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Morrisville State College is working on a way to extend the growing season to year round.

“That means in the wintertime we have to extend daylight with some type of supplemental lighting and provide heat for that system,” said Dr. Ben Ballard, SUNY Morrisville.

And this is the greenhouse where they're going to put the system together.

“This new greenhouse here at our aquaculture center is going to have a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, also called aquaponics,” said Laurie Trotta, Director of Aquaculture.

Fish waste will be used to fertilize the plants plus the controlled environment will also help with some of the fish grown at Morrisville.

As the temperature drops, the tanks that are exposed to the ambient air are also going to drop in water temperature so the fish metabolism slows and keeping the water warm in a controlled environment allows us to keep growing the fish at a higher rate than we would otherwise.

Growing year round would mean more vegetables and more fish. The fish also help the growing process in another way boosting the carbon dioxide level.

As fish grow and breathe and respire like all organisms do, The CO2 they respire could actually be a benefit because the plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.

The key is matching the nutrient requirements with the amount of fish waste.

We're working with O'Brien and Gere taking advantage of one of the systems they developed, their Source Sentinel technology that provides real time monitoring of nutrient quality. In this system we'll be able to take water samples anywhere in the system and see what the nutrient status is and then make some decisions on the amount of fish waste or do we need some other fertilizer to meet the requirements of the plant.

The new controlled environmental agriculture system should be up and operating early next year.