That extra green crunch in your salad from the student union will soon be UA-grown.
Tomatoes and cucumbers are ripening on the vines at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center by plant science students, waiting to be picked and sold to the Student Union Memorial Center.
The spring harvest of cucumbers will find its way to campus dishes in the next few weeks. The cucumbers are used to make dishes such as the sushi that is sold at Cactus Grill, Park Student Union and the various grocery stores.
Workers at On Deck Deli have been slicing and slapping UA tomatoes on sandwiches for years, says Kim Celaya, the senior buyer for the Dining and Information Services.
"The quality is always excellent," Celaya said. Many of the restaurants in the unions use the tomatoes and cucumbers when they are in season.
Enclosed in a large greenhouse, the tomatoes and cucumbers grow in tubs of water, not soil, called hydroponics. The 10-foot tall vines are attached to a rope and grow vertically toward the sun. Fertilizer is added to barrels of water where it is dissolved and distributed to the plants by a computer system.
Eating the UA tomatoes came with several benefits.
For example, the UA tomatoes are harvested ripe rather than picked when they are green, as many large-scale producers do.
"When the food is picked green, it doesn't have as many of the goodies that give it flavor and nutritional value," said Patricia Rorabaugh, a plant sciences lecturer. Rather, commercial fruits are ripened from exposure to ethylene gas, the natural ripening hormone found in fruit seeds.
Lycopene, which is thought to prevent prostate cancer, is one nutrient that is more concentrated in tomatoes that are allowed to ripen from inside-out while on the vine, Rorabaugh said.
The produce is also pesticide-free. Rorabaugh's students use natural ways of dealing with pests, such as introducing predatory insects to eat the bad bugs.
Unlike most class assignments, plant science students are graded on their ability to grow healthy tomatoes and cucumbers. Spending at least three lab hours per week in the greenhouse, students tend to a certain number of plants that they must raise, prune, harvest and care for during the semester.
Extra produce from the student's work is sold to the student union at market value, which for cucumbers is about 45 cents per pound. During peak harvest season, as much as 150 pounds may be sold per week.
The sold produce benefits the Controlled Environment Agriculture club.
Tending to the plants as a student worker, Mark Bais, a marketing senior, has spent a great deal of time caring for the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers that grow in the greenhouse.
Bais hopes to integrate his agricultural background with marketing principles after he graduates. He would like to stay on the West coast and work for a company to promote various agricultural products
"I have pride knowing my efforts are going back to the UA campus," Bais said.