SEGMENT: FARM FACILITIES & AQUACULTURE
Myles Harston>LPL Interviews A-M>LPL Interviews A-J, Segment 9
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- FARM FACILITIES
- AgriCovers would build grain bunkers, concrete holding spaces about four feet tall, filled with grain, covered with PVC, sprayed wit CO2. In humid areas they had to have air movement on the grain at all times. Grain would keep for several years. Asphalt floors and plastic lined walls protected from pests. He doesn't know why the government was subsidizing grain, or why they stopped subsidizing it. The business was looking to other countries like Haiti and the former USSR to sell bunkers to. After the subsidies stopped they began focusing on aquaculture.
- AQUACULTURE
- Juan Delroute from Australia started AgriCovers, and Miles, Frinsko, and Delroute began working on aquaculture. Frinsko was working with tilapia, growing them indoors. Tilapia are ideal because they grow fast, taste good, can endure weather, and spawn regularly. They are native of Africa and Israel, sometimes called the Jesus or St. Peter fish. Do not do well when it freezes. Can survive in brackish water but thrives in freshwater. They are around 1 and a half pounds when harvested. Frinsko was a good friend and resource. The field of aquaculture was still very new and the schools had different ideas how to do things. AgriCultures was eventually purchased by Gary Ringer. The idea for aquaponics started when a friend brought in a nearly dead philodendron and Miles started watering it with the fish water. It restored the plant to health and it flourished. They started working on different designs to see how to grow plants more efficiently. By this time Frinsko had gotten a job in North Carolina. They worked with Dan Seelock at SIU, and Pat Foley and Denny Engel at Illinois State University.
