Turn the Crop Loose
The professor leading research in hemp breeding at Texas A&M University eyes a new type of plant to unleash the crop’s broader adoption.
To unshackle farmers from the regulatory burden and legal risk they face with growing industrial hemp, a professor at Texas A&M University (TAMU) aims to create novel hemp plants with a different chemical make-up and distinct physical appearance.
Preferably, they would get a new name, too, and no longer carry the hemp moniker.
Under this concept, these plants would be devoid of cannabinoids, the chemical substances like cannabidiol (CBD) and delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) normally found in hemp, said Prof. Russell W. Jessup, who oversees TAMU’s hemp-breeding program, in an interview in his field laboratory on campus. The university is located in College Station, Texas, which is northwest of Houston and east of Austin.
A slide from Prof. Russell W. Jessup's presentation at the Texas Hemp Summit on Nov. 2, 2024, showing his concept for cannabinoid-free hemp plants with single-blade leaves. Photo by Michael Sirak
The presence of THC, which is intoxicating when ingested in sufficient-enough amounts, is the reason why the federal government and state agencies tightly regulate hemp cultivation. Hemp is federally legal cannabis.
Free of these molecules, these plants would classify as “Type 5” hemp plants, said Jessup. (See description of hemp types at end of article.) At this point, they would be compliant with current laws governing hemp since there would be no possibility they could possess THC in levels that exceeded the legal limit for hemp.
Jessup's concept goes further, however. He seeks to breed in the trait for the Type 5 plants to have single-blade leaves, or “simple ” leaves, all the way up their stalks. That way, they would be outwardly easily distinguishable from traditional hemp plants with their multi-blade leaves, he said. He called them “Type 5 simple-leaf hemp.”
“Not only will [the plant] have no cannabinoids, it will look totally different.”
With these significant alterations in place, Jessup said he would favor giving these plants a new name to distance them more from hemp’s compliance regime. Ideally, the new label would make it even easier for officials to remove them from the regulation altogether, he said.
"If we can get a Type 5 with a simple leaf, that should have a very different appearance and very different public perception to it,” he said. “So, I would really lobby for giving it a different crop designation, different regulatory status. They ought to let the farmers grow it as they do corn, sorghum, cotton without any real worries about oversight.”
These plants still would be the same species as other hemp, he said. (That species is Cannabis sativa L.)
Seed, Hurd, Terpenes
Jessup said he thinks Type 5 simple-leaf plants would be valuable additions, as they would offer growers potential revenue streams from their seed; the fiber from their stalks (in this case, he’s speaking specifically of the inner woody core, or “hurd”); and their terpenes. The latter are compounds that give plants their distinctive aromas. Already, there is widespread use of terpenes in items like body-care products, household cleansers, beverages, and foods.
Jessup told me he could not provide additional details on the Type 5 simple-leaf concept. “I can't speak to progress, potential cultivars, seed, timelines, etc., due to confidentiality agreements,” he wrote in an email correspondence after our interview.
I met with Jessup on Oct. 31, 2024, two days before he spoke at the Texas Hemp Summit on the TAMU campus. He gave an overview of the hemp breeding program, including discussing this concept. The photo at the top of this article shows him during his presentation.
“[People] can keep debating THC and CBD, but I’d like to turn the crop loose for fiber and grain and terpenes.”
He offered this during his talk at the summit when asked about the state of his research on Type 5 simple-leaf plants: "We've made a lot of progress on [them]. We should get there in the future.
Jessup has been involved in hemp research at TAMU since 2020, the first year that growing hemp became legal again in the Lone Star State after decades of prohibition. Work on Type 5 simple-leaf plants is one of the numerous activities with which Jessup and his small cadre of student researchers are involved. Already, for example, they are in full swing developing hemp plants that will be able to withstand the withering heat in large swaths of Texas and the American Southeast. He also researches perennial grasses.
Cannabis plants must contain THC in concentrations of 0.3 percent or below by dry weight to classify as “hemp.” Otherwise, the federal government considers cannabis with higher levels of THC to be “marijuana,” and still illegal. However, many states already have legalized marijuana for medical use and/or adult recreational intake.
Context
The regulatory oversight associated today with growing hemp can be off-putting to farmers. To obtain a license to cultivate hemp, would-be growers must undergo a national criminal background check, including having their fingerprints taken, even if they wish to grow only for the plant’s seed and fiber, not for its cannabinoids. They also must register the location where they will grow the hemp and have a permit for each lot and/or variety of hemp. Further, prior to harvesting a hemp crop, the farmer must have a licensed third party collect samples of plants in the field and then test them to verify that their THC levels have not exceeded the legal limit. If the plants come in above that threshold, or test “hot,” there is the possibility for the farmer to lose the crop and have to shoulder the cost of its disposal.
These issues are among the main motivators for Jessup’s work on Type 5 simple-leaf plants. "In the short-term for farmers, they [wouldn’t] have to worry about [the plants] ever going above the [legal] limit and having to destroy their crop,” he said. "They wouldn't have to test them.”
The next federal farm legislation, which Congress is expected to complete in 2025, might improve the situation for hemp farmers by easing the regulatory burden. However, Jessup said he still sees value in developing Type V simple-leaf hemp. “If [it] could be 'unregulated', it would still be immensely better than any potential 'reduced regulation',” he wrote in the email. “So, I'd still champion it, and the majority of farmers/producers would prefer it.”
“They ought to let the farmers grow it as they do corn, sorghum, cotton without any real worries about oversight.”
Jessup said his program uses only traditional plant-breeding techniques; that means no gene editing, for example. Researchers at other universities also are working to breed Type 5 hemp, he said. But they are gene editing in the attempt to knock out the genes that produce the cannabinoids, he told me. Thus far, to his knowledge, none of them has fully succeeded, as such work is quite complicated, he said. Jessup said he did not think cannabinoid-free hemp plants exist in the wild.
Already there are hemp plants with simple leaves, but the single-blade leaves tend to appear only on the bottom part of these plants, while their top parts still have multi-blade leaves, said Jessup. "We are working on [a type] that has a simple leaf all the way up,” he said. “The goal, longer term, is to combine that simple leaf trait with the Type V. So not only will [the plant] have no cannabinoids, it will look totally different.
“At that point,” he continued, “I really want to be able to get enough inertia from farmers and the general public to call it a different crop. [People] can keep debating THC and CBD, but I'd like to turn the crop loose for fiber and grain and terpenes."
Precedent?
To make the argument for giving Type 5 simple-leaf hemp plants a new name, Jessup used the example of the rape plant (a.k.a. rapeseed plant). “It's a very derogatory connotation,” he said of the name, noting that people in the United States instead refer to the plant as canola. “They call it canola for that very reason: public perception,” he said. “It’s the same species.”
The reason why Jessup said he refers specifically to hurd when discussing the fiber of Type 5 simple-leaf plants is that they would not be extremely tall and thin like the hemp plants from which growers tend to reap the most bast fiber. Bast is the sinewy strands of fiber on the outside of the stalks which are used in products like textiles and ropes. Hurd is used in products like building materials and animal bedding. and Jessup said it could also be utilized to make nanocellulose for polymers and emulsifiers.
As for the terpenes, Jessup said he sees great untapped potential. An example is using them in place of the terpenes in hops plants in beer, he said. “Terpenes from hops can be totally replaced because those exact same molecules are made in hemp,” he said. “Instead of going through all of the pain and suffering of putting [hops vines] on trellises, moving them into barns, … you can just grow hemp and get terpenes out and put them into your brewer. I think someday you may have Budweiser and Miller using hemp terpenes.”
Cannabinoid Conundrum
Studies have validated that cannabinoids, which are found in a hemp plant’s flowers, leaves, and stems, have therapeutic benefit. Delta-9 THC, for example, can alleviate chronic pain, while CBD, the hemp plant’s main cannabinoid, which is not similarly psychoactive, can lessen the severity of seizures. For consumer safety, federal and state officials still want to monitor the market for CBD and hemp’s many additional naturally occurring non-intoxicating cannabinoids, too.
Then, there is the issue currently facing Congress and state governments of how to regulate—or perhaps ban—the sale of synthetically produced cannabinoids that come mostly from transforming hemp-derived CBD into molecules like delta-8 THC and delta-10 THC, which are psychoactive.
Background Note: These are the hemp types, per a slide Jessup showed during his talk at the 2024 Texas Hemp Summit:
Type 1: THC dominant
Type 2: THC/CBD balanced
Type 3: CBD dominant
Type 4: CBG dominant
Type 5: zero cannabinoids
(CBG, or cannabigerol, is one of the progenitor molecules for CBD and THC.)
