Growing sustainable practices and tasty tomatoes at CEAC's Teaching Greenhouse
As Arizona faces ongoing drought and likely future restrictions on its usage of Colorado River water, finding efficient ways to grow food is vital for the future of agriculture. One emerging solution is controlled environment agriculture, a method of growing crops that uses significantly less water and protects them from extreme weather conditions. At the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC), researchers like Triston Hooks work with students and community members to explore how these methods could help sustain the state's agriculture industry.
Triston Hooks, Biosystems Engineering
Hooks is an assistant professor of practice in the Department of Biosystems Engineering who specializes in greenhouse hydroponic crop production, biocircular substrates, integrated pest management and hydroponic nutrient solution management. He provides his students with hands-on learning opportunities about at CEAC's Teaching Greenhouse.
What are greenhouse and hydroponic production systems, and why are they important in Arizona?
Greenhouse and hydroponic plant production falls under the umbrella of what is known as controlled environment agriculture. At the Teaching Greenhouse, crops like tomatoes, strawberries, spicy peppers and gourds, are developed in a controlled environment where conditions like temperature, light, and humidity can be monitored and managed.
Essentially, hydroponics is a way to grow plants by using water instead of soil. Traditionally-grown plants receive the nutrients that they need to thrive through soil, but in hydroponic plant production, they receive their nutrients through a water-based solution. Since the plants aren’t grown in soil, they need an anchoring material to support their roots. This support comes from a substrate, which essentially holds the plant in place.
This kind of crop production allows for growth using lesser amounts of water, which is scarce in Arizona. And since we can control the temperature level in the greenhouse, we have the capacity to guard the crops from extreme heat, which gives us the opportunity to produce a greater array of crops year-round.
What is the Teaching Greenhouse?
The Teaching Greenhouse is one of the larger greenhouses at CEAC, and what makes it unique is that it was designed specifically to support teaching. Its main objective is to deliver hands-on experiential learning for students, and unlike other greenhouse facilities, the Teaching Greenhouse is open to the public and hosts events, tours, workshops and conferences and is used heavily for outreach and demonstration.
Students are encouraged to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it at the Teaching Greenhouse. They experience what it takes to nurture a crop from start to finish: planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, facilitating plant growth, and finally, harvesting the crop.
What kinds of projects are underway at the Teaching Greenhouse?
For the last 25 years, the Teaching Greenhouse has specialized in hydroponic tomato production. At the moment, students are caring for a variety of different tomatoes. They're also encouraged to experiment with other crops, like cucamelons, cantaloupes, and watermelons.
Another project underway is the exploration of hydroponic hibiscus growth with the end goal of using it for localized tea production. A different project focuses on how a variety of substrates can affect the spice level and growth of jalapeño peppers.
A campus sustainability project is also underway, with the objective of reducing agricultural waste. Researchers are looking to create new growing substrates from plant waste like residual tomato stems, a byproduct that would traditionally be thrown away.