(Trent Nelson | Salt Lake Tribune) Wednesday, October 6, 2021, in the Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona.
This story is part of the Salt Lake City Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identifying solutions to Utah’s greatest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.
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I am the Tomato Doctor nearby.
After more than ten years of tomato planting, I have become the first choice in the neighborhood chat group, and I have crossed the fence to ask questions about red fruits that I like to pretend to be vegetables.
"What happened to my tomatoes?" This is the question I get. This is usually no big deal-too much water, usually. The answer I usually refute is, "You grow them in Utah."
Utah is a cold alpine desert state and the worst place to grow these tropical fruits, but I and countless others are still trying.
Although we strive to grow enough sliced tomatoes and grape tomatoes to make the occasional dizzying Instagram post, a Utah company may have cracked the proverbial tomato planting atom.
The Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona produces 1 million pounds of tomatoes annually in its state-of-the-art 23-acre greenhouse. Not only are they productive, but they may be reshaping agriculture for the era of climate change.
(Trent Nelson | Salt Lake Tribune) Wednesday, October 6, 2021, in the Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona.
If you find yourself in Mona one night in October this year, please look up.
To the east, you will see the majestic snow-capped Mount Nebo. To the west, you may see a spectrum of purple light and winding shadows climbing up Changling Mountain.
No, this is not a Halloween gimmick.
"I really need to close the curtains," Travis Jones explained. Travis is the general manager of the Longvine Mona Greenhouse in Juab County, northern Nephi. As a resident of Mona, he has a certain sense of urgency about installing blackout curtains for the 23-acre greenhouse.
"I don't like to disturb the neighbors."
The lamp is newly installed. Cool purple LED lights are combined with hot yellow high pressure sodium lights. Travis explained that 6,800 new LEDs mean that 10 million kilowatt-hours of energy can be reduced annually, or equivalent to the energy consumption of 1,200 households.
The lights are impressive, but there is nothing compared to the seemingly endless green below them.
The plant germinates from the waist-high coconut shell and stretches towards the yellow and purple artificial sun. Coco coir is a fibrous natural by-product of coconuts and is regarded as a growth medium due to its water retention capacity.
"Obviously, this is not just a smart name," Jones said, referring to the company's recent name change from Houweling USA to Longvine Growing Co..
The greenhouse is divided into three parts. The first two grow uncertain (ie, they just continue to grow) round sliced tomatoes. These vine tomatoes climb along the kite line to a height of 10 feet. Once they reach the top, more ropes will appear and the plant will continue to climb-a treadmill for tomato plants.
At the bottom, mature tomatoes are picked, then the leaves and stems are peeled off, and the plants are wrapped around the base of the coconut shell.
"When they grow to about 10 months old, they are 30 feet long."
(Trent Nelson | Salt Lake Tribune) Wednesday, October 6, 2021, in the Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona.
Part of the answer lies in the upper light, which allows up to 18 hours of growth per day, and the light under the green canopy.
Water and fertilizer are filtered into the cocoa growth medium. Any water that is not absorbed will be filtered and recycled until "100% of the water is depleted".
Below the plants, you will find huge white tubes, like long party balloons, covered with large round holes.
"This is where plant heat and carbon dioxide enter," Jones said.
CO2 is carbon, which is the food or fertilizer for tomatoes. But where does it come from? To do this, you must walk to the next door.
Looking at the Longvine greenhouse and its neighbor Curran Creek Natural Gas Power Plant, there must be something that doesn't look good.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) On Wednesday, October 6, 2021, a large pipeline connects PacificCorp's Currant Creek power plant with Longvine Growing Co. in Mona.
On the right, Currant Creek has four chimneys and a long, huge horizontal pipe. This pipe crosses the road and is inserted into the side of the long vine greenhouse on the left.
This long horizontal straw is a new member of the factory and can redirect the emission of the chimney. "The large exhaust pipe replaces the first two chimneys," Jones explained. Although the greenhouse will not absorb all the carbon dioxide from the main chimney, it will absorb as much as possible-some for heat and hydraulic pressure, and some for doubling the carbon dioxide in the greenhouse air.
They will also absorb more carbon dioxide soon because they added another 30 acres of cucumber greenhouses. Although Longvine did not provide an exact figure on how much carbon the greenhouse captures, they also see greenhouse gas offsets because their business model shortens supply and transportation routes.
The capture of carbon from existing power plants and the ultra-efficient use of water and energy are not the end of Longvine's sustainable development.
Longvine does not provide food to remote corners of the earth, but provides food to Utah and Idaho. You can find Longvine tomatoes in the produce section of major distributors such as Costco and Walmart.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Longvine Growing Co. in Mona on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.
"Our high productivity means that we can supply tomatoes throughout the year in the western mountains," Jones said. “It’s not on a truck shipped from Mexico, and it hasn’t been picked for two weeks. So you can get a better taste, better flavor, and reduce your carbon footprint because it doesn’t take all your energy to Get it."
The greenhouse goes to great lengths to reduce the use of pesticides and fungicides. Workers are still confined to designated tomato rows, wearing clean suits, and passing the footwash station when passing from one greenhouse section to another.
(Trent Nelson | Salt Lake Tribune) Wednesday, October 6, 2021, a worker among rows of tomatoes in the Longvine Growing Co. greenhouse in Mona.
Whiteflies are the bane of tomato greenhouses. They lay eggs on tomato leaves and are controlled by the release of Encarsia formosa. Encarsia formosa is a predatory, almost microscopic wasp that lays eggs in immature whiteflies.
"Their babies emerge from the whiteflies, just like in the movie "Alien"," Jones said. Scary, but effective.
Longvine is part of the sustainable agriculture movement called Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA's innovations often give people a sense of science fiction that transcends "Alien". This of course applies to vertical agriculture, such as Elberta's Grov Technologies sustainable agriculture project, but it also applies to high-tech greenhouses such as Longvine.
Dave Chen, CEO and Chairman of Equilibrium Capital, which invests in and manages sustainable agricultural assets including Longvine, believes that Utah will play a key role in the future of agriculture.
Chen believes that as climate change creates an urgent need for environmental and economic changes, agriculture will face major damage. "In the next 10 years, we may see more technology entering agriculture than in the past 10,000 years," he said at the recent Utah summit.
"The question for 10,000 years is,'Where is your farm?'" said Chen, who is also a member of the Tribune Innovation Lab Advisory Board, "Because if I know where your farm is, I know what your soil is. What? What is your climate and what can you grow. The new question is,'Where are my customers and what do they want to eat?'"
Through closed-environment agriculture, it may eventually become meaningful to grow tomatoes in Utah and other dry and cold places, which might otherwise have conditions suitable for greenhouse cultivation.
Even without greenhouses, parasitic wasps and futuristic lights, I believe that the Tomato Doctor Clinic near me will not close down next year.
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