Altai Krai (growing region)
More actions
| Altai Krai | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 52.61, 82.61 |
| Country | Russia |
| Provinces/States | Altai Krai |
| Area | 167,000 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Ob |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Altai Krai growing region covers Altai Krai in southern Siberia, in the basin of the upper Ob and its headstreams, the Biya and the Katun.[1] In 2025 wild hemp was found in 1,223 patches covering 352.42 hectares of the krai: on settlement land, in abandoned quarries, and near rubbish dumps and industrial sites.[2] Hemp was grown as a field crop in the 1960s, and low-THC hemp was sown there again in 2012.[3]
Geography
The krai borders Kazakhstan to the south-west. The rolling plains of the Kulunda Steppe lie in the west, the Salair Ridge in the east and the foreland of the Altai Mountains in the south-east; the vegetation is steppe and forest-steppe. The administrative centre is Barnaul, and the krai covers 169,100 km².[1] Most of the steppe on the plain has been ploughed; pine forests and birch groves remain. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia divided the krai into natural districts that include the Kulunda steppe, the plateau and the valley of the Ob, the Biya–Chumysh forest-steppe and the foothills of the Altai and the Salair.[4]
Since 2010 wild hemp has been reported from Pervomaysky and Pavlovsky districts and the town of Kamen-na-Obi (2010), Tabunsky District (2016), and the Altaysky, Biysky, Burlinsky, Bystroistoksky, Kalmansky, Mamontovsky, Nemetsky National, Soloneshensky, Topchikhinsky, Tselinny and Zalesovsky districts and the town of Slavgorod (2026).[5][6][7][8]
Hemp as a crop
In the late 1960s hemp was among the krai's most important industrial crops, and several of its districts had flax and hemp mills.[4] In the 1960s hemp was widely grown in the Altai, which had its own plant for processing it. In 2012 Aleksandr Kapelkin, a farmer in Kytmanovsky District, became the first in the krai to sow low-THC hemp. Officers of the federal drug-control service had proposed reviving the crop the autumn before, and the first harvest was to be kept for seed.[3] In spring 2014 Kapelkin opened the region's first plant for making hemp oil, in Barnaul. He was then the only grower of industrial hemp in the krai, and the 500 hectares of hemp on his Chumashskoye farm were nearly a fifth of all the hemp grown in Russia. After the drought that struck the Altai in 2014 his business faltered: his holdings went through bankruptcy proceedings, and by 2017 the area under hemp had shrunk considerably.[9] In 2017 hemp was grown in five Russian regions: Altai Krai, Oryol, Penza and Novosibirsk oblasts, and Mordovia.[10]
The Berezovaya Roshcha farm in Kalmansky District grows industrial hemp. It sowed 9 hectares in 2024 and 90 in 2025, from elite seed bought in Central Russia.[11]
Wild stands
In 1990 V. I. Dolgov gathered ruderal hemp by the road at the village of Bystryanka in Biysky District.[12] N. V. Ovcharova and T. A. Terekhina, botanists at Altai State University, studied the recovery of meadow on grazing land in Kosikhinsky District, on the Biysk–Chumysh upland, around the villages of Kontoshino, Ozero-Krasilovo and Romanovo, in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 almost pure thickets of hemp, 54 plants to the square metre, covered a livestock camp on the right bank of the Bobrovka near Kontoshino that had stood unused for five years. A year later meadow-grass and nettle had taken over the site, though Cannabis ruderalis was still among the leading species.[13] They followed the same site until 2011 and found that hemp formed an almost pure stand in the fourth year after grazing stopped, then gave way to meadow-grass and nettle but stayed on in the mixtures that came after.[14] The herbarium of Altai State University holds seven sheets of hemp gathered at Lake Krasilovo, also in Kosikhinsky District, in the summers between 1976 and 1995; two are labelled Cannabis ruderalis and five Cannabis sativa.[15][16]
In 2008 A. I. Shmakov and four colleagues listed hemp in the flora of the Zalesovsky reserve, at the western end of the Salair Ridge on the right bank of the Berd, in Zalesovsky District: Cannabis sativa along roads, and ruderal hemp among the common weeds round the reserve's settlements.[17]
Eradication
In 2005 Sergei Lavrov, head of the federal drug-control service in the krai, said that every one of the service's ten inter-district offices there had hemp growing in its area. In the view of Lavrov and of Andrei Vedernikov, who headed the service for the Siberian Federal District, the hemp growing in the krai held far fewer cannabinoids than hemp from the Altai Republic or Tuva. Vedernikov contrasted the hemp of Buryatia, Tuva and Chita Oblast, which he said was in greater demand among drug users, with «так называемая конопля-сибирка» ("the so-called sibirka hemp"), which he said held a tenth or less of its cannabinoids; Amitel's headline applies that name to the krai's hemp.[18]
In 2010 squads of students were formed in the krai to destroy wild hemp; the krai's agriculture directorate told them where the patches were in each municipality. The first squad, of twenty volunteers, began in Pervomaysky District; Larisa Melnikova of the drug-control service's krai office said the district had been chosen because it had the most wild hemp in the krai.[19] They cleared a hectare at Novopovalikha in Pervomaysky District and 0.2 hectares in Pavlovsky District, and about three hectares at Vlasikha, Cheremnoye and Kamen-na-Obi.[5] In 2016 inspectors of the plant-health service, Rosselkhoznadzor, found farmland in Tabunsky District overgrown with hemp, in 16 patches covering 1.9 hectares.[6]
Of the 352.42 hectares found in 2025, 350.77 were cleared: 241.96 hectares by machine, 14.24 with herbicides and 94.56 by hand. By a preliminary count, the two stages of the 2026 campaign found 302.865 hectares, less than in 2025, but in almost twice as many patches.[2] In September 2026 inspectors of Rosselkhoznadzor looking for invasive plants found patches of wild hemp covering 10,783 square metres in the Burlinsky, Bystroistoksky, Zalesovsky, Kalmansky, Mamontovsky and Soloneshensky districts and the town of Slavgorod.[8] In October 2026 Rosselkhoznadzor found new patches of wild hemp (plants of the genus Cannabis) covering 31,844.44 square metres in all, in the Altaysky, Biysky, Zalesovsky, Nemetsky National, Topchikhinsky and Tselinny districts, and passed their locations to the regional police.[7]
Growing Areas
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Altay (kray, Russia)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Конопля на окраинах и «закладки» в интернете. Что показали итоги антинаркотической работы на Алтае". Алтапресс (in русский). 24 September 2026. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "На Алтае начали выращивать ненаркотическую коноплю". Sibnet (in русский). Вести.Ru. 16 May 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Алтайский край". Большая советская энциклопедия (in русский) (3rd ed.). Moscow: Советская энциклопедия. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Алтайские студенты продолжают вырывать коноплю". ИА «Атмосфера» (in русский). 21 August 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Фотофакт. На западе Алтая чиновники обнаружили заросли конопли". Алтапресс (in русский). 15 August 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Россельхознадзор выявил новые очаги произрастания дикорастущей конопли в Алтайском крае". Управление Россельхознадзора по Алтайскому краю и Республике Алтай (in русский). 21 October 2026. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "В нескольких районах Алтайского края Россельхознадзором выявлены очаги произрастания дикорастущей конопли". Управление Россельхознадзора по Алтайскому краю и Республике Алтай (in русский). 2 October 2026. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ Недобиткова, Анна (16 August 2017). "И даже бумагу для долларов, или грустная история коноплеводства на Алтае". Алтапресс (in русский). Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ "Конопля возвращается на поля". Омский биокластер (in русский). 30 October 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ "Своя маленькая ниша. На алтайских предприятиях продолжает «созревать» нестандартный урожай". Алтапресс (in русский). 29 July 2026. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ "Specimen MW0062830: Cannabis sativa var. ruderalis". Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Ovcharova, N.V.; Terekhina, T.A. (2009). "Динамика луговой растительности на территории Косихинского района (Алтайский край)". Вестник Алтайского государственного аграрного университета (in русский) (11).
- ↑ Ovcharova, N.V.; Terekhina, T.A. (2012). "Динамика восстановления растительных сообществ в условиях лесостепных ландшафтов юга Сибири". Известия Самарского научного центра Российской академии наук (in русский). 14 (1–5).
- ↑ "Occurrence 2443044816: Cannabis ruderalis Janisch". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 2443044137: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ Shmakov, A.I.; Kutsev, M.G.; Vaganov, A.V.; Kechaykin, A.V.; Kostyukov, S.A. (2008). "Флора и растительность заказника «Залесовский»". Флора и растительность Алтая (in русский). 12 (1): 71–88.
- ↑ "Конопля "сибирка" - тоже под пристальным вниманием госнаркоконтроля" (in русский). ИА Амител. 13 July 2005. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
- ↑ "На Алтае создан волонтерский отряд по уничтожению дикорастущей конопли" (in русский). ИА Амител. 24 June 2010. Retrieved 24 October 2026.