Did you know?
A hemp crop can unknowingly and unwittingly become a marijuana crop.
THC and CBD are both cannabinoids. Cannabinoids are plant oils and cannabis comes packed with over a hundred versions of them. Over 25% of a cannabis leaf’s weight can be cannabinoids, and cannabinoid levels change with light exposure. You get more cannabinoids with more light, and scientists suspect the cannabinoids protect the plant from UV rays.
“Less than a year after rolling out a class on the horticulture of cannabis at UConn, Professor Gerry Berkowitz has spearheaded a new online program available to students nationally, set to begin in mid-July 2019.” Click here for more information.
In hemp, THC is genetically dormant, which remains true as long as the plants don’t pollinate each other. If they cross pollinate, the THC becomes active and turns the “offspring” plants to marijuana.
This is why UConn’s hemp class only grows female plants, and they are all clones. Clippings from the mother plant are set into soil with a rooting compound, creating female plants that are identical.
A greenhouse environment makes it easy to keep hemp from pollenating, but an outdoor hemp field makes it difficult. It’s literally one gust of pollen away from accidentally breeding marijuana.
This is why there are safeguards in place for hemp producers. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, there must be a “procedure for conducting annual inspections of, at a minimum, a random sample of hemp producers to verify that hemp is not produced in violation of this subtitle.”
Photo by Michael Fischer from Pexels
Watch this short video from UConn’s horticulture program.
