Curaleaf Holdings Inc., which owns a Simsbury marijuana growing facility, said it will fund industrial-hemp research at the state’s flagship university.
The Canadian parent company of Massachusetts-based Curaleaf Inc. on Tuesday announced it will invest an undisclosed sum into UConn’s department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture to increase the school’s hemp production and advance its cultivation processes.
Hemp is a strain of the cannabis plant that produces a non-intoxicating substance known as cannabidiol or CBD. It can be used for pain relief and to treat anxiety, depression, insomnia, and diseases like diabetes or multiple sclerosis, among other uses.
The Storrs-based hemp program, permitted for land-grant universities, is Connecticut’s sole cultivator of industrial hemp. Gov. Ned Lamont earlier this month signed a bill that will create a pilot program authorizing the production and sale of industrial hemp by 2020.
Curaleaf said its new partnership with UConn will focus on tissue culture work, which is a technique used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues or organs, and tetraploid development and feminized seed for production, which foster seed breeding and improve production volume.
Associate professor Jessica Lubell and Mark Brand, a professor of horticulture, will oversee the research project.
Research results are expected in the next six months to a year, program officials say.
“Curaleaf-funded research at UConn will not only bring advancements to our understanding of industrial hemp culture and genetics, but it will also train graduate students in this emerging crop,” Lubell said.
Curaleaf, one of Connecticut’s four licensed cannabis growers, has said it plans to move into a larger production facility on Hopmeadow Street in Simsbury sometime this year.
Curaleaf operates 44 dispensaries, 12 cultivation sites and 11 processing sites in a dozen states. It became a publicly traded company in October.
