 And I will introduce Kyla, who is our presenter today. Kyla is a research specialist at the Wilston Research Extension Center, mainly dealing with horticultural crops. And the last couple of years has been working on some high tunnel projects. And we'll today talk about high tunnel construction. And is there anything else? I guess I now let you take it away. OK. Thanks for that introduction, Harleen. I also wanted to share a little known fact about myself before we start. I actually do have a degree in architectural drafting from the North Dakota State College of Science. And I was actually on my way to pursuing a career in construction management at Morehead State University when I had an epiphany that I had this desire to learn plant names. I have visited the peace gardens, the International Peace Gardens up near Botnall. And I just had this desire to learn the plant names. And so I got in touch with Harleen. And she literally ushered me in the door. And I attended NDSU then to study horticulture and landscape design. And I'm currently working on my master's. However, I have been exposed to construction all my life. My dad was actually a contractor in Minot for nearly 25 years. And so that's definitely what influenced my decision to go into construction. And I do still have a fascination with building materials. And I enjoy looking at blueprints as well. So thank you for joining us today. And I hope that we have a good discussion about high tunnel construction. So I want to start off also with mentioning a special thank you to these groups of folks here that I have listed, especially the North Dakota Department of Ag with the USDA for selecting us for a specialty crop block grant and allowing us to build two high tunnels so that we can facilitate this research. The Ness and Valley research team for allowing the space for me to put this high tunnel out there. And especially our summer staff, we would not be able to do these types of projects without these folks. And then the main campus Fargo team, Harleen, Esther, Colin, Jacob, and other grad students that participated with this research as well. And then also I want to include the pathology, the Plant Diagnostic Lab, and our pathologist here at the Williston Research Center for helping us with our plant diagnostics. So site selection is what I'm going to start off with today. And I have three main points here on my screen that I'm going to talk about, as well as a few additional items that I've included that I think are important under site selection. So the first thing that you're going to want to consider when you're selecting a site is your drainage. It's not good to have standing water or low spots. You want to make sure that you correct any of those drainage issues before you start your construction. And whether that means adding topsoil or sand or even removing soil if needed. And that influences the slope. So the elevation should be slightly higher than the surrounding area. So if you have to build up area first before building your high tunnel, these are some factors that you need to take into consideration. Soil type is also important as well. Sandy loam or loamy sands are more desirable types of soil because we are going to be planting into this soil. So it's important to take that into consideration as well. Heavy textured soils, such as clay, they can cause drainage issues. So you want to be aware of that before you begin. Our previous site here, I don't know. Can you see my pointer when I'm, is that my mouse? Yes, I can see that. Yes. So you can see here that there's some grass in the background This previous site was actually a 10-year biomass study. And it had various deep-rooted grasses. And the soil type is a loamy, fine, sandy soil from the Botolier series. So we were actually pretty lucky with the site that we chose here at Nessan Valley. So then I added a couple of components that need to be taken into consideration when you're trying to find out where you should put your high tunnel. Building orientation, it's a topic that comes up a lot when it comes to these things. North, south, east, west, does it really matter? I think there's much debate, but there's really no right answer. It depends on your site. And so that's why I put this topic under site selection, because no two sites are the same. And building orientation is going to be site specific. So here's what I mean on this one. The prevailing wind direction, shelter belts, and other structures and access points all play into the orientation decision. Both can be successful. However, it should be noted that the north-south allows for maximum sun exposure over all sides of the high tunnel. East-west means you'll have beds with southern exposure that will be warmer than beds on the side facing north. So this picture, I'm showing you our dryland station. These are the research gardens that I'm in charge of. You can see that we have this very nice shelter belt, very nicely established shelter belt that helps protect our little farm tech high tunnel that we have built here. So this picture, again, I want to point out, too, that the beds along this southern exposure of this high tunnel get warmer than the ones on the north side. And so we have to take that into consideration when we're planting our crops in here. Typically, I put warm season crops in the southern beds. So for our site at Nessan Valley, the prevailing winds came into play because there are no shelter belts. So this is Highway 1804. We're about 50 miles from Newtown, way out here at Nessan Valley. We placed the high tunnel north-south with the door facing the south. This is our high tunnel here. And the idea was to have the smallest surface area facing the northwest with as much of the wall space sealed off, hence the door is on the south end. And so that brings me to accessibility. So you need to also decide if you have accessibility to the site that you're going to place your high tunnel. Are there roads or driveways? It's important to think about how you will get your end product to where you're selling. Can you get a vehicle and trailers right up next to the door? And when the high tunnel is delivered, can you have it dropped right off at the site? Because the components to these things are very heavy. Is there an irrigation source or a water source? Is there room for a storage tank? Do you have access to electricity or utilities if you're going to do any kind of automation? And for accessibility too, sometimes I wish that we had placed a door on the north end, both ends of our high tunnel. Because it's something that was an oversight for us. When you're hauling out plant debris, pruning, pulling weeds, harvesting, any plant thinning, it all really does add up. And so you have to get that out of the high tunnel. And if you're hauling from the back to all the way to the front, it's just something to take into consideration. You can dump it out besides, but then it feels like you're playing a little bit of limbo. But we can start at our end walls with the idea that we could install a door if we needed to. So that's always an option as well. And this is just showing RNS and Valley High Tunnel. We have a water storage tank here. This is how we had our trials set up in the 2016 and 2017 seasons. And this is a snapshot here of what our high tunnel looked like this year with the flowers. So moving along to high tunnel styles, there's a couple of different styles out there. I'm going to talk about two of them based on the photos and the experience that I've had. And this first one here is a Clonset style. It's your least expensive type. Usually it's the arched hoop. And that's where we get the name Hoop House. They can accumulate more snow. And then they're usually lower to the ground. So you have less workspace under the tunnel. So bending down a lot as you get closer to these side walls. So taller equipment can't fit. And that's a consideration that needs to be made. But they are easier to construct. And like I said before, they're less expensive. And then you have the Gothic style. They're typically taller. And they have more space along these side walls. The peaked roof line allows for less snow accumulation. But they can be more costly. Little bit more structurally built. So you've got more parts and components to put together. This is actually a photo of a high tunnel up near Alamo, a gentleman that works for the NRCS up there, Todd Solem, posted in Open House. And so this is a photo of his high tunnel. And then there are multi-bay high tunnels, which are used for large-scale production. You can see that all the high tunnels are connected together. That's a lot of high tunnels. And then there's also the movable types, where you've got the high tunnel on a track that moves. And then you can shift the high tunnel off your field. And I'm not going to talk about either the multi-bay or movable types today. I don't have any experience with either of those. So there are three structural elements that most high tunnels share in common. They all have a framework. They are all covered, or excuse me, they all need some type of ventilation. And then you'll have an in-ground culture. So you're planting directly into the ground. So for the components, I'll just go over some terminology very briefly here. You've got a center ridge perlin, a side perlin here. And then we've got these ribs or bows. This is what our high tunnel looked like in 2013, when I started at the research center. This was my exposure to high tunnels when I first started here in Williston. And then going along here, we've got a ridge connector at the top, truss support, and a truss brace. And that kind of makes up the bow with the high tunnel out at our Nessan Valley research site. Can everybody see these photos here? OK, so on my screen, I'm seeing the videos. Maybe I'll just close that there. OK, so then I have showing this ridge perlin here along the top. And a close-up of that ridge connector. I kind of like showing these up-close pictures because you can see that there are a lot of parts and pieces that go into these. And it's a lot of repetition. Once you get one going, it's really easy to set up the next ones. But it still can be a lot of work. So, and then most high tunnels will have a hip board and a base board. They typically utilize these sea channels with wiggle wire and a roll-up track for your roll-up sides. And that's just a close-up picture of how that wiggle wire works. I think whoever invented that was especially smart. OK, so moving along to the end walls, it's another component of the high tunnel. They can be comprised of polycarbonate material or they can be plastic as well. The framework, I've seen them either as light-gauge steel. I've also seen them in wood. We use treated 2x6s here and 4x4 posts to frame out this dry land station high tunnel. Here we are. There's Collin on the ladder and Harleen over there. They helped me finish out that high tunnel so that we could get it functional. We used lat boards over here or furring strips to kind of sandwich the plastic between the 2x6s. This isn't ideal because you're poking holes in your plastic, but it worked for us with this. And then I constructed a door out of PVC so you can kind of get creative with some of these. A lot of times the kits that you buy will come with some framing, but we still had to buy a lot of extra materials. So the coverings can be a woven poly and it's usually a nylon embedded plastic. And so that's a photo of us constructing the end walls at Nessan Valley. There they are putting the c-channel along so that we could secure our plastic all the way along the ridge when they were getting the door installed. So the coverings and the roof material. So you can see here that our end walls, this plastic here was the nylon embedded poly and then we had a different type of covering over the high tunnel itself. So this is a little bit more rigid, I would say, and it's less see-through as well. So coverings, they're typically a six mil four year greenhouse grade polyethylene, which is more expensive than your co-polymer poly. It can be a single layer or double layer. And if it is double, you need to have a blower fan to inflate those two layers of plastic and that layer just acts as a buffer. That extra insulation, it's kind of like a double pane window where you've got that air sealed off in between, just increases your R factor, among other things. And the type of plastic that we had was IR rated, which is an infrared additive and that helps with the overnight heat retention. And then it was also AC rated, which is anti-condensate. And that helps prevent moisture buildup on the inside of the plastic. I have included a link to a very good article if you're interested in more information on choosing the right plastic film, I encourage you to visit this greenhousemag.com. There are lots of options out there, but your high tunnel manufacturers should be able to provide help on this topic as well. Okay, so moving along to the second component that most high tunnels have in common, which is ventilation. And it's usually passive or mechanical with roll up sides and wall vents. And so this is a photo of the two high tunnels and their roll up sides. They are very different from one another. This is a farm tech high tunnel on the left, which utilizes this roll up track, which is set at kind of an angle. And then the gearbox fits inside of there. And I don't have a photo of it, but this little hoop here is a hook that you utilize this crank, it's called the twist of the wrist. And so this is a manual roll up side. I have to come out here and manually roll it up and roll it down. And then this is showing the nest and valley high tunnel, which has an electric motor over here. And then this is the roll up track, which is just this bar that the gearbox rolls up and down from. And this one is electric, so that it is set up on a thermostat. And it'll automatically open and close based on a thermostat. End wall ventilation is important as well. We have these end wall vents here. You do need electricity for these as well. This photo here is showing where we have our thermostats hanging on the electrical conduit, running from both ends of the high tunnel. And this is just a close up picture. So you can kind of see how all these parts go together. And then a few extras that I wanted to point out that we utilize, of course, there's that blower fan to inflate our high tunnel. This is kind of just a photo of all the things that we keep in our high tunnel. The electrical components, we've had to install a electrical box for our outlets so that we could plug in our pump for our irrigation system. We also have to have our thermostat plugged in. So this is our thermostat here. It tells the roll up sides when to open and close. And we install these air hose reels for our drip tape so that we could store our drip tape in the wintertime just to keep everything nice and clean. So that's another option for you as well. And then the in-ground culture is the last component that high tunnels share in common. And in this photo, this is our dry land, our small high tunnel at the dry land station. And it depicts the in-ground culture and you can see that the beds are all laid out with drip tape and they're ready to be planted. And they are slightly raised and that also helps to promote the drainage that you don't have that standing water inside your high tunnel. So moving along to problems and concerns, I thought it was important to include this because it was something that I didn't foresee. So I like to point out here, just take pictures of what the items looked like on arrival. As in, just take a picture of the inside of your freight truck before unloading anything. So the photo on the left is what the bows or the ribs, this is what they were suspended from the side of the truck. And this is what the two of them looked like when we laid them out. Now they shouldn't have this crook here. You can just see all these bent parts. So that's a little frustrating when you pull things off of the truck and they're damaged, but it happens. So the damaged parts came off the truck looking like this. However, this is how they were actually loaded onto the truck. So somewhere along the line, somebody decided to move some of the parts around. They suspended the ribs along the side of the truck and that's what I assume caused the damage. They were right back here, nicely fitted. So this photo came from the manufacturer after I contacted them about the damaged parts and they said, well, this is what it looked like when we loaded it and so, but that's just one thing that, some things that can happen. And another thing to take into consideration for, especially for us, the hardware comes in separate boxes, depending on your manufacturer, but for us it came in these specific boxes that were labeled and so it's important to keep the hardware in those boxes. We took everything out and then kind of had to go back. So moving along to the actual construction, this is just a partial list of recommended tools for assembly. You'll need a cordless drill and bits, an extension cord, circular saw, sight level or transit, hand levels, a two foot or a four foot hammer, an eight to 12 foot ladder, shovels, duct tape, a lift or a tractor bucket, which you can rent. Powered post hole auger is also a handy thing to have to drill your holes and that can also be rented. Sledge hammer, pipe wrench, ratchet sets and sockets, tape measures, a 25 foot and a 100 foot are both handy to have. Work gloves, utility knife, safety glasses and pry bar. So when you actually start the construction process, it's really important to have everything squared up. We used a string line, as you can see in that first photo. When you have movable parts, it's important to have everything lined up because roll up sides, doors, if things aren't squared up, they're not gonna move properly. So make sure that you have everything lined up and take that extra time to get a string line, to get that transit set up and things will go a lot smoothly. And then make sure that all the pre-drilled holes are set properly facing the right direction. I'll point that out in a second here. So here we are leveling up the first set of ground posts. You can see our string line here and Tyler was using a hand level to make sure that we had everything leveled both directions. And then everything's looking nice and straight down the line. And an extra that we purchased, just to increase our structural integrity of our high tunnel was a concrete mix. And we poured about a bag, a piece into the holes. And then you can see Dave here is pouring some concrete mix down, even down into the center of the ground post. And there's a close up, getting everything leveled and there we are, everything's nice and straight and ready to go. I also should point out to, we started the construction on this high tunnel in 2015 and we had a very mild winter but we covered our soil with straw which allowed us to actually be doing a lot of this construction in November and December. So that's a little fact for you. So there we are getting the truss set up, if you will, in construction. The truss is what supports the roof and this is your truss unit here that is supporting the wind and the rain and weather and things like that. On your high tunnel. So you set up all of your vertical members, so this truss unit is set up vertically and you have to have these connections set up loosely, so hand tightened. And then you go back with your horizontal members, your purlins and you tighten everything up with a drill. So it is a lot of up and down the ladder. And that's where a lift or a bucket of some sort comes in handy, but you have to also remember that this is the area that you're gonna be planting in, so compaction needs to be taken into consideration. So here we had everything all set up, there's that one missing bow, so we got to a certain point in our construction we had to stop because we were waiting on those extra parts. And there they are installing the ridge purlin and we used this wooden jig right here. This is the only photo I could find of this, so when we were going back and tightening up everything with the drill, it's important to make sure that you maintain this four foot spacing, and so this jig helps to hold those trusses in place while you're connecting. And it's, again, like I said, a lot of up and down on the ladders. We got some good workouts. So the next component is the hip board or the end the base boards, and those are extra, we had to purchase extra two by fours, two by sixes, two by eights. So there they are installing the base board. It is a treated two by eight that we used. I believe Fargo used a two by 12. And we used a treated two by six hip board. The manufacturer specifications actually had this double wiggle wire track which could have gone directly onto our steel rib, but we chose to add two by sixes underneath just for extra structural integrity. So you can see that photo here. This is a double wiggle wire track. And I also want to point out when you're installing these base boards, it's important to make sure that you cut your pieces of lumber so that your splice joint falls between these two ground posts. So these are all four foot on center. And so when you're making your cuts, if this splice ends up on a post, you can't connect it. So you have to have this splice happening in between. So you need to cut your lumber accordingly. So I want to point out another type of base board that I've seen as well on Todd's high tunnel up near Alamo. He actually used this galvanized aircraft cable, which is running along here. And then he suspended plastic over that. And I believe he just stapled it down to the ground. And so this is another option for a type of base board. I guess I should also mention we use treated lumber, but if you're going with organics, you can't use treated lumber. So this could be an option for you if you were using an organic system. And then when we finished our grading on our site, we used this crushed gravel here. And that was mostly just to discourage robins from burrowing underneath the wood. So here we are, this is what our high tunnel looked like. We're ready for the plastic. So installing the plastic is no small feat. Tennis balls, ropes, and lots of help. Oh, and no wind. That's a good one too. Good luck with that. We wanted to make sure that we had all layers of plastic installed, plus the end wall plastic, all in one day to ensure that our high tunnel would be sealed off completely before leaving the site for the day. So what I mean by tennis balls, this is kind of a hard photo to see, but we've actually taken a tennis ball and used a string to tie, put the plastic over the tennis ball, tie the string to it, get your string to the other side, and then you can pull the plastic over. And actually that was in the instruction manual on how to build this high tunnel. This was their suggestion. So a couple photos of us here getting the, you can see here the tennis ball and the string is going over the high tunnel. And there's folks standing here on the other end pulling. I actually have a time-lapse video of us putting this up that I will share at the end here. And so there we are, we got our plastic installed, everything looks nice. We had to install that blower unit. And so we get to the finishing. You have to finish your corners off with plastic. We purchased this wind brace kit, as you can see here. That was also extra that we had to order from the manufacturer and we just, again, anything that we can do to improve the structural integrity of these high tunnels against the wind out here in North Dakota, we decided to go for it. So this photo is showing the corner. You have to seal off these corners because as you roll upside, it rolls up and down. Then you've got that gap there. So, and also wanted to point out to this nice shelf that Tyler built. And that's just handy to have when you're storing stuff in your high tunnel. So the economic considerations, I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail on these, but it is important when you're choosing a high tunnel to take some of these things, maybe it will help with your decision-making. So the size of a high tunnel, what size would you choose? Well, choose one that fits your equipment needs. Remember that if you can't get a tractor in there, you'll have a heck of a time tilling, forming beds, laying the mulch and all of those things efficiently. A lot of this stuff is time consuming. So how hard do you wanna make this on yourself? And also something else to take into consideration is that larger tunnels are more efficient at holding the accumulated heat and there's less temperature fluctuations. Something else, what are the crop types that you're considering and their requirements? What is the plant space requirement? Is trellising needed? Equipment to be used. Tractor size, again, like I said, if you can fit a tractor in there, sometimes you might need to purchase a bigger high tunnel if you have a larger tractor or vice versa. Space available on the site. So going back to that site selection, can you get equipment in there? And then groundwork needed. Will you be able to get equipment in to get your site ready so that you can start constructing? And then structural security. Will it be protected from wind or snow? We looked for the highest grade steel when we were purchasing our high tunnel. 13 gauge steel is what we used with six foot ground posts for the maximum defense against the wind. And then again, we purchased those extra wind brace kits. So those are some things that we decided were important when we started looking and sourcing out our high tunnels. And then the extra materials needed. All that extra concrete, lumber. Most types of things do add up. So you need to factor those in as well. And then what is your expected return on investment? And labor costs. Are you gonna have someone helping you build this high tunnel? Labor costs depend on experience. Tunnel size and the equipment that's available. So with that, I actually have this time-lapse video. I hope that this shows up for you guys. But this is us installing the plastic over the high tunnel. It was a little bit breezy that day. It's a little bit unnerving when the wind comes up and you start seeing that plastic billowing. But I was thankful for the help with my coworkers who came to help us get this plastic installed. And there we are. If we get that second layer rolled out and you can see them installing those tennis balls. And so with that, I would like to point out a couple of contact info for you. Harleen and Colin will be installing a high tunnel on campus. So if you're looking for an opportunity to actually get some hands-on experience with these high tunnels with actual construction, I encourage you to contact Harleen or Colin. They could use any help that they can get. And they will hopefully be hosting a high tunnel construction field day and they'll be building one on NDSU campus. So that's really exciting. We have a new grant that we'll be working on in collaboration with them as well. So with that, I would take any questions. How do I see the, I haven't been able to see the question box. So there aren't any questions yet. So we would invite people to either turn on their microphones or else type of question there. I just wanted to comment on the orientation. Generally during the growing season, you're going to have the most uniform coverage if the orientation is north-south. Now, if we were to be growing year-round to then I think maybe an east-west, but since most of the time when the sun has really moved in the winter, we're not growing. I still think unless you have a lot of reasons due to locations or the lack of, I guess, wind protection, I think the north-south orientation is going to give you the most uniform, I guess, lighting to all the rows or to the entire high tunnel. Okay, one question that has come in is did you have any problems with rodents moving into the high tunnel? Yes, we did. North Dakota is also called the flicker tail state. And I don't know if you've ever had any experience with flicker tails or 13-striped ground squirrels, but we definitely had those little buggers. And interestingly enough, they would climb right over our baseboards. So I think if we could have had a taller baseboard, that would have discouraged them from getting in because that gravel along the baseboard did keep them from digging under. And then we decided to... Okay. Get some cats. All right. Okay, I would ask whomever is drawing on our screen to please erase that. It's very childish. Kylo, this is Drew. Can you hear me? Hi, Drew, I can hear you. I love it. I hear that Harleen has one coming up, a new one at the campus, and you're one out here. I'm wondering what the budgets were for that one. I'm familiar, of course, with the one here at Offland. In terms of budgeting, and of course, I think that was like a 28 by 90 or 96. It's a big thing. Yeah, ours was a 26 by 96. Harleen, do you have current budgets for the new one that you're purchasing? Um, I think... About the same size. Yeah, so it's going to be the same size. I thought it was somewhere around 12? 12 grand? Yeah. God, thank you so much. 12,000 plus a lot of, as you point, dependent on experience, the DOE, and the sheer number of powers and equipment you're working with. That's doable, though. Yeah, and so, but we went with a company that has more, the gauge of the steel is thicker. We went with the reinforcement for the wind and the gothic style, because that is also better with snow. Absolutely. And of course, you want that double wall because that double poly is going to be excellent, very beneficial against high winds and blowing things away. And even hail. I didn't realize it would help for that, too, sure. Yeah. The rigidity of the building, the wind flows better. Yeah. Yeah, I typically tell people to expect for this size 12 to 15. Yeah. Well, it snows, and I know, as a matter of fact, I suspect it's snowing in Wilson, but it sure is here at Offland. Yeah, I don't know if you can see my, but it's been snowing all day. Yep. Moving towards Fargo. It's coming your way. Are there any other questions? Oops, I lost it. Wrong sign. Hi, Kyla. This is Todd from Fargo. Hi, Todd. Did you have any damage from snow? I was just kind of curious how that worked, or do you take it down somehow, or how do you work with the snow that gets on top of there, or maybe it isn't a problem? Well, fortunately for us in Williston, we don't get the snow accumulation like you guys do in Fargo. Although last winter, there was a lot of snow out there, and no, we didn't have any damage and we didn't have any wind damage either. Fargo, you guys had some stuff going on with your roll-up sides, I think, that needed to be readjusted. I'm not sure if that was due to the snow, but no, we didn't. Our Smytunnel on the dry land, the very first season that it was built, they used the, since it was a farm tech, it had those zippered roll-up sides. Those zippered ends actually did rip, and so that's why I had Harleen and Collin come in and help me build those wooden end walls, and that just helped. So most manufacturers now, they recommend that you frame out your end walls, but no, we didn't have any snow issues this year. Thank you. So you guys crossed. One thing I would also comment as far as snow is we had, we put a door, a walk-in door on the north side, which we had going, pulling out to open, and that was not a good idea, because you have to remember you're having warm air inside the tunnel, and then cold air, and you don't have a great seal. So we were having a lot of condensation on the outside, icing up, and so we had to chip to go and get that door open. This next time, if we're gonna have a walk-in door, it's gonna be that it opens to the inside, because even then when that condensation's gonna occur, at least we don't have to chip through a whole bunch of ice to get inside the high tunnel during the winter. We installed those roll, the doors that were rolled, and so we didn't have, you just had to make sure that your roll track wasn't covered in snow, but we didn't experience a lot of condensation, and I think that has a lot to do with the drier climate out here in Williston. You guys, that's an issue that you're gonna have on the east side of the state, with higher moistures. Right. And then as far as with the rodents, we also, you know, we were trying to do something in March last year for our workshop, and we had no idea that they would go and find that nice warm environment, and we had stuff in containers, greens that were growing, and yeah, they really enjoyed our lettuces that we grew for them to eat. So rodents definitely, especially if it's off season, you know, they're gonna take advantage of anything they can get ahold of. We have some more questions. So there was a question about repeating comments about the gothic and the rounded and wind or snow concern. Tyler, do you wanna address that? Yeah, typically if you look at the surface area that's facing outward, your quonset style has more surface area that can accumulate the snow. Your gothic styles have a ridged peak, like a house, and that can help facilitate the shed of snow. And so that needs to be considered when you're deciding a style of high tunnel to build. Does that answer the question? I think you nailed it right there. I have seen a couple high tunnels that are the rounded ones. This was in Virginia where they generally don't get a lot of snow, but they did get some wet, heavy snow, and they just had the rounded. They also had a double poly, but they didn't inflate it. So there was no benefit to a double poly surface if you don't have the air in between. And basically the snow load got heavy enough and it just bent those, that structure and pretty much destroyed things. And so as Kyla is mentioning, when you have that pitch, you're gonna go and it's gonna help with removing the snow. There was another question here when snow accumulates on a round tunnel, what do you recommend to clear off the snow? Ooh, definitely you don't want a snow rake because you don't want to go and take any chances of ripping the poly. In the past, we've just, well, I know in Michigan where they have a lot of the round ones, they'll take their plastic off in the winter if they feel like they're gonna have heavy snow load because there isn't anything really besides the fact that you're gonna get sun and hopefully warming things up and melting so it will slide off. I got disconnected there, I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. Any ideas on if they had a rounded high tunnel and snow accumulation that they're concerned about it collapsing a way of removing it? You know, the tunnel here on the dry land, that is a hoop style and I've actually taken a broom and I've gone onto the inside of the tunnel and just lightly hit the plastic and then I could watch the snow fall or you can go to the outside and kind of try to dust it off that way. I wouldn't recommend using a roof rake that you would use on your own house just because you could culture that plastic. But going from the inside and just kind of lightly tapping can sometimes be enough. If it's light enough snow, if it's heavy, thick, wet snow, that's harder to get off. So it's important to go in there and get that snow off as soon as you can before it warms up and becomes sticky. Now, didn't we have some problems with snow drifting on the sides and actually having it tear the plastic too? So that's another concern is drifting. Yeah. Yeah, we put up a snow fence, but that didn't help us. Maybe if Tyler is still on, maybe he could maybe give his opinion on that. I mean, we put up a snow fence, but it seemed like that just accumulated more snow, but maybe it was just where we put it. And then if you've got that snow drifting on to the side of your tunnel, shoveling that off, you have to be careful to not to rip your plastic. And you won't get it removed because as things warm up, especially when we get into the early spring, it'll warm up and then it'll try to vent. And if you have an electric roller, you're just gonna have all kinds of problems if you don't have that snow. We unplugged ours for the winter. We went and unplugged ours to make sure it stayed closed because yeah, you don't want it warming up in there and the sides thinking it needs to open. Right. Somebody said something about anti-billow ropes. Did we answer that question? We use anti-billow ropes but only over the roll-up sides on our new high tunnel. We didn't put ropes over the top of the structure. And that was because we had the double roll, we had the double poly. We didn't, we don't need the anti-billow ropes when you have that double insulated layer. We did have it, we did have anti-billow ropes thrown over the top of our small high tunnel here. And that can cause some wear and tear on your plastic. Anything that you can do to increase the longevity of your plastic. And that's why I said, and I encourage you to go read that article about greenhouse plastics. There was a lot of helpful information out there. But no, we did not use anti-billow ropes over the top of our structure at Nessan Valley. The manufacturer specifications were only along the roll-up sides. So the roll-up sides had anti-billow ropes going up and down. There's a question. How do you know if the plastic is on tight enough? That's another good question. Well, Arlene, I don't know if you remember us installing the plastic at our dry land station in July 90, let's see, I think it got to 100 that week. And the plastic stretches farther when you're installing it in the heat. And then it's gonna shrink in the cold. So I wanna say you'll wanna look at your manufacturer specifications. But I do think you'll want it to be somewhat warm out when you're doing this so that you can kind of stretch that plastic and then it'll shrink when it gets cooler out. And that helps to make sure that you've got it all tightened down. The last thing you want is to have it too loose because once you get some rippling with wind, that causes a lot of wear and tear on that high tunnel and a lot of rubbing and ends up with tearing your poly. So much if you have a double poly covering but definitely if you have that single poly covering the tighter, the better. Another question is, do you gravity feed irrigation from your tank? Yes, yes, it's gravity fed, but then we have a small pump that we use inside. Now the pump isn't set up on any kind of timer. It's manual on and off. So we would have to go out there, turn it on, make sure that there was water in the tank. And that had to do with the linear irrigation. I think I forgot to point out, this is our Nessan Valley irrigated site. So we have linear irrigation over the crops that are out there and the water is actually pumped from Lake Secauquilla and there also is an aqua force. There's two different water sources, but we could only fill that tank when the linear was running. And then usually there would be enough gravity to push it in there, but we needed an extra little pump just to make sure that our pressure was up to irrigate the whole high tunnel at the same time. We could irrigate the inside and outside at the same time running that pump. Tyler commented on the snow fence. He said that was a bad idea. It collected snow and built up about eight foot on the side and said even though there was no damage because they removed all the snow manually, the weight of snow would have caused damage if you wouldn't have removed it. So if you're gonna have a snow fence, make sure it's far enough away so that your high tunnel doesn't act like the second snow fence and really trap everything right in between. A lot of the snow accumulation too was on the side of the high tunnel that's facing those prevailing winds. So our northwest facing area collected a lot. And that's where we put the snow fence thinking that it would help. But it actually kind of acted like a, a shelter belt like with your trees, you know, you get that blowing over and then it all accumulated there. So you kind of have to play with your site when you get these things built. I mean, we thought it was a good idea and we tried it and it didn't work for us. Not to say that it wouldn't work for someone else or maybe we just didn't have it in the right spot. Another thing that that was interesting is your comment on the non-treated wood for organic, you could go with wood that, with, you know, a species of wood that has more just natural resistant rotting tendencies. Yeah, cedar. Cedar, it's more expensive. Yeah. And so. Yeah, I don't have a lot of experience with organic production. So. Here comes a question. Any tips on putting the wiggle wire in the sea channel? That is, that is a great question because it is kind of a technique. You know, you don't want to force that wiggle wire into the channel. It will go in and out as you go up and down. It should follow its own form going in the sea channel. So it's hard to explain without actually doing it yourself, but if you try to force the wiggle wire in, it's not going to work as smoothly. You're going to be putting more effort into it than you should have to. Does that make sense, hopefully? I guess my tip is just to make sure that you're going up and down as you're pushing it. You know, it'll start to snap in. And then you overlap when you get to one end, you overlap by a couple different, maybe six inches or so, and then continue. And a little bit warmer weather never hurts. The plastic is more pliable. Yep, your plastic will be more pliable. Question from Todd, if you get a rip in the plastic, is there a quick temporary fix for that? Yes, there are greenhouse tapes that you can purchase that are clear. And I've done that with our small high tunnel here. I needed to quickly patch it. And I just went and bought some clear high tunnel tape. In fact, I think I ordered some of that from FarmTech. And that was just a quick way to fix that hole so that I wouldn't get any bigger. I know we have also gone and we purchased some, not talking about tears, but to reduce in the springtime, you know, you have a lot more cooler temperatures. And so we purchased some pink panther, the insulation board to go and put along the side so that we wouldn't have as much cold air coming in when the sides rolled up and that it would eliminate some of that cold air from coming in a little bit longer. The wind can be hard on those transplants. And if you don't have a tall enough baseboard, like Harleen is saying, that wind just rips in there as soon as that roll upside goes up, even a couple inches. And so having, yeah, something to protect that. We thought about putting something in there as a temporary. You don't want that in there hindering air flow in the summertime. That's kind of a catch-22. You have to have something that you can remove. But in the early spring and late fall, when you want to reduce those cool air movements inside the high tunnel, having something like that up. So you used a insulation foam board, right? Yeah, and you purchase those at various lumber yards, like a one-inch thick. A lot of times they use it for basement insulation, and it's that rigid insulation board. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I do not see any more questions. All right. So this is Esther. I wanted to share a slide of our upcoming events that we have if there are no more questions. Okay. I'll try and share my screen here. Okay. Can you see it? Yes. Okay. So we do have some great events coming up in the near future. So on February 21st, you know, continuing with our high tunnel series, we're going to have Joshua Munson from the NRCS. And he's going to talk about funding that's available. He's also collaborating with the farm service agency to talk about their requirements too. So if you're interested on how you can get funding and what the newest equip program will be, please join us on February 21st at one o'clock. And then I just found out that Kyla will be giving another talk on the field to fork webinar, also on the same day, but at two o'clock talking about the results from the variety trials that were performed both here in the valley as well as in Williston. On March 22nd, we'll have Terry Ninic talking about managing high soil salts in high tunnels, because that is a major concern, particularly if you can't move your high tunnel. April 3rd, we'll have Jan Kododal talking about managing spider mites. So continuing with some of our IPM measures. And then on April 4th, just found out about the PSA Grower Training Course in Jamestown, a full day course that will help you satisfy your Food Safety Modernization Act requirements. So a lot of good upcoming events coming up. I'll certainly share that via email in the coming week, but just wanted to let you know so you could mark your calendar for these events. All right, so I'll turn the microphone back over to you, Harleen. Okay, well, as far as any last comments, I guess I appreciate Kyla for this opportunity to go and moderate and your presentation really enjoyed it, brought back some memories from our construction days. And as you mentioned, we do hope that sometime in early April, we will have a construction slash, well, we're hoping that the first day would be a workshop based on campus and that the second day would consist of hands-on opportunity to do some construction and see us construct this high tunnel. And so with that, again, thank you very much, Kyla. And I appreciate everyone who went and joined us today for this webinar. Yes, very much so. Thank you. Good job, Kyla.