STANFORD, Ky. — Growing fresh produce vertically inside a greenhouse is more sustainable, efficient and dependable. And that’s how one company in Stanford is producing thousands of locally made products. 

Shubin Saha with Kentucky Fresh Harvest, has spent over 15 years researching and working within the realm of protected agriculture.

“So it just keeps going like a carousel and so we keep lowering down and we strip the leaves and as we remove the fruit from the lower portion of the stem and then we start growing vertically again,” Saha said. 

Within a few weeks, Saha says the plants start to grow upward. That’s when staff guide the plant in a different direction. 

“You see all this wrapping here on these buckets to give it a gentle curve. So although you see a bag here with a root system here, the top part of that plant growing in this bag is probably halfway down the road now,” Saha said.

Saha says this land used to be a soybean field, which has now turned into multiple controlled greenhouses and packing houses. “Every say 10 to 12 inches you’ll set a flower cluster and with these varieties that we’re growing we’re setting anywhere depending on the time of year anywhere from 18 to about 28 fruit on an individual flower cluster,” Saha said.

But she says their success comes from their precautions, from full body coveralls, washing your hands before entering the greenhouse, and walking through disinfectant soap.

“The yellow strips and that sticky tape it’s like giant fly paper but certain insects that feed on tomatoes are attracted to blue, certain are attracted to yellow and so we use those to trap some of the insects so there’s just like human medicine nowadays it’s Prevention, Prevention, Prevention,” Saha said.

Using research and data, they place specific insects like mites, and bees within these controlled environments. “We’re adding these onto the crop and releasing them and then they’ll crawl out and then they’ll start searching on the leaf looking for thrips,” Saha said.

Saha says it’s a tedious process, to maintain the controlled environments but worth it to see the rapid growth of the plants when put in the perfect environments.   

Kentucky Fresh Harvest says once they get through a grow cycle for each crop, they completely remove everything from inside these controlled greenhouses, sanitize and clean it before starting over again.