Penny Takahashi checks on the few plants they have in the greenhouse at the moment, to see how the fish fertilizer is affecting their growth on Dec. 9, 2020. The greenhouse usually hosts a wide variety of plants for diverse research projects, but at the moment they are getting ready to move to a new location.
The humidity in the air inside the Aquaponics Research facility at Lethbridge College makes the lingering fish smell become more prominent, but these fish play a very important role in the aquaponic research taking place.
The word “aquaponics” comes from aquaculture and hydroponics and in this case, it is the use of fish waste to fertilize plants.
But not all fish are being fed to produce waste. The ones in the micro systems are taking part of an experiment to see if fish on their own, just existing in an environment, can create a change in the ecosystem that will affect the plants.
Managing waste is a huge challenge for all agriculture and sustainable food production. Researchers at Lethbridge College use bioreactors to break down the solid waste produced by the fish and mineralize it, to be able to use as fertilizer for plants, says ACE Research Assistant, Kristine Wilson.
“Our goal here at the aquaponics centre is to not just research for large scale production, but also to look at ways that we can work and attain zero waste. So, we also produce bioreactor fluid we call it, which essentially can be solid fish waste, or actually even our mortalities that we use to produce fertilizer that eventually comes to market as fish fertilizer,” added Wilson.
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Once the fertilizer is produced, it is used in the greenhouse where research is happening as well. Greenhouse technician Penny Takahashi says that they are experimenting with different methods of aquaponics like deep water flow and drip irrigation, but not as much as before.
“You’ll see that there’s not too much going on. Right now, we’re just getting ready to make a shift from an old greenhouse to the new greenhouse and we’re hoping that by mid-January we started in setting up some of our hanging trays and hanging troughs and getting ready for some new research in the new greenhouse,” added Takahashi.
The new greenhouse is 10,000 sq. ft., so there will be a variety of different projects to advance the industry. Some of them include light projects, water analysis and tissue analysis of plants and fish.
