Hydroponic Feed Stock

US Rancher develops hydroponic feed

As many stories of innovation start, Dihl Grohs knew there had to be a better way.

That was about four years ago, when the farmer and rancher started trying to figure out how to grow feed without using expensive farmland.

He figured a solution could be found in hydroponics – growing without soil.

There were older systems to do it, but Grohs said they required a lot of manual labor. His goal was to automate the process.

He developed a system for his ranches in South Dakota, Idaho and Missouri but needed to hone it.

“I knew it was right. It just needed to be fixed, and about a year later I couldn’t stand it anymore,” he said. “That’s when the technology came in.”

A little more than a year ago, he founded HydroGreen Global Technologies, which is north of Sioux Falls. Engineers have helped automate his process, and an administrative team is getting ready to bring it to market.

“The system is unique,” said Grohs, who has 29 patents pending “and more to come” on the process. “It will be fully automated, no labor.”

Craig Livingston, whose background includes computer science and startups, is the company’s president and enthusiastic about the system’s potential.

“We use seed, water and light on a piece of equipment, and we can basically in a 6-foot-wide-by-32-foot-long footprint replace 250 acres of silage,” Livingston said. “And we can feed live, green, healthy feed 365 days a year.”

The HydroGreen system plants seed a half-inch thick on a film made by Raven Industries Inc. that’s placedon a six-level steel table manufactured to HydroGreen specifications by Westland Manufacturing. The seed is sprayed from above with a fine mist to clean the seed and initiate growth. After two days, a HydroGreen-developed process starts watering the seed from below.

“In six days, the seed grows to about 6- to 8-inches tall. One pound of seed results in 7 pounds of feed,” Livingston said. “So a three-section table would generate a ton of feed every day.”

The feed is healthy and digestible for any animal that eats grass, including cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, poultry and fish, he said.

“It’s quite amazing stuff. Usually, we grow small grains like barley or wheat. When you start feeding animals barley grass, they get healthier. It’s easier for them to digest, and it’s high in moisture, so they drink less water, and it tastes like candy to them.”

Grohs said his animals are thriving on the feed. The company has seen improvements in weight gain, reproduction and production of milk and eggs.

“You have to see it to believe it. It’s unbelievable,” Grohs said.

Research will start this spring at South Dakota State University that might help the business back up that anecdotal evidence.

Staff and students in the department of dairy science will study how dairy cattle respond to the hydroponic feed compared with a traditional diet and measure the difference in feed efficiency, milk production, milk quality and taste.

“We hope it increases milk quality or quantity or both and improves animal efficiency,” assistant professor Jill Anderson said. “I’m really interested to see how it works on the day-to-day and make sure it’s as easy as they say it is.”

There will be a system set up to produce the feed at SDSU, and a lab analysis of the six-week trial will be done later this year.

“Hydroponic feed … is novel in the sense that you don’t see it every day, which makes it exciting to try something new,” Anderson said.

The business plan calls for HydroGreen to sell the systems to farmers and ranchers worldwide, Livingston said. The hope is to go to market this summer.

“We really think we could change the way that livestock are fed, and not only is this good for livestock, it’s good for the environment,” he said.

Source: Argus Leader

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