of being very allergy causing.... the pollen and also the aromatics the plant gives off is a large problem for the researchers.
I am in the process of completing my thesis on the developmental genetics of fiber hemp... I'll post the history of hemp section of the thesis and all the references at some point after I've graduated.
Also I have a paper somewhere that mentions that in Hungary there was a tax that was paid in hemp stalks (for fiber)... 1300AD or something like that (I can't find the paper at this moment).
(You'll just have to move somewhere that accepts industrial hemp as being somewhat normal.... Canada, Europe, etc.) - if you already have a graduate degree that is plant or molecular biology related, and are interested in studing the plant - we may have an opening since one of our scientists is moving on. :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-12-10 01:31 am (UTC)Hemp was originally used in China in XXXX BC (I can't recall if it's 1000 BC or 3000 BC off the top of my head), for lamp oil, so really it has three different varieties (Oil, Fiber, Medicinal).
The oil variety types are quite a bit different then the other two since they mature quite quickly and produce a lot of very large seeds. They are shorter and skinnier at maturation as well. The fiber types are tall, don't produce as many seeds and take a lot longer to grow. Medical varieties are shorter then fiber varieties, but larger then oil varieties, they produce a lot of buds (or so says the person who tests them here) - and mature faster then fiber types(I'm not sure how their maturation compares to the oil types).
I tried an oil variety for a comparison study with my fiber types at one point and it really didn't work since it matured about 4 weeks before the fiber variety, and it messed up my sampling.
It's use spread to Europe where it was primarily used for fiber, and the type of fiber you get from it can not be distinguished from flax unless you use a microscope that can determine the actual twist of the fiber cells (I have a paper on this if you want the reference). So anything designated as linen in a museum has as much chance of being hemp as it does flax.
There was also a spread of the crop into India where the drug varieties were developed (probably around 1000BC)... we know it was used medicinally in China and India at ~1000BC because there are both chinese and sanskrit medical texts on it. China also has written records of fiber usage from 2500BC. But it was probably cultivated earlier then that since it has been found in a number of neolithic digs.
It's use as a fiber goes probably just as far back, tho the earliest I could find evidence for it in Europe was 240-435 AD as a pollen sample at Loddigsee, Mecklenburg, Germany. We also know that the Romans cultivated it as both fiber and medicine and both uses are listed by Pliny (120BC), which is backed up by pollen records from Lago Albano and Lago di Nemi.
The fact that it makes your throat close up isn't to surprizing, it has the problem of being very allergy causing.... the pollen and also the aromatics the plant gives off is a large problem for the researchers.
I am in the process of completing my thesis on the developmental genetics of fiber hemp... I'll post the history of hemp section of the thesis and all the references at some point after I've graduated.
Also I have a paper somewhere that mentions that in Hungary there was a tax that was paid in hemp stalks (for fiber)... 1300AD or something like that (I can't find the paper at this moment).
(You'll just have to move somewhere that accepts industrial hemp as being somewhat normal.... Canada, Europe, etc.) - if you already have a graduate degree that is plant or molecular biology related, and are interested in studing the plant - we may have an opening since one of our scientists is moving on.
:)