Trout Farming: Weather, Economic and Environmental Sustainability; Fall’12 – Spring’13
Client: Country Springs Farm; sponsored by the Due Family
The goal of this Tech Clinic, which which was completed in May, 2013, is to provide recommendations to the Due family that enable Country Springs Farm to become a business that is socially desirable, economically feasible and environmentally viable. This is a continuation of a project from AY 2012 with the Country Springs Farm but the focus has shifted from maintaining the trout population through extreme weather periods to finding a market for the rainbow trout.
The primary objectives of this project are to:
- Identify a base market for local farm raised rainbow trout
- Preserve the health of the pond and trout
Areas that were examined the first semester included:
- Manufacturing floating solar panels as alternate revenue source
- Employing aquaponics to preserve pond quality
- Partnering with local educational groups
- Using the fish farm as a recreational fishing pond
- Identifying the restaurants in our target market
Students: Ian Crawley’15, Ben Drake’14, Shehtaz Haq’14, Brooke Kohler’13, Franceska Xhakaj’15 and Jim Yin’14
Faculty: Dan Bauer and Nancy McCreary Waters