Carroll County High School senior Peyton Murray orchestrates the growing of hundreds of heads of lettuce in a hydroponic greenhouse, all of which is used in the CCHS cafeteria.
Murray works in the greenhouse as a co-op with Agriculture teacher Mackenzie Wright. She offered him the opportunity after he took a food production class last year and worked in the greenhouses. “I took her up on the offer because I thought it would be a good opportunity for work experience,” he said, noting he might pursue a career in food agriscience or as a butcher.
The lettuce is grown on three large tables consisting of 300 squares for the seed pods. One pod will generate one head of lettuce. Murray is also trying to grow cherry tomatoes, but they are not faring as well.The tomatoes are grown in 5 gallon buckets with clay pebbles. Neither process requires soil, but the pH and conductivity levels have to be monitored and adjusted daily.
“If every table were to be successful we would get 900 heads of lettuce,” he said. Each week he harvests one half of a table and rotates the collection of the lettuce. A typical harvest yields 150 heads of lettuce, all of which is funneled directly to the high school cafeteria.
Last year the greenhouse was aided by a koi pond, but that wasn’t possible this year because he didn’t have anyone to help. “You need a morning and afternoon person to take care of them and I could only tend to them in the afternoon,” Murray said. The nutrients produced by the fish were filtered and used to help grow the plants previously.
The hydroponic greenhouse has been producing lettuce for the majority of the school year. Murray explained that it takes about seven weeks for the rockwool starter plugs to become ready for their first harvest, which was around October.
His goal is to grow other vegetables, such as cucumbers or regular size tomatoes. “We can grow practically anything,” he said. “I definitely think we can expand our variety. Really, I would like to be able to provide more.”
