CC Summer 1995: Russia's participation in Bioresource Hemp 1995
BIORESOURCE nice pic
HEMP
1995
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Cannabis in Kursk
Stanislav Shulga of the Russian Institute of Land Use and Erosion Protection gave an overview of the traditional hemp cultivation in the Kursk Region. Although hemp cultivation has dropped from around 30,000 hectares in the 1950's to under 1,500 by 1994, the technical know-how and equipment for harvesting and processing are still available. Hemp is currently being grown in rotation with oat, clover, and potatoes. It should be easy for this region (and others like it) to increase their production of hemp if the demand were to rise.


The Russian Seed Bank
Robert C Clarke reported on a joint project between the Vavilov Research Institute (VIR) based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the International Hemp Association (IHA) based in Amsterdam, Holland. The VIR maintains one of the world's largest collections of viable seeds from economic plants and their wild relatives. Since its creation in 1992, the IHA has been involved in a cooperative project with the VIR to preserve the nearly four hundred types of cannabis seeds in their collection.

Each seed type must be grown out and reproduced in sufficient quantity to provide seed for storage in several locations as well as additional seed for distribution to researchers. Successful grow-outs of portions of the VIR cannabis collection were carried out during 1993 and 1994 in Russia, Ukraine, and Italy. The VIR and the IHA plan to continue grow-outs over the next two years.


Funding the Future
The current political instability and inflationary economic situation in the former Soviet Union has resulted in the grow-outs suffering rapidly increasing costs. Thus the VIR/IHA Cannabis Germplasm Preservation Project is currently seeking funding for the continuation of grow-outs in 1995.

The goal of the project is to have a minimum of 1000 plants of each population so as to ensure preservation of the entire gene pool. They would also like to have at least 10,000 seeds (about 200 grams) of each type, half for an active collection and half for long-term storage.
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