MORRISVILLE – Pyxus International is turning to scientists at North Carolina State University to explore better means of producing hemp under an agreement announced Tuesday.

A key aspect of the NCSU program will be to “identify and quantify if the hemp plant’s overall growth, as well as its cannabinoid and CBD quantity and quality, are impacted by varying fertility rates.” Pyxus noted.

Pyxus, an agriculture technology company with a broad portfolio of products which is publicly traded (NYSE: PYX), will be funding the research through 2022, the publicly traded company says.

“With the CBD market expected to reach potential sales of over $22 billion by 2022, farmers are looking for the best cultivation information to help them to meet consumer demand,” Pyxus explains.

How much NCSU will receiving in funding was not disclosed. But the school embraced the project.

“The interest in hemp production is vast, and although we’ve made progress, there’s still a lot we do not know about the most efficient and profitable ways to grow hemp,” said Brian Whipker, professor and Extension specialist in commercial floriculture production for NCSU, in the announcement. “Pyxus’ funding will help continue to advance our research to identify the fundamental agronomic science necessary to empower hemp growers.”

Feds make hemp a legal crop – now comes the hard part

The news comes days after the US Department of Agriculture posted formal federal guidelines for how hemp — the versatile cannabis varietal used for clothing, plastics, fuel and food — can be grown, harvested, tested, processed, transported and sold. The USDA also established the US Domestic Hemp Production Program to regulate the cannabis plant, CNN reported.A key aspect of the NCSU program will be to “identify and quantify if the hemp plant’s overall growth, as well as its cannabinoid and CBD quantity and quality,” Pyxus noted.

Pyxus also is a partner with Criticality, a young company developing nutraceuticals from specialized North Carolina hemp plants, which recently launched its inaugural line of consumer cannabidiol (CBD) products, under the brand name Korent.

The company says it wants to “help farmers optimize their operations and grow the highest-quality hemp crops.”

Pyxus made headlines in September when its chairman and CEO labeled a ban on flavors used in e-cigarettes as a means of combating vaping among young people is “misguided and not based on scientific research.”

CEO of Morrisville-based agtech firm Pyxus says ban on flavors in e-cigs is ‘misguided’

North Carolina could be a lucrative hemp production market. But as WRAL.com’s Travis Fain reported last week, hemp still faces some barriers in the state. “A snippet of language regulating, or not regulating, skeet shooting and other shooting activities on North Carolina farms has endangered passage of a wide-ranging farm bill that would also usher in a new regulatory structure for the state’s growing hemp industry,” he wrote.

“It is our intention that findings from this research will help to establish best practices in hemp cultivation. These best practices can then be transferred to hemp farmers, and in turn, will lead to a reliable, high-quality source of CBD, which can be incorporated in products like our affiliate Criticality’s Korent and Korent Select brands,” said Bryan Mazur, executive vice president of Global Specialty Products at Pyxus, in the NCSU announcement.

Pyxus also recently struck a research deal with Cornell University.

NC firm Criticality launches hemp oil CBD product line