University researchers growing hemp across Missouri

University researchers across the state of Missouri are now growing hemp to help farmers prepare for the spring growing season.

Hemp has been an illegal crop across the United States because it is a type of cannabis. Hemp, however, does not have high enough levels of THC, the chemical that gives people a high, to actually get people high.

A new state law, signed by Gov. Mike Parson in June, allowed universities to begin growing the crop immediately to collect useful data for hemp farmers.

“It allowed universities an exemption for this year, so they could do hemp research on university-owned research stations,” said Tom Raffety, the president of Missouri Hemp Producers.

The University of Missouri has research plots at seven centers across the state and the research is sponsored by Tiger Fiber LLC, a St. Louis-based hemp company.

“They’re in northwest and northeast as well as here in central Missouri,” said Tim Reinbott, assistant director of the University of Missouri Agriculture Experiment Station. “They’re also in the bootheel and in southwest Missouri. So we really have the whole state covered that we’re learning about how hemp reacts to the different environments.”

Hemp hasn’t been grown in Missouri since the 19th century, so the research the University of Missouri is doing centers around some of the basics.

“In this study we’re just trying to learn some basics on how to grow hemp. We want to look at the row spacing, we want to look at the planting depth, the planting rate, all these factors that we kind of take for granted on corn and soybeans and wheat that we’ve got to relearn,” Reinbott said.

Farmers will start growing industrial hemp commercially in 2020.