There’s a new addition near the play hills at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo: a brand-new shipping container farm, equipped with the latest hydroponic vertical growing technology, including blue and red LED grow lights with specialized wavelengths for leafy green production.

The newly installed high-tech horticulture house is the next step in CMZoo’s goal toward a more secure, autonomous way to source fresh leafy greens for animals. In July 2021, the Zoo established its first shipping container farm, and this second farm is a continuation of the horticulture team’s testing phase.

“We’re excited to learn this new system and to see what works best compared to our existing shipping container farm, which guests can see right next door,” said Julia Zoltowsky, horticulture curator at CMZoo. “This setup looks a lot different, and we have high hopes for improving our production and efficiency with resources like water and energy.”

Guests peering through the glass door at the end of the farm, which is a metal freight container, will immediately notice a big difference: the plants are hanging sideways on vertical panels, rather than sitting upright on horizontal shelves. There’s also a nursery in the new farm, so the horticulture team can grow produce from seeds then transfer them to the hanging grow panels within the same environment.

“The new system is fully automated,” said Zoltowsky. “We use a computer system that gives us a ‘recipe’ for each plant species we’re growing. We input the type of plant in each panel or nursery section, and the system tells us the unique light, water, nutrient and spacing needs, and then delivers those settings on a programmed schedule.”

Anyone who visits CMZoo knows lettuce plays a big role in the Zoo’s success in connecting people to animals, notably the 17-member giraffe herd. Guests can get eye to eye with the giraffe and hand-feed them lettuce every day – whether they’re in their barn or out in their yards – for $3 per lettuce bundle, or $5 for two bundles.

It fluctuates throughout the year, but on average, the Zoo uses more than 3,500 heads of romaine lettuce per month for animal diets. It’s a small part of the giraffes’ diet, but it’s a huge part of the guest experience.

After a satisfactory testing period, the long-term plan is to purchase additional shipping container farms, which will be located in a renovated guest entryway and complement a renovated giraffe habitat. With processes fine-tuned and more farms in place, the Zoo hopes to be able to source approximately 50 percent of the lettuce for its giraffe feeding experience. Even longer term, the Zoo hopes to grow 80 percent of all fresh produce for its animals in farms like this one.

The testing phase allows the horticulture team to learn the high-tech programs, controlled by an iPad on-site and through remote surveillance and software off-site. It will also give them a chance to make sure the ‘recipes’ for each plant are really working, and that the equipment is reliable. There’s a lot to test.

“Part of each plant’s recipe for success includes optimal lighting settings,” said Zoltowsky. “The horticulture team can control the lighting, watering and nutrients remotely, and thanks to cameras inside the shipping container, we can check on the plants without even entering the farm. When things are this high-tech, we anticipate some glitches, but everything is going really smoothly so far.”

At the end of the December, the farm’s first seedlings were moved over to the grow panels, so the first test harvest is well underway. Once the plants are big enough to leave the nursery, they’re moved to a hanging panel which holds the plants sideways with sponges and wicking strips made of thick felt. The plants are held in place by strips of sponge. The panels drip water onto wicking strips that reach the plants’ roots. The plants absorb the water and nutrients that drip down each panel onto the felt wicking strips. At the bottom of the panel, excess water is collected and moved back through the system.

The horticulture team enters data into the computerized system like when seedlings are planted or when they are transferred to a grow panel. The idea is that the system does the rest, including directing the team to harvest on specific dates. The farm has a dedicated Ethernet system and back-up power, so a power or internet outage shouldn’t impact the plants.

“We can see a ton of information through the system, which will hopefully help us be most efficient with our resources,” said Zoltowsky. “Hydroponic growing means you grow plants in water, without soil, so you have more autonomy over how much nutrients go into a plant.”

When plants grow in the ground, farmers work to provide the perfect nutrient balance, which is difficult because there are nutrients in the ground, nutrients in the soil added to the ground and nutrients added throughout the growing process.

“You can test the soil, but it’s hard to find a balance that allows you to grow the plant with exactly what it needs,” said Zoltowsky. “This makes it simple to know exactly what the plant is eating, and that’s how we know our animals are eating safe and healthy produce – because we grew it ourselves.”

The original shipping container farm will continue to be tested. Once the team masters the new shipping container farm, the plan is to dedicate it to lettuce production while the original farm allows them to continue experimenting with growing herbs, browse and other parts of animals’ diets.

“We think we can produce about 3,960 heads of lettuce per month once we’re up and running,” said Zoltowsky. “We want to start slowly while we’re learning this technology, the computer system, and getting new staff on board. We have invested a lot of time and energy into researching the best system for us, and we’re excited to share it with our visitors.”

Guests can see the new and original shipping container farms near the play hills, across from the Grizzly Grill, at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

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Next time you’re exploring downtown Colorado Springs near the brand-new playground in Acacia Park, look down! You’ll see Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s logo on a storm drain cover on the southwest corner of E. Platte Ave. and N. Tejon St.

The CMZoo-branded drain cover is neat, but what’s underneath is the real interest: a special filter that catches debris. CMZoo members funded the installation of three drain filters that will each prevent around 20 pounds of waste from getting to Fountain Creek per month. There’s one member-funded filter underneath the CMZoo-branded manhole and two others around the city.

In March, CMZoo members voted in the annual Member Conservation Vote to support this effort for $10,873, which funded three drain filters that are already hard at work protecting our city’s waterways and the wildlife that depends on them.

“The mesh nets catch litter and debris that washes into the drains from the street, and the City cleans them out every six weeks or so,” said Nicole Chaney, CMZoo conservation and sustainability coordinator. “We’re playing part of a much larger effort led by the City, and our three filters alone will capture around 720 pounds of pollution per year before it reaches Fountain Creek. Imagine the impact we will make combined with the rest of the filters the City and other partners are installing. We’re protecting our local ecosystems from multiple tons of waste negatively impacting them, and our Zoo members should be proud.”

To help keep trash and debris from washing into Fountain Creek, the City of Colorado Springs Stormwater Enterprise Department partnered with Frog Creek Partners and launched a program piloting this special storm drain filtration device, called the Gutter Bin, in July 2019. This pilot study was a success, and in August 2020, the City purchased six more Gutter Bins. Since then, with support from community partners like CMZoo, the City continues to install the drain filters around town. There are currently 31 filters in place.

“Our members voted this the number one project they wanted to support this year,” said Chaney. “We’re thrilled they want to prioritize local water conservation work, and that we live in a city that makes these opportunities possible for us.”

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In July, we told you about the new shipping container farm growing produce for animals at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Since then, CMZoo’s horticulture team has been working through challenges and growing their knowledge, along with lots of lettuce.

Last month, they harvested their first test yield of romaine lettuce for CMZoo’s giraffe herd!

“They ate it up!,” said Denny Patton, senior horticulturist at CMZoo. “After so many months of trial and error, testing, failing, and trying again, it was really cool to see the animals enjoying this produce that we’ve worked so hard to provide.”

Like every Colorado gardener knows, farming in The Centennial State is no easy feat. Using a complex, year-round growing system like this one requires commitment, patience and ongoing education.

“We’re learning so much,” said Patton. “I don’t think any of us thought we’d be programming computers and testing water’s oxygen levels in this role. We love this project. It’s a challenging and rewarding adventure.”

It’s hard to find a project much greener than this. The system is energy-, water- and space-efficient. Because the growing system’s shell was a freezer shipping container in its previous life, it’s heavily insulated. That will protect the plants from Colorado’s extreme temperature ranges, and allow the team to grow produce year-round.

The hydroponic lettuce growing system inside the container is one of the most efficient ways to grow lettuce – and as anyone who has visited our 17-member giraffe herd knows, they go through a lot of lettuce. On average, the Zoo uses more than 3,500 heads of romaine lettuce per month. Romaine lettuce is a small part of the giraffes’ diet, but it’s a huge part of our guests’ experience. The long-term goal is to grow about 55% of the Zoo’s lettuce using systems like this one, by expanding the number of shipping container farms at the Zoo.

The team is learning through trial and error. They’re testing how often they need to replace the water in the hydration tanks, which kinds of seeds grow well, how the automatic climate controls work (and don’t!), and how they could potentially improve growing conditions by altering the climate and nutrients in the system depending on the plants’ stage of development. That’s down the line, though, and only if this testing phase is deemed successful.

“Right now, we can grow about 2,500 plants at a time,” said Patton. “We’re testing how to make this as energy-efficient and water-conservative as possible. We’re even looking into different grow racks, because we might be able to double the number of plants we can grow at once by shuffling around some of the shelving.”

The single shipping container farm should produce about an acre’s worth of lettuce using only 40 gallons of water per day. The system also uses a dehumidifier to capture excess water from the air and filter it back into the watering reservoirs. The ebb-and-flow hydroponic system uses less than a typical shower to fuel hundreds of heads of lettuce.

“We’re planting on a weekly schedule,” said Patton. “On any given week, you’ll see brand-new seedlings, growing heads of lettuce and mature lettuce, ready to be fed to our animals. It’s a constant cycle, which we hope will eventually reduce the Zoo’s dependence on outside food sources.”

The team’s commitment to mastering this art-and-science project is paying off. They’re producing about 230 heads of lettuce a week – that’s between 30 and 50 pounds – for CMZoo’s animals, at a 90 percent success rate. Having nailed down a successful growing plan for romaine lettuce, the team is expanding the menu. They are also growing kale, which was a treat for our orangutans recently.

“The orangutans’ keepers said they didn’t usually eat the store-bought kale, but they gobbled our Zoo-grown kale right up,” said Patton. “I don’t think there’s a better compliment than that.”

Lettuce and kale aren’t the only things growing – much to our animals’ delight.

“Browse is a huge part of our animals’ diets, but its availability is limited in our state – especially in the winter months,” said Patton. “When you come and peek through the shipping container’s window, you’ll see some tiny sticks in there. We’re attempting to grow our own tree branches and leaves through propagation. We did a batch of native coyote willow for our wallabies, and they loved it!”

The horticulture team will continue testing the efficiency of the growing system, and sharing the fruits of their labor with CMZoo’s animals. Guests are welcome to check out the project, next to the carousel, on their next visit.

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