This episode is part of our “What Plants Crave” series, where Dr. Sabeh speaks with growers, researchers, and other experts in other engineers, growers, and manufacturers who work in controlled environment agriculture, to get their insights about the direction of the industry, and of course, what exactly it is that plants crave.

On today’s episode we’re speaking to Michelle Keller, Head Grower at Living Greens Farm. Michelle Keller knows and loves lettuce. Listen in as we discuss her journey from hydroponic greenhouse grower to aeroponic vertical farmer. Learn how she’s using aeroponics to simulate field agriculture and produce sweet, crunchy romaine year-round and using a fraction of the water.

Michelle grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and was active in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in middle school through college.  After Michelle graduated with a Plant Biology degree from UW, she also completed all course work in the Plant Pathology program from the University of Minnesota. From 2003 to 2013, Michelle was the owner and operator of LaBore Farms Hydroponic Lettuce.  In 2013, Michelle started full time at Living Greens Farm as Head Grower with accountability for research and development of  production systems.  This includes recipe development, system development, and production parameters for baby greens, herbs, teen lettuce and full size lettuce . Thank you for listening.

02:00 working in hydronponics and aeroponics before they were cool

04:15 The birth and uniqueness of Living Greens

07:30 Going from greenhouse to indoor production

11:00 Winter heating and venting the greenhouse

14:00 Experimenting with different crops

16:30 Aeroponics: Putting roots to work

23:30 Loving and listening to lettuce to learn what they want

28:00 Building the better mousetrap through in-house experimenting

30:45 Tracking energy and water use to improve COGS

38:15 Growing from a niche market to industry-changing entities

41:30 Being local in multiple locations

47:20 The Leafy Green Future: “We the Industry”

51:30 Growing 20,000 plants on 800 gallons of water!

55:10 HVAC: The biggest challenge of growing lettuce indoors

58:15 Should we manage the environment to VPD?

1:02:00 Yield and quality can respond positively together

1:04:30 What do plants crave?