Greenhouses are becoming the most popular way to cultivate cannabis. They harness the power of the sun, provide a warm climate, and protect gardens from harsh environmental conditions. Past the basics, a greenhouse allows for year-round cultivation, climate control, and controlled exposure to sunlight. What’s more, they’re cheaper than growing indoors and produce a more consistent product than outdoors.

How Does a Greenhouse Work?

Raising crops outdoors, in natural soil with sunlight is still the best way to go when growing plants. Ask any farmer and they’ll likely agree. Growing cannabis is no different. But it doesn’t always work that way, as climate conditions and other factors tend to force growers indoors. As cannabis and other plant technology continues to advance, the difference in the product grown outdoors compared to indoors continues to decrease.

As you might already know, the thriving cannabis industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and growing quickly. One sector of the cannabis industry that has seen impressive growth has been that of grow lights. Both the technology of grow lights and the bottom lines of grow light manufacturers has seen a significant boom within recent years.

For years, Lisa Tollner, co-founder of the California marijuana edibles company Sensi Products, says she’s received calls and emails from customers reporting her cannabis-infused Sensi Chew caramels had helped alleviate pain, insomnia, nausea and other ailments. But Tollner wanted more.

“These people are telling me their stories, but with no real consistency,” said Tollner, who was interested in hard data on how her products worked, not shifting anecdotal evidence. “I need ways to prove our products’ efficacy.”

For Ralf-Rainer von Albedyhll and his start-up, new rules that allow small companies to sell stock through Kickstarter - like online offerings might have been the answer to a question that has dogged him for years: How do you find investors willing to back a company in the medical marijuana business?

He’d tried to convince professional investors, including members of an Oakland marijuana investor network group Arcview Group, but to no avail. So he turned to equity crowdfunding, a newly legal practice that allows start-ups to raise up to $1 million from the general public.

A task force studying energy and water use associated with marijuana production is likely to recommend that the state do more to educate growers about existing agricultural rules and practices, as well as back a certification process that encourages Oregon's new industry to pay closer attention how it uses natural resources.

The task force, made up of growers, agency representatives and lawmakers, is set to make recommendations to the Legislature later this summer.

Rep. Ann Lininger, D-Lake Oswego, suggested Wednesday that the panel won't propose "top down" requirements but instead will offer recommendations on the "light touch" end of the spectrum.

MyDx wants its customers to know exactly what’s in the food they eat, the water they drink — and the cannabis they smoke.

The San Diego company launched an upgraded smartphone app, dubbed CannaDx, that lets users test the chemical components of marijuana. According to the company, the app analyzes the levels of THC — the ingredient in marijuana responsible for the high — as well as about 20 other compounds found in the drug. Smokers can use the app to correlate what they feel with certain chemical compounds, and thereby build a profile that shows how different compounds affect them. Users also have access to a database that catalogs anonymous data reported by other users.

For decades, cannabis cultivators, dispensaries and patients have faced raids and incarceration for growing, distributing and consuming cannabis.

The constant fear of police, property loss and expensive legal defense costs has created generations of cultivators who invested the bare minimum into materials and infrastructure. Cheap equipment, unlicensed contractors and lack of code-enforcement guidelines created ideal conditions for fire hazards and excessive waste.

Tampa biopharmaceutical firm has been awarded the first U.S. patent for a commercial process that could lead to additional medical therapies based on substances unique to marijuana.

The company, formerly CBC Biotechnologies Inc., has changed its name to Teewinot Life Sciences Corp., and struck a deal with a contract research organization to scale up its proprietary processes, a press release said.

The changes follow a $7 million venture capital investment in CBC in March.

“I Want to Take You Higher.”

Pharmaceutical companies developing cannabis-based drugs just might be serenading investors with this 1969 hit single by the group Sly and the Family Stone.

But a word of caution to those banking on marijuana drugs to be the blockbusters that send share prices zooming. You could see your investment “go to pot.”

Cannabis is an annual plant that flowers from late summer into fall. The natural growing season begins when farmers plant seeds every spring; these seedlings quickly develop branches and leaves over the next few months, becoming taller and bushier until longer nights after the summer solstice trigger the flowering phase. In autumn, when flowers are ripe, they are cut down, dried, and trimmed before entering the market.