Learning More About Hydroponics With Rahe of Sunshine Farms
Published: May. 17, 2024
WYKOFF, Minn. (KTTC) – As farmers prepare for the upcoming season one local couple is continuing their harvest into this spring by using hydroponics. Rahe of Sunshine Farms solely uses nutrient filled water with nitrogen and potassium to grow its plants. Owner of Rahe of Sunshine Farms Tony Rahe has a passion for horticulture that stems back before he started the business in 2022.
“I just like seeing the process of what you can do with nature,” Rahe said. “Probably the colors, probably, get me the most when I walk in every morning and look at the wall; I see my cherokee has this beautiful purple tint to it,” he said.
Rahe has a horticulture degree and took a break before 2022. Naturally, he was drawn to hydroponics for one of the advantages it has.
“I got out of growing flowers on golf courses back in 2010 and I wanted to get back into it,” he said. “The ability to grow three-and-a-half to four acres of lettuce in 320 square feet really caught my eye,” Rahe said.
Each shipping container has about 14,000 plants. (KTTC)
Rahe of Sunshine Farms have two shipping containers on site and most of their produce is grown vertically, but it all starts with the nursery.
“Every one of these containers has 288 pods in them,” Rahe said. “We put them in the nursery for one week with the humidity domes on them,” he said.
Rahe seeds them first before the humidity dome is placed on top. After that nature does the rest before those plants in the nursery are placed onto the sliding walls in each shipping container.
“Four weeks on the wall, five weeks we babysit and take off the dead...parts of the plant” Rahe said. “Six weeks it takes off all itself and 7 to 8 weeks we harvest,” he said.
In each shipping container they grow about 14,000 plants primarily with nutrient filled water. The nursery has a 40-gallon tank, while the back walls of the shipping container have 88 gallons. Rahe said it all gets recycled and gravity does most of the work.
“We use five gallons of water per day on average to water 14,000 plants,” he said.
Throughout the night red and blue lights are turned on to help the plants grow and thrive.
“And that is basically to stimulate the growth out, the rut up, that’s the red light,” Rahe said. “The blue light is for the rut itself so it can hold those plants vertical or sideways,” he said.
Red and blue lights at Rahe of Sunshine Farms helps the plants grow then take root in the vertical walls. (KTTC)
In the future Rahe hopes he and his wife can continue the business full time.
“If you can put nature and the right nutrients together you can create a beautiful golf course and a beautiful wall of lettuce,” Rahe said.