Today's guest is Reid Larson, founder and chief science officer of PolyGuarden, a company offering full-spectrum protection for both residential and commercial aquaponics with the mission of global implementation of aquaponics.
Listen in as Reid talks about the products and services they're offering including eco-friendly pest sprays, proactive vs. reactive pest sprays, and Solution 3 plant supplements for root development. Reid further discusses neem extractions and dual root zone aquaponics where you get to plant on soil on top of the aquaponics media. Find out about certain products to stay away from, the use of macro and micronutrients, the need for water changes, and dealing with problems of readily available nutrients.
PolyGuarden has opened up consulting, designing, and monitoring systems. Reid further discusses the Google trends and the power of collaboration. More topics will be discussed including strengthening food systems, various systems they’re using, and some advancements in their monitoring systems.
Finally, Reid shares his insights into the best integration between aquaponics and permaculture with a touch on land restoration soil remediation.
In this episode, Steve Carrell, co-owner of Ponderosa Aqua Farm shares with us highly valuable information on setting up a commercial aquaponics system. Steve owns a construction company while his wife, Missy, is a long-time gardener. A dynamic duo, together they formed the Ponderosa Aqua Farm based in Spencer, Indiana. It was at that time when they started to question what's in their own food that sprung out their decision of living off of only what they ate. Transitioning from an in-home basement system to a commercial system, they went to Florida to attend the course at Green Acre Aquaponics.
While many commercial aquaponics growers recommend to start small, Steve takes the opposite direction believing that you have to have a certain scale in order to sell enough produce in order to be profitable. Listen in to what he has to say.
He also discusses things like underestimating the cost of going commercial (can be pretty overwhelming!) including labor and plumbing, the social impact of aquaponics, market research, as well as growing tomatoes, lettuce, and microgreens and dealing with clogged lines that brought death to their strawberries.
Steve talks about observing fish habits to know if your system is okay and discovering problems along the way. Other points of interest include gravity flow system, swirl filters, mineralization tanks, grow beds, as well as a look into their commercial system consisting mainly of deep water culture raft beds.
We also touch on heating issues, buying the greenhouse from Craigslist, and grow towers which they got from Green River Greenhouses in Indiana. Steve delves more into dutch buckets systems and how they actually work.
Today’s episode features an inspiring guest, Michael Kosko, a Science teacher at Al Raby School for Community and Environment in Chicago, Illinois. I got him on the show after being inspired by the article he was featured on, From Aquaponics to Robots: McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation disperses over 149,000 for school enrichment in the US and Sudan.
Michael has been teaching in Chicago public schools for nine years now. He currently focuses on teaching environmental science to freshmen and exploring it together for the past years. Receiving the McCarthey Dressman grant gives them the opportunity to expand the program and support their Career in Technical Education programs, specifically culinary arts, emulating a lab-to-table model where students grow their own food sustainably, learn how to prepare it, and eventually selling it in partnership with their Business Career in Technical Education program. They are the first school to combine horticulture and culinary model together in their programs,
Listen in as we discuss topics like nitrogen cycle education, instilling a love of science, and how his students are occasionally flooding the classroom. We also talk about bell siphons, classroom aquaponic units made from IKEA stands, plans for media beds and and systems cost.
We touch on things like system failures, filtration methods, and water testing as well as cycling duration and methods. Michael discusses business programs including business planning and marketing and integrating into the horticulture program and his love for science and kids! Lastly, get loads of information on bringing aquaponics in the classroom through funding and grants.