The 2018 Farm Bill took hemp off the list of controlled substances. Just months later, the North Dakota legislature passed a bill creating a program to monitor hemp production in the state.
Now researchers are growing their first hemp crop at the North Central Research Extension Center in Minot.
Research Agronomist Eric Eriksmoen planted five acres of hemp and says these plants will be harvested for research, not for profit.
“What we're trying to do is produce a seed source that a farmer is guaranteed to not have high levels of THC and have high levels of CBD oil,” Eriksmoen said.
Even though hemp and marijuana are both a species of cannabis, hemp has a fraction of a percent of the psychoactive chemical THC that can get people high.
It also has much more CBD than its cousin.
“They'll extract this sap essentially and then produce CBD oil from it,” Eriksmoen said.
Read more at kfyrtv.com