ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Agroecological Cropping Systems
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1539426
This article is part of the Research TopicSoil Tillage and Nitrogen Fertilization Methods for Sustainable Productivity of Industrial CropsView all 3 articles
Agronomic evaluation of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) for cannabidiol production in Yunnan, China
Provisionally accepted
Wenjing Ouyang1Jing Ou1Qi Zheng1Xiran Yang1Yuanyuan Meng1
Guanghui Du1
Liu Fei-Hu1Yuewu Chen2
Kailei Tang1*- 1School of Agriculture, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
- 2Yunnan ICL YTH Phosphate Research and Technology Center Co.Ltd, Kunming, China
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Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has gained worldwide attention for its emerging role as a valuable medicinal source, particularly for the extraction of cannabidiol (CBD) extraction. Yunnan province is currently the only region in China where hemp grown for CBD production is legalized;, yetwhereas information is scarce on the optimal agronomic pratices of hemp specific for maximizing CBD outputproduction in this region remains scarce. In the present study, we aimed field exepriments were conducted in Yunan over two consecutive growing seasons (2019 and 2020) to evaluate CBD productivity and variations in CBD content between female and male plants, andas well as among branches along the stem, using of a local dioecious hemp cultivar, Yunma #7,. Plants were grown under five treatments: a control (CK) with NPK fertilization; additional calcium magnesium phosphate (CK+CMP); and additional boron applied either as powdered boron at the basal stage (CK+CMP+PB1), powdered boron at the budding stage (CK+CMP+PB2), or liquid sugar-alcohol-chelated boron at the budding stage (CK+CMP+LB2). of magnesium (Mg) and boron (B) fertilizers in field trials conducted over two consecutive years. The average inflorescence yield reached 4 Mg ha -1 , with female plants producing 2.4 Mg ha -1 . The CBD content in inInflorescence CBD content averagedwas approximately 1% (w/w), being. The CBD content was 15% higher in female plants than male plants, and 30% higher in upper than lower inflorescences than the bottom one. Mg and B fertilization showed no statistically significant positive effects on inflorescence yield and CBD content, the average CBD yield across all fertilization treatments was 20.1 kg ha⁻¹.. The study underscores the potential for increasing CBD content in inflorescence through breeding and optimizing harvest methods that distinguishto differentiate between female and male plants, and separate upper inflorescences from and lowerbottom inflorescences.
Keywords: Cannabidiol content, Dioecy, sex differences, Inflorescence position, Microelement fertilization
Received: 04 Dec 2024; Accepted: 21 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ouyang, Ou, Zheng, Yang, Meng, Du, Fei-Hu, Chen and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kailei Tang, School of Agriculture, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
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