Oregon State University Launches Hemp Research Program

Oregon State University has launched a Global Hemp Innovation Center which encompasses over 40 faculty members from 20 disciplines, the Daily Barometer reports. The researchers come from 10 of the university’s research and extension centers around the world.

OSU Professor Jay Noller told the Barometer that the 2018 Farm Bill – which removed hemp from the federal drug schedule – opened the door for hemp research and that there currently are undergraduate and graduate students already researching the crop.

“It has been overwhelming, our email box is rather full, people wanting to engage with the center, and most of that has been positive. There has been a small amount of negative responses from people who believe it is marijuana. Hemp is in the same genus as marijuana, but it does not have the psychoactive properties of marijuana.” – Noller, to the Daily Barometer

Faculty members Dr. Sabry Elias and Dr. David Stimpson have already started researching the viability of hemp seeds at the Oregon State Seed Laboratory. Elias indicated the studies include “assessing their planting value” and “dormancy levels in hemp seeds and methods of breaking it.”

Stimpson said the breaking study is an effort to “report the maximum potential germination for any given seed lot.”

Much of the research is currently being conducted at OSU extensions in Serbia, Bulgaria, and China, Noller said.

“The OSU Global Hemp Innovation Center has at its focus a great symbiosis that works around the world and is the nation’s largest hemp research center,” Noller said in the report. “We are really in a position to be a national leader, working with other universities, providing leadership, and helping move the nation forward with this important crop.”

Open positions for the research program are available via the OSU job website.