Connecticut Community College Offers Cannabis Horticulture Course

Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC) is set to offer an online pilot cannabis cultivation course this fall to current Horticulture majors. This course will focus on soils, plant biology, plant nutrition, pest management issues, and harvesting.

Connecticut lawmakers approved adult-use cannabis legalization reforms in June and portions of the law—including use and possession—took effect July 1.

Christopher J. Tuccio, program coordinator of Horticulture and professor of Horticulture in NVCC’s STEM Division, said that as cannabis legalization reforms pass throughout the U.S. “it is important to train new horticulturists on the techniques and science of cannabis cultivation.”

“I am very happy to be adding new, diverse course offerings such as this to our Horticulture curriculum at NVCC. This is a burgeoning field within the industry. Students would do well to learn about the future prospects of this field.”—Tuccio in a press release

NVCC is the only community college in Connecticut that offers a horticulture degree.

Last year, Connecticut’s Quinebaug Valley Community College (QVCC) debuted a certificate program in cannabis studies—the first in the state to offer the track. That program includes classes in alternative medicine, botany, business, and communications. While the program offers horticulture classes, QVCC does not offer a standalone horticulture degree program.

Students enrolled in QVCC’s Cannabis Studies program study the legal challenges confronting cannabis farming, production, and consumer use; cannabis cultivation techniques and the cannabinoid extraction processes; farming economics; government regulations and laws affecting small business; and developing opportunities in western and alternative medicines and therapies.