He’s Growing Bananas In Saskatchewan

He’s Growing Bananas In Saskatchewan BUILDINGS New Techniques Dean Sopher is bringing the tropics to central Saskatchewan Canada He raises tropical fruit all winter long After doing extensive research on other greenhouse projects the former home builder built a 3 000-sq ft greenhouse for summer and winter use on his farm “I had the relevant skills and knew about solar power and calculating the sun’s angle in northern regions so I went ahead and built one ” says Sopher The all-weather greenhouse is better insulated than a standard house with R60 insulation in the roof and R48 in the walls Insulation is also placed deep underground to keep frost from creeping in The south face consists of glazed 8-mm twin wall polycarbonate placed on 2 by 6-in framing with the glass glazed only where the sun hits Dark concrete and thermal mass water tanks store the sun’s energy by day and release it for heat during cold winter nights “Being so far north my specific design is for our latitude and sun angle The winter solstice goes down to 14 degrees while the summer solstice is 63 degrees so there’s no sense in having glazing on the roof when all the heat loss is in the back wall If I did one in North Dakota Arizona or other parts of the world there would be different modifications to the structure Here it’s built exactly for the sun’s local influence ” Sopher says The climate in the greenhouse is somewhere between Tropical and Mediterranean and supports numerous tropical plants and fruit including two types of bananas three orange varieties figs guava lemons limes ginger passion fruit eucalyptus plants and grapefruit He’s expecting a few hundred pounds of oranges this year and 300 plus bananas Ten 250-gal gravity-fed sun-heated rainwater tanks deliver water for the plants but also house tropical tilapia fish “They’re black tanks so in the winter the sun keeps them warm as all the water is a thermal mass ” Sopher says “I fertilize my plants with the dirty fish water when I do changeovers so I don’t have a fertilizer cost ” Due to the sun’s angle in summer it’s cooler in the greenhouse than outdoors With tropical fruits he needs the temperature to stay above 10 degrees C in the winter so he uses a small amount of supplemental natural gas and wood stove heat His total increase in utility costs for using extra electricity and natural gas on the coldest nights was $800 for the entire winter Operational costs are about $1 000 per year Sopher used repurposed material cull lumber and cast-off insulation to build the greenhouse and estimates he spent approximately $60 000 not including labor working part-time on the construction over 2 1/2 years The greenhouse already provides plenty of produce for his extended family In the future he plans to sell fresh tropical produce direct to consumers He encourages interested parties to check out his free YouTube channel for more detailed information Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Dean Sopher arkopia@hotmail com; www arkopia ca; YouTube: Arkopia

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