It went up in smoke.

Seattle’s first legal marijuana-grow operation erupted in flames Wednesday — and about 3,000 pot plants perished in the blaze, fire officials and KIRO 7 TVsaid.

The two-alarm fire gutted Sea of Green Farms in Magnolia about 4 a.m. after an electrical wiring problem, the Seattle Fire Department said. It was controlled about 45 minutes later.

There were no reported injuries.

Firefighters, who wore standard masks to battle the blaze, were not affected by the marijuana fumes, Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore told The Seattle Times.

“The building is ventilated upward, so all the smoke went up into the air,” he said.

Marijuana cultivators have a lot to grapple with on a daily basis, from trying to prevent pests that could wipe out their entire crop to constantly calibrating climate control and lighting systems for optimum yields.

So it’s easy to get bogged down in the details without looking at bigger-picture issues that could help fuel growth down the road.

Marijuana Business Daily spoke with several industry experts about how to position a grow for expansion, be it in your local market or in new states that are starting medical marijuana and recreational cannabis programs. Here are some of their top tips.

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The California State Water Board is now issuing historic best-practices guidelines for cannabis cultivation

The State of California is taking historic steps to protect watersheds amid the devastating ongoing drought, combined with an uptick in cannabis cultivation along remote, sensitive watersheds.

A Colorado biotech company plans to open a large-scale industrial hemp processing facility that will take the crop’s would-be waste — namely hemp stalks — and make it useful.

Brett Levin via Flickr The chances of a successful marijuana-legalization initiative in Arizona for 2016 appear to have diminished due to fighting among two competing political groups.

As we reported on March 27, the Marijuana Policy Project of Arizona was surprised by the sudden launch of a competing 2016 campaign by their chairperson, Dr. Gina Berman.

A leaked online survey shows that a coalition of Arizona medical-marijuana dispensaries are backing Berman's group.

The cartels are still smuggling harder drugs but advocates point out the success of legalization in cutting illegal trade

In the midst of this seething mountain capital, Mexico’s security ministry houses a bizarre museum — a collection of what the army seizes from drug traffickers. The Museo de Enervantes, often referred to as the Narco Museum, has drug samples themselves (including the rare black cocaine), diamond-studded guns, gold-coated cell phones, rocket-propelled grenades and medals that cartels award their most productive smugglers. It also shows off the narcos’ ingenuity for getting their drugs into the United States, including “trap cars” with secret compartments, catapults to hurl packages over the border fence and even false buttocks, to hide drugs in.

Around 120 Kentucky farmers will grow hemp this year as the state enters its second of five years of hemp research and testing as allowed under the Farm Bill.

Adam Watson is the industrial hemp program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He says though growing hemp commercially isn’t legal yet, there’s growing interest in the crop.

“We’re still at the beginning stages of research,” he said. “Today we can’t sit and tell you this is the most economical way to produce it or this is the best crop to be growing it for like seed versus fiber but what we have learned is there is a wide interest from industry.”

llowing an exciting two days of panels, exhibitions, and community events, the 3rd annual Indoor Agriculture Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada showcased a number of gaps and opportunities related to investor relations between AgTech startups and VCs. A whitepaper released during the conference, the first of its kind, offered a comprehensive view to the future and potential $9 billion growth of indoor farming.

Marijuana topicals are having their day, particularly in Colorado where cannabis-themed spas are offering therapeutic massage and alternative treatments that use salves, balms and oils infused with cannabis. Generally, these topicals begin with a carrier oil like coconut oil or olive oil that is cooked down similar to butter when baking edibles.

In some cases the cannabis infusion is the main therapeutic ingredient. Most of the time, however, the topicals are blended with other essential oils that also have anti-inflammatory properties like lavender, frankincense or lemon grass.

If you run a marijuana dispensary, whether medical or retail, then you already know that compliance is essentially the be-all and end-all of your business. Compliance is what keeps you operating within the confines of state law, which is your only protection in a market that is still considered illegal by the federal government. Packaging (often called “exit packaging,” since it refers to how your product must be packaged before it leaves the dispensary in the hands of a patient or consumer) and labeling requirements are an important part of that.