Agriculture & Landscape Program
Green Energy

Atlas Farm Case Study-Part 1

Atlas Farm is a small family farm in South Deerfield, MA. They grow a wide diversity of certified organic vegetables, herbs, and flowers, with many gourmet, heirloom and specialty varieties in addition to all the standard varieties. Owners Sara and Gideon Porth have been working in agriculture since 1996 and share a deep commitment to sustainable farming.

Their farm is dedicated to producing food in a way that will maintain biological diversity, support natural ecosystems, and keep the land productive for future generations.One of their major goals is to minimize the impact of the farm on the surrounding ecosystem. For these reasons, they add fertility to their fields by cover cropping and using organic, naturally occurring fertilizers; manage pests by crop rotation and cultivar selection, and use organic pesticides only as a last resort. They strive to be efficient in their use of fossil fuels and are constantly trying new approaches to farming to become less wasteful.

This commitment to environmental stewardship is part of what led Gideon to take part in the UMass Extension project, 'Building Model Networks to Use Shelled Corn for Greenhouse Heat Corn '. Insulating himself from the recent volatility in fossil fuel prices was another motivating factor.

Gideon had initially installed a 160,000 btu Amaizeing Heat furnace built by KC Manufacturing. He purchased the unit on sale from Frier's Electric & Heating in Ellsworth, WI for the sale price of $2,000, which included delivery. This price is about 50% of what a comparable unit would cost today. This furnace was adequate for keeping his 18' x 96' hoop house at 65 degree night temperatures. There were some initial problems with getting this furnace up and running that made him feel that the manufacturing and dealer support was of less than stellar quality. It arrived somewhat beat up, and a number of parts needed to be replaced, which the dealer was unhelpful with.Once the initial issues were sorted out it ran fine, and he's still using it.

In 2008 Gideon built a new 35'x144' gothic style ridge vent greenhouse with 6mm double poly glazing. This house will primarily be used for greenhouse tomatoes and maintain a night temperature of 62 degrees. The greenhouse will typically be starting at the beginning of March and run rightthrough summer and hopefully into September.There are six HAF fans in two rows of three for air mixing. The tomatoes are grown in a compost mix in trenches on the floor.

To provide heat to his tomatoes Gideon purchased an LDJ corn fired 165,000 btu Amaizeing Heat boiler. The burner was purchased from Yellows Green, a local dealer in Fitchburg, MA for about $6000. This included the boiler, a standard hopper, and freight. He paid an additional $800 for a 165,000 btu water to air heat exchanger, $400 for a 250 gallon storage tank for the heated water, and $150 in tubing – Gideon used 3/4” black poly pipe for his heating tubes, which seems to work fine. Plumbing parts and labor ran an additional $3,000.

The corn boiler serves two purposes. One is to run a root zone radiant heating system in his tomato troughs. The troughs are 132' long by 2' wide with one loop of heat tubung in each. He keeps the root zone of the tomatoes at 70 degrees, or maybe a little less when it's cloudy and cool and the plants aren't growing as fast. To reach this temperature he keeps the 250 gallons of water in the storage tank at 140 degrees, and has plumbed the system so that the 140 degree water coming from the tank is mixed with cooler return water so that the water in the heating tubes at the root zone is 90 degrees. The water to air heat exchanger also uses hot water from the boiler to help keep the greenhouse air temps at 62 degrees. There is a 225,000btu propane burner in the house for backup and to assist the corn boiler, but it's been used very little this season. The boiler uses a domestic hot water coil to heat the water for the radiant tubes in the planting troughs, and requires a heated return in the primary loop, so between the radiant heat, the heat exchanger, and the need for a heated return the plumbing gets a bit complicated.