The 2018 Farm Bill contained provisions legalizing hemp production, but you still need a license to grow it. Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of The New York Times Magazine delivered to your inbox every week.A version of this article appears in print on , on Page 29 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: How to Grow Hemp. Hemp seeds contain sex chromosomes that produce male and female plants. Because, he says, he can’t use herbicides or pesticides on his hemp, Gilkison spends much of the growing season battling back pigweed, Johnson grass and crab grass. Some growers in Kentucky have recently turned land over from tobacco to hemp. “Everywhere you look, it’s CBD this, CBD that,” Gilkison says.