ArchivesStudents from Rio Rico High School were shoveling gravel into wheelbarrows recently while others raked the piles smooth on the floor of two new greenhouses on the east side of Interstate 19, just south of the Peak Canyon exit. Sweaty brows didn’t distinguish their smiles as visions of the tomatoes and hanging baskets filled with flowers they would soon be growing filled their heads.
 "It's good exercise for the muscles," said Rio Rico High School FFA Club Secretary Leslie Carranza, right, as she and the club's president Daniel Vadillo work with other agriculture science students from the program to spread gravel in the school district's new greenhouses. Photo / Mary Donnelly |
Carranza is one of 70 students in Rio Rico enrolled in the ag program that not only builds muscles but also prepares students on career paths into that field. After four years in the district’s program students such as Carranza can step into a job after high school or continue their education with knowledge already in hand, said Ag Science Instructor Adelaida McLaughlin.
Set on a 200-acre expanse of land that was once a cardboard recycling operation, the two new greenhouses will have lush green plants that McLaughlin and the students hope will adorn residents’ patios and produce plump, red tomatoes for family dinner tables. The students’ brains will be filled with knowledge on growing, caring for and marketing the fruits of their labors.
One of the greenhouses will be used exclusively for hydroponics (growing plants in water without soil) production, according to McLaughlin, who recently completed an extensive training workshop in hydroponics at Crop King in Pennsylvania. “There is a high demand for hydroponics workers out there,” she said. “When the kids learn how to do this they can almost be assured a job in the field when they graduate. Growing plants in water is the wave of the future.”
The second greenhouse will be used by 4th-year students to grow bedding plants such as geraniums and petunias in the more traditional method using soil, said McLaughlin. Starting from seeds or cuttings the students will learn all the propagation, fertilization, irrigation and growing skills needed to successfully produce flowers for hanging baskets, she said. The hanging baskets will be sold to area residents.
“It’s all hands on and the kids do everything,” said McLaughlin. “These kids aren’t afraid of hard work and they are hungry to learn.”
Just east of the greenhouses more land is being prepared by the students for planting eight 9-foot-by-9-foot raised beds. Teams of students will plant the beds with crops of their choices deciding on what to plant, when to plant it, how to water and fertilize it and when the crop is ready to harvest. McLaughlin has a vision for the future of a farm, complete with animals and plowed fields, on the district’s land. The existing mobile home is to become a mobile classroom with a portion of the space to be shared by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office as a sub-station.
The two new greenhouses cost the district approximately $134,000 to construct, according to Eleanore Rankin, career and technical education director for the district. Those funds were part of the capital outlay funds earmarked for new construction approved by voters last year.
Money for tools, equipment, irrigation systems, soil, seeds and everything else the students need for the learning process comes from a federal Perkins Grant which the district receives annually based on the number of students who are enrolled in career technical programs, she said. Those funds are subsidized by a state Priority Grant. The agriculture and culinary arts are new programs and will most likely receive the biggest allocations of the approximately $100,000 in grant monies this year to get them off the ground, said Rankin.
Private and corporate donations also help, said Rankin. “But it is amazing how much these projects cost when you start buying shovels and hand tools and pots and pans.” She said that if voters say “no” to allow the district to join the Joint Technological District (JTED) on Nov. 7 “we’ll be knocking on a lot more doors for help.”
Back at the Rio Rico High School two smaller greenhouses are a in operation for aquaponics (fish raising) classrooms. Inside the smaller greenhouses two round black-plastic tub-like tanks hold more than 1,000 young tilapia fish. The freshman students, referred to as “green hands,” are in charge of raising them into marketable fish weighing in at eight to 10 pounds.
This is the third year for the project but the first year that the students will compete in the state FFA competition to prove their efficiency in all parts of the profession from feeding to breeding (each female can produce as many as 1,000 eggs, which she holds in her mouth until they hatch) to filleting the fish for market, said McLaughlin.
Once the fast growing fish at the high school reach market size “ in six to eight months “ they will be sold to area residents, she said. Eventually there will be five tanks of tilapia at the school.
McLaughlin said that two students from last year are starting tilapia-raising farms at their homes as past of their FFA supervised agricultural experience.
She regularly visits students’ homes helping them with projects ranging from chicken production to horse care. FFA and the school’s agriculture program operate hand in hand, McLaughlin said. Most of the students want careers in some aspect of agriculture whether it is raising and caring for animals or growing plants, she said.
Daniel Vadillo, the FFA club president and third-year ag student, is aiming for a career as a veterinarian and has his eye on FFA scholarships and grants that are available, he said. “Most of us in the ag program are committed to FFA,” he said. “It’s an extension of what we are learning. We’re like a family.”
An open house for the new greenhouses and the other agriculture programs at the Rio Rico High School is being planed in November. For more information contact the high school agriculture department at (520) 375-1873.
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