Russia Today. The massive haul went up in smoke three days after Mexican soldiers found a pot plantation covering almost 300 acres, according to the Defense Department, reports

One of Mexico’s largest-ever seizures of marijuana was torched by the army in El Rosario, Baja California on Friday.

The plantation is four times larger than the previous record discovery by police at a ranch in northern Chihuahua state in 1984.

The pot plants — disguised under black screen-cloth in the Baja California desert — were discovered about 150 miles south of Tijuana.

The screening, which is often used by regular farmers to protect crops from too much sun or heat, made it difficult to detect from the air what was growing underneath, according to Army Gen. Alfonso Duarte, reports Adriana Gomez Licon of The Associated Press

It was only when soldiers on the ground reached the isolated area that they found thousands of cannabis plants as tall as 7.5 feet. The average height of the plants was about 4.5 feet, according to Duarte, who said they weren’t yet ready for harvest.

“We estimate that in this area, approximately 60 people were working,” Duarte said. “When they saw the military personnel, they fled. No arrests were made at the scene.

Duarte claimed that traffickers could have harvested about 120 tons of cannabis from the plantation, worth about $160 million.

The site is near the coastal town of San Quintin.

Duarte claimed he did not know which drug cartel operated the huge plantation.