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In: aquaponics, Atlantic salmon, Emma Hauser, Hixton Wisconsin, Kyle Woolever, Marie Zhuikov, Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility, recirculating aquaculture systems, Sam Heward, Sharon Moen, Superior Fresh

Sea Grant staff learned more about aquaponics from a tour of the Superior Fresh facility in Wisconsin. Here they stand in front of some Atlantic salmon being readied for market. From left to right: Sharon Moen, Jenna Mertz, Marie Zhuikov, Emma Hauser. Image credit: Kyle Woolever, Superior Fresh.

Superior Fresh knows what it takes to raise fish on land and plants in water.

The aquaponics business, located on 800 acres of rolling woodland and prairie in Hixton, Wisconsin, has been raising Atlantic salmon and growing salad greens in its indoor facilities since 2017. The business reports it’s the largest of its kind in the world, producing 1.5 million pounds of salmon per year plus organic-certified salad greens. 

It’s a big operation, and one I had the chance to tour in late October with a small group from Wisconsin Sea Grant that included Sharon Moen, food-fish outreach coordinator; Emma Hauser, aquaculture outreach and education specialist with Wisconsin Sea Grant and the UW-Stevens Point Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility (NADF); and Marie Zhuikov, fellow science communicator.

It was good opportunity for me, a newcomer to Sea Grant and the world of aquaculture, to learn more about fish farming and Superior Fresh’s recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). Wisconsin Sea Grant supports aquaculture research, including Hauser’s work in outreach, education and workforce development at NADF. Many of the interns NADF hosts go on to work at Superior Fresh—a fact evidenced by all the friendly faces Hauser recognized during our tour.

After pulling plastic coverings over our shoes (which required some artful hopping on my part), we followed Kyle Woolever, director of operations and a UW-Stevens Point graduate, as he showed us around the facility, which recently experienced a 60,000-square-foot expansion. He explained that the building houses half a million fish, all of which are reared in and transferred between tanks based on fish size and stage of lifecycle. Salmon are raised from egg to market size—which is about 10 pounds in just over two years.

All those fish, of course, require a constant flow of water. Gesturing toward the big tanks, Woolever talked about the water footprint of the facility.

“Two small wells are raising all of what you’re going to see on 50 [gallons per minute],” he said. (Residential wells pump between five and 10 gallons per minute.)

How does Superior Fresh raise salmon using relatively little water? The answer is their RAS, which includes high-tech equipment and monitoring to effectively clean and recycle the water throughout the facility. This water is also used in the greenhouse, where leafy greens further remove the nutrients they need to grow. The water then returns to the fish, and the cycle restarts.

Superior Fresh captures all wastewater from the production system by irrigating over 50 acres of native grasses and alfalfa, while operating with zero wastewater discharge. The grasses and alfalfa are cut and baled several times annually and are used by local farmers for cattle bedding. The business also uses other regenerative farming practices, such as creating a soil amendment from digested fish manure, which can be injected into fields before planting.

After touring the aquaculture facility, Woolever led us to the greenhouse, where the thrum of churning water faded to the quiet sound of plants photosynthesizing. It’s here where the nutrient-rich fish water fuels the growth of Superior Fresh’s organic salad greens.

Entering the greenhouse was an arresting sight. Rows of white rafts filled with lettuce, kale, mustard, arugula and sorrel floated in long tanks of water. Sam Heward, greenhouse manager, explained how plants make a linear journey from one side of “the pond” to the other. Baby greens spend about three weeks on the water before harvest.

The greenhouse is warm and bright and, we joke, the perfect place to be in winter. And it’s not just plants and humans that enjoy the summer-like conditions.

“It’s a perfect environment for plants,” said Heward, “which makes it also a perfect environment for [plant] diseases.”

The team is vigilant about watching for root disease and will change varieties or flush the tank if problems arise.

By the end of the tour, it was clear that Superior Fresh is working so that Atlantic salmon don’t have to be airfreighted across oceans from Chile or northern Europe—they can come from your local community—and greens don’t have to be grown thousands of miles away in sun-soaked states. In other words, they’re successfully forging another way to eat Wisconsin fish (with a side of salad).

The post A peek inside Superior Fresh first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

Blog | Wisconsin Sea Grant

Blog | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/blog/a-peek-inside-superior-fresh/

Jenna Mertz

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In: A Taste of Wisconsin Waters event, Bodin Fisheries, Charlie Henriksen, Emma Hauser, Henriksen Fisheries, Ho-Chunk Nation, Hoop's Fish Market, Marlon White Eagle, Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility, Preston Cole, Rock Springs Free Spring water, Sharon Moen, Steve Summerfelt, Superior Fresh, United Nations Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

A Wisconsin Sea Grant event held in Madison this fall celebrated Wisconsin’s water, from drinking water to water on which businesses rely for their livelihoods. These include commercial fishing and aquaculture operations.

A centerpiece at the Taste of Wisconsin Waters event featured a floating candle, cranberries and rocks. Image credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

This first-ever, invitation-only event was organized by Sharon Moen, food fish outreach specialist. She got the idea from conducting a needs assessment with commercial fishermen and fish farmers in Wisconsin.

“They told me what they would really like Sea Grant to help them with was articulating the importance of their industries to decision-makers,” Moen said. She incorporated that into the event by inviting state legislators and natural resource professionals. Two other objectives were to celebrate Wisconsin Sea Grant’s 50th anniversary and the United Nations’ Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture.

“The U.N. really took a bold stand on supporting local fishing communities and what they bring to society,” Moen said. “Certainly, aquaculture and fisheries in Wisconsin could be considered artisanal compared to some of the big operations.”

A Taste of Wisconsin Waters featured a water bar where event-goers could sample nine waters from around the state and vote for their favorite. Same for a fish spread table, which featured eight spreads donated by commercial fisherman and fish farmers throughout the state.

The favorite Wisconsin water was Rock Springs Free Spring water from a natural spring near Madison. The favorite fish spread was a tie between Bodin Fisheries and Hoop’s Fish Market. Both are located in Bayfield, Wisconsin, and used whitefish as their base ingredient.

An event participant samples Wisconsin water from the water bar. Credit: Bonnie Willison, Wisconsin Sea Grant

“People had a good chance to network with each other and taste some appetizers made out of the fish and listen to some speeches,” said Moen. “I was really pleased that Preston Cole was able to join us. He’s the secretary of the Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin, and then Marlon White Eagle, the president of the Ho-Chunk Nation was able to join us, too. So, it was really great to have dignitaries and scientists and fish producers all mingling together and to hear those conversations.”

Speeches were also offered by Wisconsin Sea Grant Director Jim Hurley; Steve Summerfelt, chief science officer for Superior Fresh, an aquaponics business that raises Atlantic salmon and grows leafy greens in Hixton, Wisconsin; and Charlie Henriksen of Henriksen Fisheries.

Cole outlined current challenges facing water systems in Wisconsin. “There’s a lot of places in the state of Wisconsin that people don’t have surety when they turn on their tap that they’re going to have clean fresh drinking water,” he said. “A lot of the circumstances are lead laterals in some of our older cities. I think there’s probably about 100 communities still in Wisconsin spread all across the state that still have lead laterals. And for children, there is no safe level for lead. We know that emerging contaminants like PFAS [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances] in our drinking water do serious harm where we’ve been finding legacy contaminants from firefighting foam.”

Cole also shared some thoughts on a “Taste of Wisconsin Waters.”

“I think this is awesome. For folks in this room tonight, from commercial fishermen, to researchers, to restauranteurs, people who count on that fishing industry, people who count on the research that’s occurring – I met a couple of those researchers this evening – and I think it’s a wonderful way to look forward by relishing how far we’ve come in the past and providing clean water and research around our water systems.”

Summerfelt with Superior Fresh was also impressed by the event. “I’m ecstatic that Sea Grant put this together to recognize how Wisconsin uses water for food and brought in aquaculture. Sea Grant has not only helped educate consumers about eating Wisconsin seafood, which is so good for them because there’s nowhere else you can get omega-3s, which are good for your brain and heart, like you can get it from seafood. And then, Wisconsin Sea Grant has also been instrumental in funding research that’s helped the technology develop that’s used in Superior Fresh.”

Depending on funding, similar events may happen in the future, and they may be open to the public.

Preston Cole. Credit: Marie Zhuikov, Wisconsin Sea Grant

Many of the outcomes will take a while to manifest, but Moen explained that one connection was made right away. “A thousand arctic char from the Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility that is operated through the University of Wisconsin-Steven’s Point, got homes. One of the fish producers, because he heard about them being available, came and collected them and took them back to his farm for growing out as an experiment. So that was a big plus,” Moen said.

She also said that networking among the event-goers led to site visits to research and education facilities and that she’s received invitations to host similar events in two other Wisconsin communities. Moen and Emma Hauser, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s aquaculture and education outreach specialist, recently met with staff from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to discuss working together to support the food-fish industry. “This happened as a direct result of the Taste of Wisconsin Waters,” Moen said.

The post A Taste of Wisconsin Waters first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/a-taste-of-wisconsin-waters/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-taste-of-wisconsin-waters

Marie Zhuikov