HYDROPONIC SYSTEM TYPES

wrong, such as a busted pipe or a grow channel overturned, it can leak a lot of your water out quickly and then you can lose a lot of plants easily if you don’t have a system in place. Nutrient imbalances can also happen, and the grower has to be able to recognize this and make adjustments swiftly.”

Local Appetite Growers utilize the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) to grow their lettuce. This is a water culture-type system. The plant roots grow primarily in water with dissolved nutrients. “The ‘film’ is the thin sheet of water that flows over the roots of the plants to nourish them,” Mastin explained. “This method has been around since the 1960s or 1970s but is gaining popularity today because of its simplicity and productivity. Seeds are planted in a small cube of foam-like material, and once the roots emerge from the foam, we put the seedlings into the NFT grow channels. The channels are irrigated with a recirculating nutrient solution, and the plant roots grow in the channels in the thin 'film' of water and nutrients.”

Hydroponics is a very hands-on farming technique. “Most everything we do is by hand,” Mastin said. “Everything is done standing up, there is no stooping and squatting to harvest lettuce heads, which is much easier on everyone. We also work on a weekly schedule of planting and harvest small areas of the greenhouse.”

Local Appetite Growers harvest three times a week. “We have two guys that harvest most of the lettuce, and we pack them and get them into the walk-in cooler as quickly as possible to maintain freshness,” Mastin added. “There are also the chores of washing our growing channels, re-planting lettuce transplants and sowing more seeds for the next week’s planting.”

The biggest efficiency in this system is the speed of growth and the ability to replant quickly. “We are able to harvest a plant from its growing space, wash the channels and re-plant lettuce in the same spot in that same day,” Mastin said. “This allows us to get seven to eight crops out of each growing space each year.”

Local Appetite Growers have plans to continue growing the greenhouse footprint and expanding into the agrotourism market. “We are currently converting an old tomato greenhouse into another lettuce growing house,” Mastin said. “We are also offering farm tours, growing a small area of u-pick flowers, and we have a barn facility that we will be offering as a venue and hosting some events of our own in the future.”

For Mastin, he loves hydroponic farming because of the productivity, the cleanliness and the high quality of the products that are grown. “It’s satisfying to see a healthy crop of lettuce or greens at its peak about to go out for our community to enjoy,” he said. “This system grows some of the healthiest and happiest plants that you will ever see. Our hydroponic system just gives us the advantage to grow exceedingly beautiful and healthy plants, and watching a really great crop of lettuce and other greens develop is what is our real love.”

For more information on Local Appetite Growers, visit localappetitegrowers.com.

BY CAROLYN DRINKARD

In a family known for athletic prowess, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Carvel William Rowell, III (Trey), would follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. After all, his grandfather, Carvel “Bama” Rowell, was a legend in Citronelle, where he grew up, and Mobile County, where he often played baseball. Bama had an outstanding career at LSU, and then he moved on to professional baseball, where he made quite a name for himself in