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Hydroponics in the Heart of North Dakota · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and as I said, one of my aims of this podcast,
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  doing it daily for the whole of 2025,
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  is to get a listener in as many countries as possible and all the states of
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  America and Canada and Australia and counties of the UK and things like this.
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  So in the US, I haven't got any listeners yet. In North Dakota or West Virginia,
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  they're the two holdout states.
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  And today's episode is going to be about North Dakota and why everyone in North
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  Dakota should be listening to this podcast.
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  So we're going to talk about two hydroponic setups there.
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  It's obviously very, very far north in the USA.
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  And unlike the UK, where we get the gulf stream keeping
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  us nice and mild in the winter we get snow
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  but it gets cold but doesn't get anywhere as cold as that in the
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  center of the usa north the usa
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  gets really cold and basically half the year is a very very
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  cold winter and so that means that over 90
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  percent of the fresh produce is imported in from places
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  like california southern texas and
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  florida now obviously this is not great from
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  a sustainability perspective and it's not great from
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  a price perspective so people in north dakota who potentially
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  will have a lower income than per person than
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  texas and california and florida but don't quote me on that because i don't
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  know the figures they'll be paying more for their fresh produce which they need
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  to keep them healthy and so a number of organizations have been set up to address
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  this some in private individuals and some working with universities,
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  and I'll just go through one of them.
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  One of them is Larry Schumacher and he seems like a really nice guy.
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  Got a big white mustache and long white hair and a camo hat and he is...
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  He's in, I think we're about to say, I think he's in Bismarck,
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  right in the center of North to go to, not near any large cities.
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  But he's set up a hydroponic grow on a old pig farm and he set it up a while
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  back. He's been going a long time.
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  So he set up mainly growing lettuce, but he does grow other things like pak
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  choy and things like this.
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  But obviously he has to cater for the local demands, culinary demands.
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  I'd imagine they're probably not going to be looking for anything particularly fancy
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  it's going to be lettuce and other
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  garnishes things like this so he set
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  it up and he set it up he installed 107 lights
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  and it's a fairly big setup but his energy bills were
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  really high so he got a grant to change over
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  to leds and there's both
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  of the organizations i'm talking about today both got grants or to set up and
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  help with sustainability so it's an interesting one where people say you know
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  oh people relying on grants elon musk relying on grants things like this both
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  of these organizations that are successful require grants to get themselves going or certainly,
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  change into profitable ones so making sure that they had led lights.
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  Now, Larry, he's been acknowledged as a food champion, and he's overcome a number
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  of different issues growing the lettuce over the years.
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  He's found that he's grown in rockwool, and he's using NFT, and he's harvesting
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  serious amounts of Russian kale as well, bok choy, romaine lettuce,
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  and then he's got a greenhouse that grows lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers.
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  And he ships lettuce not only just to North Dakota, but to South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota.
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  So his hydrolysis is really picking off. I imagine in the summer,
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  in the winter, sorry, it's particularly popular.
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  He harvests around between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds. So that's nearly two and a half tons a year.
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  And he's going to look to expand his production to vertical growth,
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  including vine, vegetables in the coming years, it says.
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  So there's a number of articles on Larry and his activities.
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  And Really interesting. There's a video on his local news site as well.
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  So some really, really luscious growth on beds.
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  And he also sells squashes and gourds, apparently.
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  So shout out to Larry, Larry Schumacher. I don't think he's got a website,
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  though. So he's got a phone number you can phone him on.
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  And then the other company I wanted to highlight in North Dakota is GPG,
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  which stands for Great Plains Greens.
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  Now, they're based in Fargo. fargo is obviously
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  the name of the film and the tv series set in
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  north dakota and with their distinctive accents and
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  dark plots and things like this and it's
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  on the edge of north dakota and it's minnesota i think the fargo
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  moorhead metro area and these this is
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  a couple of graduates from north dakota state university who
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  set up a hydroponic facility and
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  it seems that north to go to state university is the
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  leader in hydroponics in that area and they've helped out larry
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  as well larry shouts out them and says you know
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  they help with them working out his water levels were far too high in chlorine
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  a lot of those northern states in the center of the usa do really have really
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  poor water quality and so he set up a reverse osmosis system thanks to the the
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  guys that not to go to state university and the same for the guys at.
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  What was it it's deep green great plains greens
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  so dylan calman and john wiffles
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  and lee's fetch graduated from north dakota state
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  university set it up and they are
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  focusing again on lettuce so it's a lettuce play
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  in hydroponics they're selling to restaurants and
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  they're selling directly on an e-commerce platform which is interesting
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  i'm not aware of any other companies who sell their produce directly on on that
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  on the web gpg are all trying herbs basil cilantro or coriander as it's called
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  elsewhere thyme oregano and rosemary they they like growing the niche crops
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  but i would imagine that lettuce is going to be your dominant one,
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  they find that not enough to go to basil is hard to
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  source because it's a it's a fragile crop the short
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  shelf life i mean if you you often get creases
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  and damage to a basil goes dark green doesn't
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  it when you damage it so they're they're
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  still mastering the farming knowledge using one shipping container that
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  was a fairly old article though so they might have scaled up multiple
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  containers by now on their website i've just
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  gone on their website to see where you can purchase them that there's they're
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  advertising butterhead lettuce green leaf lettuce purple leaf lettuce arugula
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  that's type of rocket rocket yeah sorrel mustard greens basil mild microgreens
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  So as we talked about yesterday, microgreens, spicy microgreens.
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  Red veined sorrel, and calafeti microgreens, microgreens mixed for kale lovers.
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  Calafeti, that sounds good, doesn't it?
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  In, we talked about microgreens the other day, and we were talking about wheatgrass, didn't we?
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  One of the things I missed is that, although you don't add fertilizer,
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  one of the things I would add is a dechlorination agent,
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  just so that you don't get
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  the damage due to the chlorine in the tap water especially if you're growing microgreens in
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  a state like north Dakota where there'll be very high very
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  high chlorine levels so that just a FYI there
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  missed that out the previous episode so if you
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  are growing in North Dakota I hope you enjoyed this episode more than happy
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  to do a follow-up if any of the date information is out of date or incorrect
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  if you know somebody who's growing in North Dakota you know anyone who lives
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  in North Dakota please share this episode with them especially on Apple or Spotify
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  so I can get that listener I need one listener in North Dakota and I'll be happy.
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  I'll have to do a follow-up episode in a couple of days time about West Virginia
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  and get those guys. I have no idea what happens in West Virginia.
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  I just know that it's close to the East Coast, but not quite on the East Coast of America, is it?
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  So if you can, if anybody wants to send me some links to some West Virginian
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  hydroponic setups in the meantime, they'd be more than happy for that.
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  Thank you very much for listening until tomorrow. Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.