Day 10: Red River Research Station 

Written by: Abigail

We had the opportunity to tour the Red River Research Center and see their greenhouse. The Red River Research Center grows many types of tomato plants that they sell to the community and allow people to see and pick. The plants are all grown in the greenhouses in long rows of hydroponic systems that have small plastic buckets full of perlite that they use instead of soil. The perlite lasts for about 3 years and it is cleaned after harvest. Every bucket has a small tube that extends from the big water tank that they have in the greenhouses. All of the tanks will hold water, fertilizers, and various nutrients for the plants like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Their plants tend to take around 90 days to grow from seed to harvest. They allow their plants to grow to about 25 feet and wrap the plant around the bucket and encourage the plant to grow along the rows instead of straight up where they also put a stopper to help prevent anymore growth. After a bit of growing they will go through and trim off all the leaves at the bottom of the plant to help them ventilate the area in order to keep the plants cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The researchers will also go through and make sure that each plant is only producing 3 large tomatoes in order to keep the highest quality tomatoes possible. 

Overall they produce about 600 tomatoes per house and they have 3 houses on the property. The tomatoes will usually be planted in November and harvested in July where they go through and remove everything, clean everything, and replant later in the year. It's important to remember that as each plant is growing and is in a different stage it's going to need different phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen levels in order to stay healthy. Without this, especially at the end of the growing season, the plants will get speckling on the leaves and while this isn't necessarily harmful at the end it is still something that could damage the plants if it starts early. 

Due to them using a greenhouse they try to keep everything at about 75 degrees and they have to pollinate the plants on their own or sometimes they’ll put in a bee box to help keep the plants pollinated. The researchers try their best to not use any sprays to kill pests and in order to do so they use beneficial insects, like wasps that lay their eggs in the larvae of harmful pests and they will use a pirate bug that eats the larvae of harmful pests to keep the plants safe. 

Being able to visit and tour this facility was so interesting and so much fun! They offer a little more then just tours so I would keep an eye out and visit if you have the chance to see such interesting and educational place.