Students keep local restaurant flush with fresh lettuce, greens

McCook High School students in the FFA program stand with boxes ready to fill with produce, grown from the aeroponic tower gardens behind them in the FFA classroom. Shown from left are Ellie Jarecke, McCook FFA president, Joslyn Dwyer, Paige Bopp, Savannah Schafer, ag instructor/FFA advisor and Baylor Winters, greenhouse manager.

Lorri Sughroue/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — A recent national romaine lettuce recall was no problem for a local restaurant, thanks to the McCook High School FFA chapter.

Adam Siegfried, owner of Coppermill Steakhouse in McCook, has been buying fresh produce, including kale, lettuce and herbs like basil, that FFA and horticulture students grow in a new high-tech indoor garden.

He was first approached by the McCook FFA chapter about a month ago and said he jumped at the chance. Now, he can take all they can grow.

Siegfried sees it as a win-win. “I love fresh produce and it’s a great opportunity to partner with local high school kids,” he said. Siegfried said he also gets lettuce shipped from California and Arizona but really likes the “freshness factor” when it’s locally grown.

Money from the produce sales goes back to the local MHS FFA Chapter. Different varieties of lettuce, kale and other produce are grown by the students using 12, six-foot tall, vertical aeroponic tower gardens. The towers are surrounded by LED lights and roots from the plants dangle inside. Water infused with nutrients is pumped from the bottom of each tower to the top and trickles down inside the tower from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m. daily, constantly recycling.

The towers were first purchased last year and this was the first time they were all put to the test. The past semester was a “learning experience,” as MHS ag instructor/FFA advisor Savannah Schafer put it, such as getting PH levels correct.

Students are hands-on from the very beginning, germinating seeds under lights, transferring the seedlings to pockets in the towers and monitoring growth. Each tower has 28 pockets and by the end of the growing season, students had a bumper crop, harvesting heads of lettuce almost every day, Shafer said.

The towers are dormant now, shut down for the upcoming Christmas break, but plans are already being made for a gang-buster season starting in January.

Barring any PH spikes or leaking towers, “We have a fairly good grasp on it now and we’re prepared for next semester,” said Baylor Winters, greenhouse manager of the towers. Winters, who’s been the contact person for Siegfried, said he’s using this experience not to go into botany but rather, the people skills needed in the business industry he plans to pursue after high school.

Another McCook eatery has expressed interest in buying from the group and from there, the students would like to sell produce to other local businesses as well.

They already have a loyal customer in Siegfried. “ As long as they provide it, I’ll keep using it,” he said.