Farmer Experience Growing Vegetables Under and Between Solar Arrays
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EmailFebruary 26, 2025
MI Ag Ideas to Grow With website
Gina Thurn from Our Kids Farm shared her experience in growing vegetable crops under the array, in the inter-row spacing, and on the fence line of the array. She also talked about how they countered arguments to deny permits to build arrays because people said it “took valuable farmland out of production”. She shared how this has not been the case on their farm and how dual-use solar is one tool that can be utilized to keep farms sustainable.
The 2025 MI Ag Ideas to Grow With conference was held virtually, February 24 - March 7, 2024. This two-week program encompassed many aspects of the agricultural industry and offers a full array of educational sessions for farmers and homeowners interested in food production and other agricultural endeavors.More information can be found at: https://www.canr.msu.edu/miagideas/.
Video Transcript
Hi. Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to MI Ag Ideas to Grow With virtual conference. My name is Charles Gould, and I'm a bioenergy educator. Excuse me, with the Agriculture and Agribusiness Institute at Michigan State University Extension. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Farmer experience growing vegetables under and in between solar arrays session. I'd also like to mention that all Michigan State University extension programs are available for all people to participate in. I'd like to take a moment to thank AgriStrategies, LLC for their sponsorship of MI Ag Ideas to Grow With. Due to their support, we're able to offer this event at no charge to participants. AgriStrategies, LLC helps young and retiring farmers and agribusinesses with financial management decisions. Please note on this slide that every consultation that's scheduled or if you're just acquiring via phone, text or email, that will result in a donation to the Michigan FFA Foundation. Now, I'd like to pause for a moment and provide some context for this webinar. Many people are under the mistaken idea that it is solar or agriculture. That's not the case as we learned Monday night during the solar grazing webinar and as we will learn tonight. Instead, think about it think about solar as agriculture and solar working together. Ag and solar is not a zero sum proposition. In other words, lead solar projects with agriculture. As you listen to our presenter this evening, I invite you to think about how the information she will share applies to your situation, whether you're a farmer or someone representing a commodity group, a utility, consulting firm, local or state government, environmental organization, academia or some other organization. So tonight, we're going to hear from Gina Thurn. Gina and her husband, Loren, own and operate Our Kids Farm near Exeter, Rhode Island. Our Kids Farm is a five acre farm consisting of seven greenhouses and outdoor growing areas. They grow vegetable transplants and fresh produce for wholesale and retail sales. Gina will share their experience in growing vegetable crops under the array and in the inter row spacing and on the fence line of the array. She'll also talk about how they countered arguments to deny permits to build arrays because people said it took valuable farm land out of production. She will share how this has not been the case on their farm and how dual use solar is one tool that can be utilized to keep farm sustainable. Now, as she goes along, if you have questions that come to your mind during her presentation, please type them into the Q&A. We'll answer them after Gina is finished with her presentation, and we hope that we have some good robust questions. Gina, the floor is yours. All right. Thank you very much for this invitation. It's an honor. My name is Gina Thurn. My husband, Loren and I, as Mr. Gould mentioned, own Our Kids Farm, which is located on the border of Exeter and Richmond, Rhode Island. We are a very small farm. Next slide, please. So we probably would be considered a microfarm. We have less than five acres of land and only about half an acre of that is actually in vegetable production. We specialize in hydroponic produce grown in our greenhouses and also under around and in the inter rows facing of our solar array. Next slide, please. So why did we go solar? Our project began as a collaboration with a local solar company, Green Development to counter arguments that solar arrays on farms would take prime farmland out of production. There were a number of projects that were on the table in our town for various farms, and the commentary was that if you put you can't grow anything under solar panels, you're taking good land out of production. We don't want to look at it. We heard that farmers were just cashing out. Um, we heard all kinds of crazy stuff, some of which came down to, we don't like the looks of it. You're ruining our scenic vista. You're not doing anything positive for the environment. Solar arrays are devoid of life, all of this and a lot more. Green development brought us on board to conduct research and development for their company and find out what crops would be best suited for growing in the array space. Our array was part of our compensation for conducting that research. Next slide. So how did we get there? Our property is situated on the town line between Richmond and Exeter. And while Exeter did not permit ground mounted solar arrays by right, Richmond did for net meter arrays. So in the interest of there's more than one way to skin a cat, we put the array on the Richmond side of our property. It allowed us to install a small net metered array on our property, and then we could also conduct research trials in that space. The array was built in accordance with all local ordinances. We had to do it by the book. We didn't have any choice in that matter. Electricity was purchased by our local power grid, and we send it directly to the grid and then draw our power from the grid, balance the books at the end of the year. So a standard net meter situation. When we built our array, we built it to spec as if it was a miniature version of a utility scale array. So complete with fencing all the way around the edge, we met all town ordinances for height of the panels off the ground, spacing between the rows, et cetera. Next slide. So what we did for green was we did some research and development that we were looking at Hang on just trying to make my screen a little bit bigger so I can read what My glasses would help. Alright. So research covered not just the space under the panels, but the in a row spacing and the fence line, which was a little different from what trials at other places are doing. Our panels are all double racked. They're side by side. There's no gaps in between them. There's no pivoting. It's a standard looking array. So we worked within the parameters of local ordinance to try to create a framework for best growing practices in the array space. And the hope was that we could make recommendations to local government for adjusting ordinances, for making this space even more productive. Our research focused on crop type, location in the array space and the orientation of crops as well as profitability. We wanted to make sure that what we were growing wasn't doing it to say we did it. We needed to make sure we were growing a salable quality crop, that it was something that had market value in our area, that we weren't interested in raising junk. We wanted to make sure that everything we were doing was going to be profitable for the farm and that um we weren't taking away from farming. We wanted to enhance farming. You can see somewhat by the picture, this is part of the inter row spacing, where we had winter squashes growing and also on the fence line where we were using it for growing peas. Next slide, please. We tried to maximize array space and choose the most successful crops. When we started, we were looking at where are the sweet spots? Where are the dead spots? How can we make the most use of our space and use every inch possible. We trellised climbing crops on the fence line like cucumbers and peas and pole beans. We ran trellis from the high side of the panels of the racking to support tomato plants. So at the uppermost point of the panels underneath where the racking goes across the back, we ran trellising from there down to the ground and attached indeterminate and determinant tomato plants and tried to figure out which ones would grow best in that area. We grew shorter crops, like cabbage and celery and salad greens and Swiss chard and kale under the low side of the panels, taller crops like peppers, eggplant, broccoli and cauliflower under the leading edge of the high side of the panels. And then we use the in a row space for crops that absolutely needed full sun. Onions, leeks, shallots, summer squash, zucchini, winter squash all did best in the inter row spacing. So our goal was to figure out, you know, the best spots for each individual crop, the best orientation in the array space to get maximum crop yield, maximum salable crop yield, and ultimately maximum profitability for the array space. Next slide, please. So the majority of our cropping systems and our growing space on the farm was previously located in our greenhouses. We have flood benches in the greenhouse. We grow almost entirely in containers with drip irrigation and spaghetti tube drip lines that are put into each pot. We use hydroponic fertilizer injected into our water systems, so all of our crops are watered and fed three times a day. With a fixed rate feeding program. And then we also started to grow under the panels in the inter row space, the fence line, et cetera. The first year, we did grow in the ground. And that led to several challenges. One of the things that we ran into was that when the array was built during construction, the ground had to be compacted, and it took time and a lot of effort to uncompact that space. We were already set up for growing in containers, and the land that we had available was extremely rocky. It's all glacial outwash area in Rhode Island and at least the section that we're in. And we were finding that trying to run a rototiller under solar panels was not a feasible option. So when you look at my pictures, you see a lot of ground cloth, and you see a lot of pots on top. It's not to say you can't grow in the ground. It's just to say that you have to think about the best way for you to do that. Next slide, please. So some of the benefits that we saw the benefits and sustainability, our net metered array here covers the entire cost of our electricity for the year. Electricity was our second largest utility expense for our farm, a cost that's only increased since the array was built. The construction of our array made a marginally usable space highly productive. So on the left hand side picture of this slide, you can see some of what it looked like beforehand. It was an okay space. It wasn't particularly level. It's hard to tell from that picture a little bit, but it does slope up to the right hand side. It was extremely gravely, rocky ground. And on the right picture, once the array was put in, we had a fenced area, which is like every farmer's best friend. If you have deer or any other um, animals in your area that like to raid your fields. We have a nice level growing area. We were able to grow. What you can see on that right hand picture are gutters that actually have strawberry plants in them that we grew on the fence line. And then we grew under the panels and then in the inter space. So the construction of the array made a marginally usable space highly productive. The ability to dual use the space significantly reduces the payoff period for the array when you combine the crop values, state and federal grants and tax incentives and electrical savings. Now for us, we are a high electric user because of our greenhouses. We have seven greenhouses, um, on the property. And that was with oil heat that wasn't using electric heat. We were still running at the time this was built over $10,000 a year in electricity for our size farm. So for us, the array covers all of that, and given the fact that electricity has jumped price wise for us in the last six years since the array went in even more going forward. Literally, I paid $17 for electricity last year. So huge, huge difference price wise there. So when you take that savings, plus, at least for us, there are a lot of local tax incentives and also grant opportunities for farms. And then you take the value of the crap you can produce in the space. It really takes the cost, the turnover time to pay off that array way down. You know, you're looking at somewhere in the vicinity of a five year payoff period, which is for this size project or capital expense project is a really good turnaround time for a farm. Next slide, please. So one of the questions that was put forth to me by Mr. Gould was, what about some of the safety challenges? The biggest was remembered a duck going under the panels. Our panels at the low side are four feet off the ground. Now, this was the highest that was permitted by our local ordinance. Our high side of our panels could be no more than 12 feet off the ground. So that is definitely a challenge. If we were operating machinery under there to safely operate in that space, we have two things. The inter row spacing needs to be wider. The space at the end of the rows of the fence needs to be wider, and the panels need to be higher off the ground. We were limited by the fact that we had to work within the parameters of what our local ordinance was at that time. If I were going to do it again, I would look for some variances and try to work around that. The technology is absolutely there to raise panels off the ground. We do it all the time for carports. There's absolutely no reason that we can't do it for agriculture. Next slide, please. So some of the challenges that we ran into with the solar company, one of the big ones was insurance. It's very easy to insure the array if you own it. The solar company covered the cost of the insurance while it's under construction. But that gets turned over to the farmer upon completion. Uh, this is less likely to happen with a lease array unless both the solar company and insurance company are on board. So that is something that definitely has to factor in and hopefully change in our country to make it more feasible. We had a lot of utility scale arrays in our area where farms would lease their land to the developer, and they would get paid, you know, a lease payment every month for the use of that space. And the developer would cover the cost of the array. And the cost of insuring that array. That becomes a little tricky when you're working in that same space. So if you're in a farmer owned situation, you can cover the cost of insuring the array. But if you're working on a lease situation, there may be some challenges there. Next slide, please. The other challenge is working within town and state ordinances. Uh at least in Rhode Island, every town's ordinance is a little bit different. The state has some basic guidelines, but certain towns are more open to solar than others. Some of them have flat out bans, others have some allowances, others are more generous. But things to keep in mind when you're looking to build an array or what variances would help you out. There's always an exception to every rule. I'm on the planning board for my town, and we see people come through and they look for variances for setbacks or for heights of different things, and there's usually a very valid reason for it. Well, there is with solar, too. Letting the panels be raised up so a tractor can go underneath it. If we can do it for a carport, we can do it for agriculture. So that's a variance I would 100% ask for. Increasing inter row spacing to allow for safe machine passage. Safety is a priority. And if we can make the job safer, why shouldn't we? Increasing total allowable lot coverage for dual use situations. Here, we have very strict limits on how much of a lot we can develop and build. If we're going to dual use the space and we know that we need more space to do that safely, asking for a variance on lot coverage is very valuable. And then allowing ground matter to raise for dual use situations if it's not already permitted by right. Some areas around here permit ground mouner to arrays by right, others don't if we can get them if you can't have them permitted by right, can we at least allow them to be permitted if you're going to dual use this array space? Next slide, please. So really key, you need to plan ahead for your anticipated electrical needs and build an array sized to meet them. Even if you need to leave some of those panels turned off until those needs have been installed. Think ahead. Are you going to install extra lighting in a greenhouse? Are you going to use an electric heater? Are you going to add refrigeration to your situation? Those were all things that we attempted to do. Electric heaters being the key. I would love to get rid of all of my oil tanks, but electric heaters use a lot more electricity. And if you're going to go that way, you have to factor that into your array size ahead of time. You're planning ahead not just for what you grow now, but what you might grow in the future. It's easier to build an array of that specification than it is to retrofit it later. And then also talking with your solar company. You are a team, and they work for you. And prior proper planning is the key to success. You want to flesh all of this stuff out before any construction starts at all. You want to flesh it all out before you go into the town for permits. That's going to be the most time consuming part of this. The building of the array is quick in the big scheme of things, but a solar developer needs to think a little bit like a farmer. They need to know when your planting season starts. They need to know when they need to be done by so that you can get into the ground and be able to plant and not lose an entire season because somebody missed a deadline. And that is probably one of the most challenging parts of this whole thing, getting all of those ducks in a row, making sure that all of your permits are in place and your construction can happen in a timely manner so that you don't lose a growing season. Next slide, please. So here another factor we ran into was summer versus winter rates. We produce more electricity in the summer than the winter, but we use more in the winter. The problem is that winter electricity rates in Rhode Island are much higher than summer rates. So we added credit when prices were low and we spent it when they're high. And that discrepancy needs to be recognized upfront if you're going to cover your entire solar bill using your entire electric bill using solar. Things that we had intended to add on and be a capacity for with our array, we had to scale back because like electric heaters, we increased our lighting, and we increased the amount of refrigeration we had for storing produce, and we did some other smaller things that were smaller electric users. But when we tried to add electric heat, it way exceeded the capacity of what we needed vastly exceeded the capacity we could produce. So things like that need to be accounted for upfront, but that summer and winter discrepancy is a big piece of that, as well. Next slide, please. But then there's some really cool stuff about solar arrays and growing under solar panels. At the beginning, I mentioned one of the arguments against solar on farm land was this view that solar arrays are devoid of life. You've stripped the land, you've taken everything out. One of the things we need to understand is that nature abhors a vacuum. And if you clear something out, something else will move in. So one of the challenges we ran into our first year growing was the gap between the top and bottom panels on the racking, left a washout line. And it was actually washing out slings and the crops that we were trying to grow underneath. So one of the solutions we came up with was we installed a gutter down the mid line under the panels, and that channeled rainwater into collection tanks, which we were then able to use for irrigation, which in no way, shape, or form covered all the irrigation we need. But it did take the edge off. It let us water things in when we were first planting. I let us top things off when we needed to. Well, nature being what it is, the tree frogs in our area discovered those tanks and decided to use them for vernal breeding pools in the spring. So the tadpoles that you can see in the picture, ate the mosquito larvae. So we didn't have a mosquito issue. They ate the pollen, they ate algae. They kept the tanks clean. We found when we did water tests that the water in those tanks had the same low zero bacterial level as the water coming out of our well, as opposed to open river or pond water, that was a much higher bacteria level. And the newly emerging tree frogs populated the array space and helped control pest insects. So they kept the aphid population way down, which was really cool. So you can see the eggs, the tadpoles, the emerging tree frog, and then one of the adult tree frogs hanging out in one of the inverters. The inverters have little fans in them to keep them cool, and the adult tree frogs hung out there in the summer when it was too hot. Um, and then we also got to listen to a fabulous cacophony of sounds at night as the tree frogs would talk to each other. It was really cool. Next slide, please. Another unique way that we use some of our space was with growing strawberries, we had set up hydroponic gutters that we attached to the fence and grew our strawberry plants in pots in those gutters. They were watered and fed automatically. We could harvest them standing up in about a quarter of the time it would take us to harvest strawberries down on the ground level standing on our head trying to pick them. So that was another neat thing. Next slide, please. So the moral of the story and the take home message from me, you can grow crops under solar panels, and solar arrays are not devoid of life. We have had success with a lot of different crops. We have grown crops under our panels that could not be grown at certain points of the season. For example, early on, you could grow salad greens when it was cooler out in the inter row spacing. But in the heat of summer, they would actually burn up. Under the solar panels, you could grow them right through the summer and then come back away from the panels in the fall. So you actually got three seasons out of what would normally have been a two season crop. We saw that same thing happen with celery. Normally in an open field that's full sun, at least in our area, we would have really nasty celery in the summer. It would burn out. You'd get a lot of leaf damage from sunscald. It would be really stringy and gross. Under the solar panels, it grew fabulous. And we were able to grow that as a three season crop. So sometimes it's about managing where you put the crops in the space. It's tailoring your array space to fitting what you need and what works for you. And it's being patient and putting the time in upfront and really planning ahead. Flesh out anything and everything that you possibly can ahead of time, ask lots of questions. Draw lots of pictures, draw your maps, and try to get everybody on board. And if you have any questions, just call me or reach out because I would be happy to talk to anybody about what our experiences were here and the success that we have had growing in the array space. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that great information here. We have quite a number of questions here. I'll just start at the top here. Can you talk about insect pest control, disease control? What was your herbicide or your pesticide regime? Yes. So we do do some spraying. The bulk of disease control for us is mostly fungal and the use of fungicides, rotational fungicide sprays. We do a lot of biological controls for insect control in the array space, but, ironically, it was the tree frogs that were the biggest help because it was a natural way to have a natural predator right in there and they stayed put. That was the biggest thing. We do some spot spraying. We're very small. Our growing space is really tiny. So anything that we can do, culturally to reduce pest issues, we try to go that way and we leave spraying as a last resort. But I'm not going to say we haven't sprayed, we absolutely have as needed insect base and routine fungicide are the biggest things. So we have a number of questions about how large your array is. Yeah. Our array is about an eighth of an acre. It's about 100 panels, 21 kilowatts total. Our utility is a public utility in our state. Rhode Island Energy is our utility company, and they are the dominant utility company in the state. I used to be National Grid, and then it switched over to a public utility. I'm seeing an array space, about an eighth of an acre, so 21 kilowatts on that. So kind of a related question and you certainly don't need to answer this if this is something you don't feel comfortable. But John asked, I realize you didn't pay for it, but what did the array cost? I don't have an exact figure on that. Average from what I'm researching outside is for my size array, you're looking somewhere in the vicinity of $100,000. For both the array itself plus installation. So for my area, just to try to balance that out, we were averaging I tracked everything we pulled out of the array base for crop value. And we were averaging around $15,000 a year that we were pulling out of that space retail value. There are multiple grants in our area, some in the tune of $20,000 a piece, some that are smaller. So there were quite a few grants that could be used to offset the cost. Plus, there were some significant state tax credits. So by the time you factor all of that in, you bring your array costs down to a lot smaller. Plus, you also have to factor in the fact that we took $10,000 a year off of our utility bill. Right from the Go. So all of those factors start to add in. This individual asks, I can appreciate this research for a small personal property. There are concerns in regard to full scale utility arrays, ten plus acres, changing the soil characteristics. Since this research had potted crops, I'm wondering what the research and experience is with sustainable crops and soil safety. Okay, so initially, as I said, we grew in the ground, and the main reason that we stopped growing in the ground being the ability to cultivate the soil under our panels because it was low to the ground. I wasn't safe. So that was one reason. We also had some pretty rocky ground. But the other thing that we did was we did soil tests and we did water tests. And we found that there was no change before and after the array was installed. Uh, Okay. Does that answer enough if there's more to the question that I haven't answered. I'm happy to continue on that theme. I mean, I'm using well irrigation here. And some of your ability to do what you'll be able to do will be determined by what you have for available irrigation and water. But we did not see a change in soil characteristic growing under the array. The biggest issue that we had, as I mentioned, was the compaction of the soil and taking a little bit of time to break that back up again. Um, you know, that was the challenge there. And that's a message that we've been trying to help solar developers understand that putting practices into place before as the arrays are built really can benefit the farmer, whether it's pads or whether it's putting a sod down, you know, the year before. So there's a good sod to drive on, you know, depending on the soil type, it can take from one year to, you know, multiple years to overcome compaction. Yes, soil compaction is a definite issue. Yeah, normal frost heave isn't enough to do it. You have to have a way to break it back up. And that's where some of the how you build the array comes into play. Leaving enough space to be able to get back in there and work the soil, making sure the panels are high enough that you can safely travel under them are really key pieces to that. So, Clyde asks, does your utility limit the size of your arrays? Net metered in our area is limited to what you can use. Um, for utility size arrays, that's more limited by town ordinance. Each town has different array sizes that they limit. The larger the array, the more likely it has to go through an interconnection setup first and be approved for interconnection, whereas the net metered ones typically go right through the existing power grid. So the smaller ones, they don't really limit you so long as so long as you stay within what you're using here, the limit is 125% of your average use for three years. So they look back at what you've used for electricity, and that's where that determines your array size. Larry asked what kind of sprayer you used? I'm assuming it's backpack sprayers. Backpack or a tow behind Sebring, a smaller, you know, four wheel Sebring sprayer. Okay. Jake is asking, in terms of decompaction of the soil, a little bit more information. What did you use? How much labor, those kinds of things. We used a rototiller literally, I have extreme it's like a big garden space wise. I don't have a lot of equipment. We tried the rototiller after ultimately, it wasn't safe for what we were doing, and that was where we switched over to going back into containers and treating it as if it were a hydroponic situation in our greenhouses. If the panels were higher, now you can look at machine cultivation. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the bottom line. If you can get a machine safely under it, you can use your disc arrow. You can use your plow. You can use whatever it is that you're using on your tractor. But some of that depends on how big is the space you're working in and how high can you get the town to let you put the panels off the ground. Ideally, I would have gone up another three feet easily, and probably more, depending upon the size of tractors that you're working with. Do they require a fence in your area? If they don't, that gives you a lot more turning radius at the end of your rows. Can you have the solar company space the rows a little bit further apart so that they're measuring it based on how much space you need with your tractor? That's important. I really didn't need to work a tractor in this space, so it wasn't and I had very limited space to work with because I was also juggling, staying within the town of Richmond and not crossing over the Exeter line Exeter had already said no. So we're probably a little more cramped than we would be if we'd had more land to work with. Larry asked in terms of removal of plant debris, talk a little bit about labor intensity and cost. Of our plant debris we compost. So there really wasn't cost associated with removing to offsite. I mean, labor some of it is how are you setting up your system? We are emptying out. The first year, we emptied everything out, by hand. We emptied out pots, we weeded by hand. We removed all plant debris by hand. We learned over time that we could salvage the soil that was in our containers and we reuse it from year to year. So that was a labor saving method at that point. Um, you know, anything that we could use for composted plant material and break it down into workable soil, we used to replace what we had taken out. So when we needed to fill containers and we needed to top off stuff, it came right back into the system, and we tried to keep it as much of a self contained system as possible. So we weren't starting with new material every year. Um. So one of the things that really intrigues me is how you can use the fact that you have a green you have green technology on your farm. How have you used this or how would you recommend using this to market your produce? To be honest with you, I haven't done a lot of marketing because I was up until recently under a non disclosure clause. So I couldn't talk about what I had done. Ideally, I would like to be talking to people about and now that clause has been lifted, and I can, I'll be talking to people about the fact that I'm dual using the space that we're making the space work for us twice. It's not taking things out of production. It's growing right there that we have created a working ecosystem that, you know, kind of it's about selling what you're proud of and selling the research that, you know, for us, it's about selling the research that we've done and producing a wonderful Healthy vegetable crop out of it. We have a CSA program on the farm that goes year round. So we have and we also have a farm stand, so we have customers that come in and they see this all the time. And that's probably been the biggest marketing venture that we've had is people come here and they say, Wow. That's awesome. You guys that's what it should be about. That's what solar farming should be about that you can use the space twice, that they see tomato plants growing under the solar panels, and they see them bright red when we pick them. And you know, they know where their food is coming from. If I had to market anything, the easiest way to market it is to get people to see it. You know, if you have a farm stand, bring them in. Put the array where you can see it. Don't hide it somewhere. It's important that people understand that this is the future of farming. We don't have to take farmland out of production. We don't have to hide what we do. We don't have to put it behind a fence. Farming changes, you know, it changes in our greenhouses. It changes in the field. Our methods change when we have new technology, and the fact that we're moving forward and using that technology to help us stay sustainable, that's where we need to focus our marketing on. Using green technology reducing our utility bills, being able to shift cost burdens and keep a farm sustainable. That's where you get to target people's interest. They don't love farms. Everybody loves a farm. But they don't necessarily love change. And the thing that we ran into here was not in my backyard. I don't want to see it. Don't take away my scenic vista. You know, everybody wanted their Norman Rockwell painting. They want to see the rolling hayfield and they want to see the cows. But they don't understand the cost of that. They don't understand the labor that goes into it until the farm is gone. And then it's, well, why are the houses there? Well, we couldn't pay our bills. What do you expect? So, anything that we can put forward to show how we can stay sustainable and continue to farm and continue to produce produce that we're proud to sell and people are proud to eat and keep it here and keep it local. That's huge. You know, it's a lot of times it's about selling your story. One of the challenges we ran into with some of the farms here is private. I get it. Farmers are a private group of people. We don't want to go out and tell everybody what's going on. That's why we farm. You know, we like it in the field where it's quiet. But if we don't tell people what we do and help them understand why we're passionate about what we do, they don't get it. They don't know where their food comes from anymore. Oh, it's the grocery store. They got to see where their food's coming from. They got to see it growing. And they have to understand why we're proud of what we do, why we're passionate about what we do. We have to sell ourselves a little bit as hard as that is. Agreed. Let's go back to your relationship with local government. Where have they shifted their thoughts? Have they has there been any changes in ordinances as a result of what you've done? Have they has there been a softening of heart, so to speak? From the neighbors, yes, not so much from the town government. I mean, the commentary I get is, well, nobody's asking for this. And unfortunately, when they first started putting ordinances in, they put them in a way that, almost acted like a backdoor ban. Well, we're gonna help farmers by saying you can put in solar, but only up to this size, but the size they put it up to was just under the threshold of what a developer would come in and help you out with. I think people in my neighborhood see what I'm doing and they like what I'm doing, but there's still a lot of resistance to utility scale solar. Smaller scale, net meter type solar is much more I think there's more wiggle room there. There's a lot more open minded people. There's smaller farms that have seen how it's worked for us and want to get involved with that. So there's some softening on that standpoint, but there's still a lot of fighting left to do. Unfortunately, that's the bottom line. There's a lot of fighting left to do to justify why we need the opportunity. And we have to say, we're not gonna back down. And there's a reason why we're asking this, and we have to prove to them that it can work, and it can. Um, I see there's a couple other add on questions at the end. Vegetables directly under the panels? Yes, we did. The closer to the center you get, the lower the yields gonna be, but not necessarily the quality. Depends on the crop. Um things like Swiss chard will grow all the way across to under the middle, but you won't get quite as much in the dead center. Other things, you want to stick to those outer two to three feet under the panels. That's where you have the best light generation. Um, we tried tilllage crops like radishes, carrots, and turnips. We were having cultivation issues here. If you can get over the cultivation issue, you can definitely grow them. They're not gonna go under the dead center, they'll go under the outer edge or they'll go in the inter row spacing. Are there other Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. Well, to Clyde's point, are there some crops you want to try, but you're not growing right now that you think would have potential but you just haven't tried them yet. We've gone through quite a gamut of crops. We've gone through all the salad greens, all of your cold crops, like kales, chards, collards, broccoli cauliflower, cabbages. We've done all of them. We've done peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, all kinds of winter squashes, peas, beans. The biggest thing that doesn't seem feasible is your grain crops. Wheats, I have not come up with a way to do them in an array space yet. I've done artichokes. They were really cool and they will grow under the panels, under the whole width. We've done strawberries on the fence line. They did not tolerate it under in the shade. We've done we've done quite the gamut. We didn't go heavy to root crops, but we have done some of which because our ground wasn't great, we had to work with what we could do in containers. So we've done things like kolabi, we've done fennel, we've done celery. We've done different onions and shallots and leeks, all in containers in the array space. All with success in various locations. Um, carrots, radishes, we've done both of those. So pretty wide variety of vegetable crops. I think a lot of it is looking at if it's something that will tolerate partial shade to begin with, it will likely do well under the panels. The outer two feet on the low side and the outer three feet on the high side, you can grow pretty much whatever you want. Light wise. Might take a tiny bit longer. So one of the things we've done was we would do a batch of cabbage out in the inter row spacing and a batch under the low edge of the panels, and now we had a staggered harvest interval. So we had a longer duration for a crop harvest. Now, it's kind of think a little outside the box of how you want to use the space to get maximum usage. Things that would only do well in the spring and fall outside in an open space will go further into the summer if you put them under the edge of the panel and you give them a little protection. But Joe asked, has the research been written up, and if so, where can we get it and read it? It has not been written up and published for public use yet. It has gone through. It's currently owned by the solar company that I work with because they funded it. That said my contract with them is over, so I can if there are certain questions that you have, I can answer them. Great. So one other question about local government being advised of the financial advantages. Uh, I think they've been advised to it, but whether or not they're willing to take it on, are at least in Exeter, they opted to limit the amount of solar that went in rather than take the tax benefit to the town. There was that much animosity about particularly utility scale, not so much net metered, but utility scale solar had a lot of backlash. So even though they would have gotten tax money from it, it didn't matter. Some of it, we fall into the conundrum of if you cut a tree, that's terrible. But if you put it on an open field, that's terrible, too. And it's been a challenge getting around that. And that's where the smaller arrays that work within what you can use on site have a lot less backlash and have a lot better chance of going forward. They put in at least some kind of regulations to say, you can do it, and feel like this is if we're a little creative of how we fund it, we can make it be economically viable for a farm so that it's not that backdoor ban. Okay, there's no more questions. We've answered all of the questions in the Q&A. I've asked my questions. So I'm going to turn it back to you for the last word. Is there any last words of wisdom, things that you want to say before we close this session? Don't give up. Whatever happens, don't give up. If you have a vision for your farm and solar fits in that vision, you can make it happen. I'm proof of that. I had so many people tell me I was absolutely insane and crazy and you can't do that, and nothing will grow under an array. And that is absolutely not the truth. And you can make it work. You got to plan. You got to be creative. You got to think outside the box. But there are definitely ways to make it work. Thank you. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you as our guest tonight, and we appreciate the things that you've shared, your experience, your wisdom. I also appreciated that you're willing to talk with our audience and hope I hope that they'll take you up on that and that you'll be able to provide some additional information for those that want it. So this concludes our session. Thank you again, Gina, and thank you, everyone who participated and enjoy the rest of your evening.