Brown grows bright red tomatoes
|
Her sentiment is understandable when one considers the amount of time and effort her husband, J.B. Brown, appears to have put into growing 28 tomato plants using hydroponics technology.
It’s not a commercial venture, but rather, an experiment of sorts that has worked after about three years of study. Though many hydroponics plants are grown indoors in highly specific greenhouses, he is experimenting in outdoor conditions using the couple’s backyard.
Brown has created a from-scratch hydroponics operation consisting of PVC pipes, aquarium-style pumps, a tank, meters and gauges for water and fertilizer. To the lay person, the operation looks like it belongs more in a science lab or a greenhouse than in someone’s backyard, but he said it’s easier than it looks.
The feat has drawn a lot of attention from neighbors in his subdivision.
“I’ve had a lot of people come by and say, ‘I don’t know about those things,'” he said of the reaction to his tomatoes. People are also suspect of the fertilization process. “It’s the same fertilizer [used in dirt farming]. You just put it in the water.”
Since semi-retirement from the engineering and computer fields a few years ago, the couple pursued their travel interests by joining the truck-driving industry in hopes of touring the national parks.
After some time, they found themselves frequenting Canada. There, J.B. took an interest in the study of hydroponics through the University of Guelph in Ontario.
J.B., a former manager at Arnold Engineering Development Center, learned how to grow the plants using the technology. He places an average tomato seed in a small spun lava rock cube that resembles fiberglass. When the roots grow, the cube fits into a bigger cube. The cube gets placed in a hole cut into the PVC pipe and water flows past the bigger cube.
The roots keep growing and a plant starts to grow. As it grows, the plant is staked to a frame to help keep it upright and to support the growth. The plants use about 1-1/2 quarts of water per day, per plant, even though he utilizes a re-circulation system. He adds fertilizer and trace amounts of minerals as needed.
“This is dirt easy,” he said, even though he had to learn the metric system in order to educate himself through international literature. “This is not rocket science.”
He plans for his neighbors to benefit from his proud tomato production since he is expecting between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds on the 10-by-10-foot frame, built using items he found off the Internet and at the local farmers’ cooperative. He is confident his neighbors will overcome their initial reluctance.
“I’ve had enough neighbors come around here, I probably won’t have a lot left over,” he said.
Brown said after reading about famine in Third World countries and the proposed solution of hydroponics technology, the subject caught his attention. Now that he knows the technology works, he said he sees it as a possible solution to not only famine problems, but as a science that can be applied broadly both in the agricultural and horticultural fields.
“The amount of production that comes out of this is unreal,” he said, noting that one acre of dirt farming, for example, can yield 5 to 10 tons of tomatoes. With hydroponics, the one acre of land can be used to yield 60 to 300 tons of tomatoes.
The magic of higher production is that the growth can be controlled with constant feeding, Brown said.
Next year, Ann is just hoping for the berries.
“We’ll keep him around if he grows strawberries,” she said, smiling.
J.B. knows this and said he’ll give it a try, noting he wants to grow bib lettuce as well. He said he will be glad to show anyone interested the ropes. Although he has considered expanding into a commercial operation someday, for now, he’s having too much fun with it.
“It’s fun. I come out everyday and talk to my tomatoes,” he said.