After the Santa Fe Community College, we were told to visit the Desert Verde Farm, an Indoor aquaponics farm. This is a full indoor commercial aquaponics farm that produces leafy greens and tilapia to surrounding high schools and a few restaurants. Dr. Neighbour started his farm 3 years after taking classes at the community college to learn about aquaponics. His entire system is connected to four 1000-gallon tilapia tanks. There is a separate system just for starting his seeds that is controlled by a timer making it an ebb and flow system. From the seed to harvest is about 7 weeks. Each week new seeds are started and rotated into the system. The plant plugs are placed into foam trays in the big troughs of nutrient rich water and are there until harvest. Producers are only able to cut the produce once before shipping, so Dr. Neighbour is looking to expand his production by installing a small food processing kitchen to make ready to eat meals for the community.
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