Test Equipment and Measurement Instrument Blog

What causes hemp plants to flower and reproduce? And what causes these plants to produce cannabinoids?

The answer is light. 

Hemp is an incredibly photosensitive plant. This means it has a more pronounced chemical response to receiving ultraviolet (UV) light photons. When there are changes to the amount of light a hemp plant receives, it starts to flower and reproduce by setting seeds.

The sales of hemp seed oil was somewhere around $4.6 billion in 2019. While this is certainly an impressive figure, sales are expected to skyrocket in the next few years, with projected sales in 2025 reaching $26.6 billion. That’s almost six times the amount of hemp seed oil sold in 2019.

There’s no doubt that the cannabis industry is booming. The growth of legal sales of CBD and other cannabis products is off the charts, with the global legal market expected to reach $73.6 billion by 2027.