Just days after Kentucky's first medical marijuana dispensary opened in western Kentucky, a 10,000 square foot cultivator site cut the ribbon and Jessamine County vs Kentucky Ops expects its first harvest of medical cannabis in February.

Our Mackenzie Spink takes us inside the facility to learn more about the medical marijuana industry.

The Kentucky cultivator is in phase one of its operations, so it only has about 400ft² of active canopy currently growing.

But even using a fraction of its space, this cultivation site will produce 40 to 50 pounds of cannabis flower a month.

Because these plants will be sold as medicine, the cultivators say biosecurity and consistency are essential.

Unlike a lot of modern crops like corn, soybeans, when you harvest cannabis, you can't wash it, spray it off.

So really, what goes into that cannabis plant is what those patients are going to end up consuming.

You don't want a patient to go into the dispensary and try something from one harvest.

That works well for them.

And then they come back two weeks later and they get something that's that's the same name, but not the same consistency.

A big part of my job is making sure that the plants have the proper temperature, humidity, that they're getting watered properly, that we're doing our plant maintenance.

It is a weed, so it tends to grow a lot.

A big part of what we do here is where we have to have our flower tested by the state, and make sure that we're in compliance for any kind of foreign objects.

Microbial is another way medical cannabis is raised differently than recreational is the use of crackers.

It's a seed to sale tracker.

So every plant and you'll see when you get out there has one of those tags on it.

Even the little clones.

That way we know that if any issues did arise, we can track that particular batch straight back to the plant, to the mother plant that it came from.

The 250 plants that are being raised right now could potentially be sold to 5 or 6 dispensaries by the time it's harvested in February, depending on customer demand.

Dickerson says in order for the business to be sustainable, Kentucky would need about 50,000 patients certified to purchase medical marijuana.

Earlier this month, Governor Beshear announced that over 23,000 Kentuckians have been certified so far.

Dickerson says he believes Kentucky will warm up to the medical cannabis industry.

Once people start seeing the benefits.

There's so many ailments that this plant can help with.

It's, It's changed.

Not only my life, but, my family's life as well.

A lot of people in our community, and, I'm excited to bring that to Kentucky.

These Kentucky shops will be expanding its operation over the next eight months to eventually use all 10,000ft of growing space for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Mackenzie Spink.

Thank you.

Mackenzie.

Medical marijuana was legalized two years ago in Kentucky with Senate Bill 47.

So far, the state has granted 80 business licenses, 48 of which are dispensaries distributed by a lottery.

Last year.