POTSDAM -- Students at SUNY Potsdam are enjoying fresh greens and herbs grown on campus by PACES Dining Services, in collaboration with the college’s WISER Center and the Biology Department.

Organic greens and herbs are grown in two PACES Dining Service locations on campus, Dexter's Café and Lehman Dining Center. They are also using additional indoor tower gardens and vertical growing racks in the Wagner Institute for Sustainability and Ecological Research (WISER) Greenhouse, and are maintained by student interns, researchers and members of the Sustainable Agricultural 304 course, taught by biology Instructor Ray Bowdish. All of these systems provide produce for use by SUNY Potsdam chefs and cooks that can’t be more local.

PACES Dining has collaborated with WISER to produce greens for consumption on campus since 2016. The project started with Bowdish's sustainability class, which focuses on creating a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model crop of microgreens, with the goal of selling them to PACES Dining Services for use in their kitchens. Microgreens are a tiny vegetable crop (basically the first leaves of a plant) that lend a distinct flavor profile to a variety of dishes. Students grew the greens, and the crop results were judged in order for students to learn how to successfully raise herbs and produce for use in professional kitchens.

This past fall, Bowdish and PACES partnered to expand the project to include a series of growing trays installed in Lehman and Thatcher Dining Halls. PACES harvested herbs and greens from these organic growing systems, purchased locally from 2445 Organics in Massena. In January, they planted eight trays of seed in Thatcher Dining Hall, which when harvested in February yielded 13 pounds of lettuce and 5 pounds of Genovese basil. The produce was used at the Garden Toss “salad concept station” in the Barrington Student Union Dining Court, as well as in Dexter's Café and in campus catering for events.

In October 2017, the program expanded to include a new series of tower gardens in the WISER Greenhouse. Educator Steven Ritz, author of "The Power of a Plant: A Teacher's Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools," along with Duane McCarthy of LDC Enterprises, traveled to campus to help install the towers.

Tower gardens are vertical aeroponic growing systems that use only water and nutrients, rather than dirt, to grow vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers. The systems are able to grow plants indoors three times faster and with greater yields than traditional gardening, while also using less water and taking up less space.

The vertical growing systems were purchased with a grant from the Alcoa Foundation. PACES, the Department of Biology and local K-12 students assembled 12 towers for campus use, and harvested produce throughout the fall and winter.

In January, PACES purchased organic seeds and soil to plant in the tower gardens for the next round of crops, which includes rainbow chard, kale, ghost peppers, bok choy, basil, parsley, cilantro, spinach and arugula.

Hands-on learning for students is a key component of the continuing collaboration between PACES and the biology department. PACES staff have learned to plant, maintain and harvest crops grown in the campus dining halls, and students have gained experience working with the tower gardens in the WISER Greenhouse, growing produce on campus for there.