 This is Julie Gardner Robinson and I'd like to welcome you to the Wednesday weekly webinar and our guest presenter today is Todd Weinman. He's an extension agent in agriculture and natural resources and he's located in Fargo in the Cass County Extension Service office. I want to remind you we have some upcoming webinars every Wednesday at this time through April 27th. Please go ahead and sign up if you haven't done so. I know I've been sending out a few direct links but that way you will get the reminder notes and so on. Next week, Tom Kelb will be joining us and he will talk about ten steps to a fantastic garden and also an introduction to square foot gardening. So that should be a very interesting session as well. Just a couple logistics. Everyone will be in the listening mode but please go ahead and type your questions in the chat pod. That's right to the left of your screen and I think most of you have found that. And Scott is sending us a little note so check out what Scott is writing. At the end of the webinar we will answer all the or take all the questions and provide you with answers and finally I will have a short survey at the end of the webinar and that links directly to an online survey. It will only take you a couple of minutes, I promise. This is very short but this project was funded by a grant so I'm asking you if you would please go ahead and fill that out because I need to provide information back to the funder. And we will be continuing to add more resources to our brand new field of fork website. So keep checking that out. There will be all sorts of things that hopefully will help you as well as links to entrepreneurial type resources. So again we have Todd joining us. His topic is using high tunnels to extend the growing season. And Todd is a horticulturalist in agriculture and natural resources and he has a special interest in high tunnels and I'm happy that Todd is joining us. So take it away Todd. Thank you Julie for that nice introduction and thank you everyone for coming. I know there are some other events going on at the same time today but thank you for coming to this. I'd also like to thank Terry Minich for a lot of the slides and help with putting this together. He's a University of Minnesota professor, quite excellent in high tunnels. Some of the high tunnel research sites in Minnesota go through that. We really don't have a lot of them here in North Dakota. I know that I'm going to leave out in Batno and some here in Fargo a little bit and there's also some people that are doing it privately for themselves, little CSA or consumer support agriculture type operations. As far as research, there really hasn't been a lot of it done here in North Dakota and so I have a lot of information here from Minnesota where they've done quite a bit more of it. What are high tunnels? A lot of times people will see a greenhouse or a high tunnel and think they're the same thing. They are not and through this talk I'm going to go through basically some of the differences and what makes one or the other. And as you go up into the world you'll notice that sometimes there's even combinations of the two but usually one person will be either one or the other. One thing with high tunnels is that they are somewhat of an intense growing type of an area and people have gone up to three zones earlier or later and eliminate considerable risk. Here in North Dakota we've gotten two weeks average in the spring and two weeks in the fall. So basically we have an extra month of growing on average which is basically to say it's huge. We can grow plants that we can't ordinarily grow or we can get tomatoes harvested two weeks earlier than we would have otherwise and that's very important when you have a business that relies on that. They resemble greenhouses in appearance only. A lot of times people will have in a greenhouse they'll have some of their supplemental source of heat or if it gets like a frost or what have you or you just want to crank up the heat and have it go through all winter. Also in high tunnels there's no real fans or tubes are forced to air. There are vents and I'll have some pictures of those and another big difference is the plants are grown in the ground. A lot of times in greenhouses they'll be on racks or hanging from the ceiling in pots but in a high tunnel the plants are grown in the ground. One thing and we'll get to some of the pictures later some of the crops that for example right here we're about to zone four but you can grow zone five plants in a high tunnel and even some people have gone to zone six but realistically I would say another zone without any problem is something that usually can be achieved. Here we change the heat, you get the heat a little bit earlier and it also stops the wind, prevents some of the harsher weather from getting at your plants. Like I had talked to you earlier four to eight weeks earlier production in the spring a lot of the producers that I've talked to have said for sure two weeks in the spring and two weeks later in the fall of growth. So in most cases and there are exceptions of course one month extra growth for your plants. Also there tends to be a higher yield per plant there's some more protected type of situation cost effective you're in the area. It's very similar to some of the square foot technology where you don't really need a lot of extra inputs because pretty much everything you're adding is there. Also many people like to do organic production and this is a nice way of doing it, natural disease control. You have a plastic barrier and it does open up of course but there is a physical barrier that is there for much of the time that does help with controlling a lot of windborne diseases, insects also. You control your water so if you put the water there the plant will use it. Sometimes if there is rose there's a lot of waste with that and cold fruit has been seen to be less with high tunnels. There's a cost involved with it and anyone who's doing high tunnel I always say try to find somebody that has one talk to different people who have them up. Not everyone does it the same way and there are things that you will like that other people do that you can use their ideas and such. This here is basically a pyramid of success or going towards success with a high tunnel. You work with your soil. Your soil can be enhanced, improved inside of there. Some of the people would like to use little tractors and will show some pictures of that. Your irrigation control, your varieties control. Everything basically is somewhat controlled or managed when you're doing a high tunnel by the person that's doing it. You don't have a lot of outside influences on it. Harvesting the markets we can get to a little bit later on. Here's a really simple, easy, small high tunnel. Basically some plastic pipe, PVC of some kind that's been in a U shape with some plastic over the top and boards holding it down. Extremely easy, very cheap. Not one that I would prefer but this would be a nice way to start if you had basically no money and really wanted to get started with this. A little more advanced structures here. You'll see a number, I've got a number of different pictures in here of different high tunnels and different structures with them. If you look on these, these have wooden ends except for the very far back one but the ends are made of wood and with our climate here it's extremely windy at times. If there isn't wood many times the high tunnel will just be shredded or ripped right out. It just can't handle it. You can get a little bit fancier too. Here they've used aluminum for the support system on the inside and they have a very nice framed end with a door for a person to walk in. And you'll also notice a lot of times when people do have high tunnels they also grow plants outside of them. Here we have one that's been rolled up. There are different types of motors and such for rolling up the sides. You can also do it by hand or crank it by hand. I recommend that. If you want to crank it by hand maybe talk to somebody who has one and ask them if you could come out and crank it by hand for a week for them they'll be very happy and after the week you'll decide never to do it by hand. Get a little motor, it's just the way to go. Here's another one. You can see that it's cranked up part way. And if you notice too it doesn't go all the way up. I'd say maybe four feet or so in a lot of cases is many times what the height will be. This one also has a wooden barrier or wooden wall on the side of the high tunnel. Like I said there's a lot of different variations of this. Here's another one too. You can see that they have wooden ropes where basically some of those support the striped ropes. They're also good for that. Here someone's getting kind of serious. They've got one after another. It's a nice business. One thing that you should keep in mind with this. Everyone I've ever talked to has had these. I said how do you do financially with them? And it always ranges from we broke even to we made profit. So far I haven't come across anyone who's actually lost money on these. But you know you'd hate to be the first one. And maybe they're not telling me the whole truth either or not figuring in time or what have you. But everyone that I've talked to has been fairly satisfied with putting out some type of a high tone. Here's another one. And that's a thing too. If you're not very good with putting together things like I am not very good at putting together basically anything. You can buy kits and those directions. And you can put it together from a kit. And so then it'll look really nice and square and everything will be perfect looking for your high tone. Here's just an inside picture of it. You notice that the sunlight's getting in there and you can see that the wind would be stopped. The sides have been rolled up and the doors on the far end there. One thing to really keep in mind with these is make sure that you've measured it's that you're if you have a little tractor that you want to be working in there before or after the growing season that it can physically get in. Nothing is worse than building one of these and then finding that you're about two inches too shy for getting a tractor into or out of it. And now you've got to cut or move or try to shift or lift or take things apart to get the tractor in or out. It's somewhat embarrassing and can be saved with simply shifting something over a little bit before you start building. If you look toward the top of this picture too, you can see that their event right there is a wooden door and so we're going to kind of see a lot of different types of ear vents throughout this thing. Here's one that's rounded more of a triangular type shape on the top, another round one. And here on the outside you can see they've got plastic down and they're raising plants on the outside and the inside and we'll kind of talk a little bit about the differences in yields and such for that later on. Now when you have your tunnel and it's ready to go and you've got your soil in there and you've worked it up, you take a look at it. You might need to add a little more organic matter or some peat moss or what have you but it's something that you can do. It's not an open field or you might waste some of it as you're adding it and here it stays basically. Here's some more rustic ones. This would probably be something like I would build where they basically got some plywood doors kind of held down with some rope and such and there's also not a lot of room for driving in there. A little more rustic, a little more frugal maybe in the building of this one or these two. Sometimes people add different amendments and I hear they put some straw. Sometimes they like to grow strawberries in the straw and that'd be fine to do one thing to keep in mind with these though. It's not recommended to have livestock and there's a question. I could get to that later or maybe let me finish this first. It's not a good idea to have livestock or cats or chickens or birds or dogs in there. A lot of concerns with animal waste when you do that and the waiting period for after your manure has been in there doesn't always correspond to when you want to harvest. I have talked to people who've had pets in there or what have you and it seems they've always had a great concern or fear that someone might get sick from their products. So it's best to keep them out and it can be done. I see there's a question here. It says how high do the tunnels need to be to get enough area to dissipate the heat generated? They don't always dissipate the heat generated so you have to remember to roll up the sides and we'll kind of hit on this later if not please come back if I don't answer your question. Here's another one, kind of a muddy area. If you look to the right you can see that the soil has been pulled out of there. And they've made this soil as the drainage on the inside but the outside of the tunnel is lower. Just another side view of one of the high tunnels. Here they've used wood, a wall on the outside basically a wood wall and that can be kind of nice too as far as plumbing this I think it's a nice way. Sometimes they just run the plastic to the ground. It seems to get into the dirt but if you run your plastic right to a piece of wood that seems to be a much more cleaner look to it. Here they're really fancy and they have a door for walking in and a door for getting a small tractor in. And like I said if you're handy or if you want to put it you can tell it to what you want. You don't have to do it the way everyone else does. A little more fancy with the vents. You can open up the vents on either end. Usually there's that and sometimes right in the middle of the top of the front center but they'll have vents that you can open also. Just an inside view of the vents. Beautiful crops are grown in these. A lot of times there's just hardly any dirt splash up depending on who's watering for you but the rain doesn't really have much of a factor with this so you're controlling the water and nice clean produce is something that basically everybody likes when they have these. He's not smoking a cigarette. It's a toothpick. A lot of people ask me, is that a cigarette? No, it's not. You can see the peppers are getting very nice inside. There are weeds on the outside and that's something you should try to control so you don't start getting weed pressure on the inside but everybody has their own plots for your style but those peppers that are standing right next to each other are beautiful and sore. Some of the other climbing cucumbers are. Here's some tomatoes just hanging in there and a lot of times people will grow different types. They can determine climbing, vining type and there's a number of different varieties that a person can use that are better for high tunnels than for regular gardening. We touched on some of these things too so hopefully it's not too boring but where you fall asleep if I repeat anything but I'm just emphasizing it basically. Good drain, raised soil. You don't want to have your high tunnel and after a good rain, you know you have enough water here to raise rice or maybe little ducks could come in and have a good time. You don't want that. You want it to actually drain away. You want to be able to roll up the sides and if you can't do that you can have a lot of heat issues and everything can die in there. Six mil ultraviolet treated plastic. I know people that use that or else they'll use a number of different variations of that. A lot of times it basically goes by the cost at the time when they purchased it. Cold temperature. There's some information that will kind of tie in here after a little bit to the next following slides. Cold temperature in 2005 through 2006 for example it's 17 days where it was below zero degrees Fahrenheit and the coldest day was minus 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Basically it's been getting cold and obviously when it's really cold in the dead of winter these high tunnels are not running but they do have that extra week or two or three or four in the beginning or the end and that does add up to longer growing season. With that extra protection of the plastic they have an unfortunate opportunity that for example in these years when it was very cold 2005 through 2006 even with extreme cold on the outside of the tunnel its rival in the tunnel was 69%, 2%, 79% depending on the year and that's huge compared to on the outside which you know here's an example of Gothic tomatoes 94%, 92%, 95% and a survival radius inside the tunnel it makes a difference. Another nice thing too a lot of people like to grow things that they ordinarily wouldn't grow outside here they have some English cucumbers growing on a trial and error system and one thing nice about the cucumbers is that they're not on the ground and they're clean they're growing them up and you're using a lot of vertical space that otherwise could be wasted outside. Here everyone does a little bit different here they stake tomatoes and the tomatoes will climb up the stake and such and just a very nice way to do it sometimes too many times people have plastic on the inside they put it in the rows or they put it in the walk pass or what have you it all depends on personal preference some people enjoy plastic some people do not. Here's an example of tomatoes that were started at the same time same brandy of tomato in the same place only one was in the high tunnel one was not and if you look inside the high tunnel the tomatoes obviously got ripe a lot sooner than the ones on the outside. Anyone who's sold vegetables before can tell you that if you have a two week advantage on for example you bring ripe tomatoes to the farmers market two weeks earlier than any of your competition you demand the highest price you're the one that everyone goes to everyone sees you as the person that knows what they're doing and provides good vegetables it's a big deal to have your produce ripe when your competitors are not. I think we've seen that picture already and it's just done a little bit later in the season and if you look too on the left bottom you can add different things in there sometimes people will put a little electricity or self-watering and such here's some I use on my digger to dig into the soil a little bit and work it out these are a lot of things that are four things that work with the high tunnel principal supply growth time, heat, light and stress in the northern climate the heat is probably one of our biggest concerns and the heat catalogs are basically an average they talk about the best conditions so if you order your seeds or your plants from a catalog and you get them and it's off a little bit it's two reasons, one plants can't read and the other one is that it's not exactly for the conditions it's more of an average, just keep that in mind heat a lot of them have different growing degree days and a lot of them have different temperatures they like for example tomatoes and peppers 80 to 90 degrees, they like that cucumbers and melons, 85 to 95 and the temperature duration is critical for eating harvest on a lot of these plants a little bit on growing degree days are units I know a lot of you probably understand this but just for those that maybe don't quite understand it basically growing degree unit in this class is worked out for the high of the days so let's say you've got 86 degrees today low for the day is 50 add those together, minus 50 divided by 2 and you get your number for that so let's say you have a mid-season tomato it'll require 1,400 to 1,600 growing degree days in late season, a little over 2,000 that can be a big difference for example if you get a crop or not so you want to grow a late season priority but just not getting a growing degree days outside the high tone in the high tone you're more likely good as an example of some different formulations on calculations on that here they did one where they compared the inside and outside of the tunnel inside the tunnel you can see that with the formulations that we talked about they were higher in March 281 versus 5 and these are cumulative so as these add up the more they get the sooner the vegetables will ripen and on the right hand side you can see them outside the tunnel you just start getting the same growing degree units that they are on the inside of the tunnel until you'll have a later harvest if you get a harvest of all sometimes this is a picture of Terry Ninich Terry's been working with a high tunnel type work for 30 plus years I believe it is and he's a great resource and a great personalist too and I like listening to him when he talks about his high tunnel work and research that's some nice pictures a presentation of beautiful pictures of fruit some of those English cucumbers they look very clean and look how clean they are they're not on the ground they're hanging up on trellises they're growing inside these high tunnels they do very well here's another picture of some of the growth of different plants that are growing in there during the season a lot of people like the high tunnels for a reason too as far as once they have control over the weed pressure in there it's fairly easy to control it like it is basically an organic type of a situation here's an example too where they did their first high tunnel in July 10th they had tomatoes harvested outside the high tunnel August 11th so a month later so in this case they had a whole month difference in the harvest of their tomatoes when you're doing this as a business it's very important that you are earlier and here's an example of someone that was a month earlier basically I think it's a similar thing with the cucumbers they had the question about dissipating heat yes they can get hot they can get so hot that everything inside will actually die a lot of times people you know and that's where I would talk with other people before we start doing this as to proper timing of rolling up the sides sometimes if they're rolled up too early or too late depending on how warm it is inside you can lose heat that you need through the night or you can trap the heat in there and basically cook your plants it's a little bit trial and error but what I would do is contact other people who have done it in the past and see what they say works for them for the crops that you want to grow not all the crops are the same obviously so you need to do a little research on that we control inside and out a lot of times people say well I'm not going to control weeds on the outside I'm just going to control them on the inside what happens is if there's any type of root or vining type weed that gets on the inside soon it starts to take over because you just somewhat ignore it or if it drops seeds and you have a giant seed bank on the outside of literally millions of for example lambs quarter or what have you that can be very difficult even though they're on the outside to keep them out monitor the water uptake you need to physically look at your plants a lot of times people will have oil and drip irrigation and several different types of things you still need to check it because there can be zones where the little piece of dirt or rock got in there and plugged it and now you have a zone that didn't get water for a week or so and you got a real problem and then learning how to properly prune a trellis is important also here they you know there's also the thing with creatures and this would keep out rabbits and deer and such but you need to know your environment if you've got a lot of jack rabbits and what have you this would be this fencing would help with that tremendously you don't have anything like that it's just an end expense but if you have it one day of wildlife getting there can be a whole season's worth of loss this is an extremely important thing narrow end against prevailing high winds if you put a perpendicular and not the narrow end against the high winds what will happen is many times it will just catch on a loose piece of plastic and basically rip your whole plastic or rip it right in half and now you've got an interesting situation here it's very windy and so we keep that in mind whenever we do this the outside air direction has little to do with cooling so even if you had doors and you open them up it's not really going to get in there to cool it you need to be able to open up the sides and also the roof vents the appropriate times for disappearing the heat otherwise you're going to cook your plumes here they've got plastic and they've placed it down and the soil is not the walking room but the plastic is where the plants are and the soil is the walking room and it's a very nice nicely done, very neat whenever you do this type of thing a lot of people say a crooked row you get more vegetables but sometimes it's hard to walk down a crooked row and so a nice straight row like this is something to really consider here they've cut holes in the plastic and started placing their plants there's a lot of different research that has been done on the different types of plastic I prefer what they've done here with the black plastic for the best results I think there are other people that say the blue or the red have better results and that's something that I don't know right now which would be better I'd have to do a lot more reading on that to make a decision I know that clear plastic is one that I wouldn't want to use clear plastic seems to be the black would be there you'd have weeds growing underneath there seems to be a really good germinator of weeds so I don't like the clear plastic unless you tap you could avoid it that would be the best and it's a little bit further along they've got the plants growing nicely now it's been a little time it's gone by and they have all these little weird red hoop like things in there and you'll see a little bit what they're doing with that but this is something that they can wow this looks beautiful I love this so they're doing a nice job here now inside their hide tunnel they've actually put little tunnels to even further along so you had a spring that was really cold and you wanted to trap the heat a little bit more or you wanted to get airflow with your plants the little tunnels many times are a type of a fabric that the air and even moisture can get through and so has good airflow and it helps with the plants absorbing light pushing it through just another little trick to do it not necessarily always needs to be done but every little bit helps whenever you're working with this type of thing hey see further on everything looks fantastic they've got the cucumbers growing high up right into the rough that's made out of the left are doing very nicely you tend to get a larger yield with high tunnels three to four times the yield over what's done in the field and that's very important another thing I didn't talk about but I'd like to at a different time or you can look it up yourself many times a person will need some type of pollinator inside there and you can purchase bumblebee packages someone throw that out as an aside you can order bumblebee packages for your hide tunnels just for pollination one thing with higher yields though you will need more nutrients you need to just basically play around with and try too much for nitrogen or other things like that will actually cause your plants to burn or die so you need to basically try things and it's best to do less and then add more as time goes on versus the other way because once your plant is dead you need to start over versus not I just love this picture when I see this I just get hungry another thing just a little hint for people that are growing or using these for profit is that you might like to grow banana peppers but if no one in your market likes to eat them and they like to eat ghost peppers for example well then you probably need to grow ghost peppers and so this little thing know your market whenever you're growing your vegetables but I just love this picture and wow look at that the raspberries there are fantastic and people say why would you grow raspberries in a high tunnel they're doing fine outside you could get varieties that are a little less hearty for here for example there's a variety a yellow variety of raspberries called A.M. that sometimes you get a crop sometimes you don't depending on the fall when the frost is now two weeks more protection of warmth inside there and maybe even more because of if you had sealed up so the frost couldn't get at all you would definitely get a crop of yellow raspberries versus the ones on the outside you could be hit or miss and you might get one every four or five years a crop so definitely something to consider different varieties and with the growing season is improved here they've got some strawberries just to keep them nice and clean not a bad idea one thing to keep in mind though whenever you have straw like that too you can get rodents so you want some type of a rodent control and I don't mean caps we don't want caps in there here's just a little sign that they have for their high tonal research projects I mean there's a lot of roof vents I was talking about and this is something that you would want to definitely open for example if it gets too hot and that's what the problem is with a lot of these that they get too hot and to cool them down you might have to somehow open that up if it's too hot inside obviously open it from the outside with a pole or even have it open earlier and that's something whatever you believe builds your high tonal to your own needs you'll start to figure out how to do that as time goes on one thing I want to emphasize is that none of these things are just because four people did it doesn't mean the fifth person is going to do it the same way and they'll have different situations, different problems and different circumstances as far as controlling things in there and everybody's high tonal here's a website that's very good I looked at this site every once in a while I wish that was mine but it isn't you ever seen this sort of very nice high tonal workshop or a workshop website and now if there are questions if you could ask I know there was some earlier but I'm not able to really do more than two things I want sometimes I have to stop to actually breathe if let's see if I can go back to this, how did the high tones need how high did the high tones need to be to get enough area to dissipate the heat generated many times the high tones I've seen, the ones I've seen are some of the earlier ones too where they were about nine feet tall but they've got some here that are 20 plus feet I would say that's a little bit extreme but depending on the size of it that's how high does it need I don't know if that's something I can actually answer with a straight question versus I think it's more like how knowledgeable do you need to be when you're doing this so that you can control the heat when opening up the sides and also the top when do people usually start planting in high tunnels in our area in this area here a lot of times you can go ahead and plant a couple weeks at least two or three weeks ahead of time so let's see that doesn't really help for an exact date but I would say maybe would be a very close possibility sometime in Lake May in many times it can't be exact either because you can have extreme weather situations where it's beautiful outside or it's so cold that nothing can survive so you have to kind of play it by ear but in general two weeks or three weeks earlier then the people would be planting outside so if you're a master grader of the survey Lake also will take you to a place where you can print a certificate for continued education credit okay I guess that's marvelous statement not a question is there any other questions there's so much on this type of topic and a lot of people like to adopt different avenues with it the biggest thing I can say with it is is that go to a number of different trainings on it I know there are extension publications Todd I do not have any for NDSU but I know that the University of Minnesota has some actual power points on their websites for high tunnels and they have some other just basically data sheets on varieties and old plans for high tunnels and such my understanding is that Botno has information on it but I haven't seen any of that I know that the University of Minnesota has a tremendous amount of information on it Bob Minich is very easy to approach if you email him he's easy to get a hold of calling a little bit hard to get a hold of him but if you look at his I'm just typing University of Minnesota not Bob but Terry Minich he'll pop up and just send him an email and he can refer you or talk to you directly about exactly what you're looking for as far as varieties or design or fertilizer and such for that a couple people are typing questions let me turn this down I think I've popped up my ears a little bit I'll wait for that the answer to Cecilia's question is yes, these are being recorded and we will post the archives for the series a little bit down the road no cash $4 does anyone else have any questions for Todd? I've been doing this putting on a high tunnel tape workshop and for about maybe six, seven years now and every year I'm learning more and more about it I've had Terry as a speaker for the last five years a number of different topics has been very, very good but like I said there's it's been a whole day on this topic and both from there but the biggest thing is doing it and trying it and then keeping in mind that yours is not going to be like many other people's as far as your environment is different your growing different things and just a number of different situations that you're going to be different also another thing before I forget you can check with your I believe it's Equip Program, EQIP I know that at one time they did a cost share with these so if you're planning on doing this either way or even if you aren't check with it and see if there's any money left with EQIP Equip Program with your I believe you know I saw a conservation district slash NRCS would have more likely NRCS would have information on that and it's a nice, nice thing to have if I'm not mistaken it was up to 40% maybe a little more of a paid for and that's just savings right there so something to really think about check with your local one in your county though and answering genius questions I really will yes we will put these online I haven't put them online yet because we're trying to run them live first two weeks and if you can't sleep this will be a good way to just listening to my voice just don't do what you're driving if you can't sleep just listening to me talk I'll knock you right out just ask my wife she can fall asleep as soon as I start talking about work she says out so this will be a nice organic sleep remedy right here Todd's a joker as you can see alright let me see if there's any more questions just one more reminder if you wouldn't mind filling out the survey please do so those are really important to us and then join us again next week I thought Tom Kalb was one of the audience members today so he will be our speaker and he's located out in Bismarck as a horticulture specialist so any do I need to print out the certificate to get credit for the continuing ed Todd you're a master gardener person it will give you a proof but I think all you have to do is write it down print it out? I'm pretty relaxed but you might as well print it out and then you can show me look how great I am kind of help me out later well thank you for coming and see you from there thank you very much