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Episode 2 | Dr. Merle Jensen
49 Plays1 year ago
Dr. Merle Jensen is a Professor Emeritus, Plant Sciences, The University of Arizona. He also consulted on numerous greenhouse vegetable production projects for major companies and organizations worldwide. Dr. Jensen is a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) pioneer. His contributions to CEA over the past 50+ years span the globe and will have a lost-lasting impact for years to come.
The book Dr. Jensen referenced is titled Zayed, The Saadiyat Miracle, and is available from Emarat Books.
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
Oh.
Introduction to the Ag Show Podcast
00:00:39
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to the inaugural episode of the Ag Show podcast. I am your host, Dr. Johan Buck, and this is the first episode of a new podcast. And joining me today is a very special friend of mine and in many circles, needs no introduction, but he is the professor emeritus at the University of Arizona Department of Plant Sciences.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'll share a little bit more about how I was introduced to him in a moment. But joining me today, Dr. Merle Jensen, welcome and hello. Hello, Dr. Buck, a pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much for joining me on this first episode of this new venture of mine. As I mentioned,
00:01:33
Speaker
I'll take a moment here and explain how I became introduced to you growing up in a small town much like yourself. I needed an after school job and lo and behold
00:01:47
Speaker
An adventurous individual in our small town, and this would be the mid-90s, decided he wanted to grow tomatoes in the wintertime. And this is north central Kansas, so it does get rather cold in the winter and not much grows.
00:02:04
Speaker
And so I applied for a job at this greenhouse and loved it. Day one, I opened the door going from freezing cold outside and fallow wheat fields on one side of the road to opening this door. It was like stepping into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory inventing room. It was warm, tall green plants, red ripe tomatoes.
00:02:27
Speaker
horizontal airflow fans Bumblebees buzzing around and I just fell in love and within four weeks I was hooked and I approached the owner of that facility and Asked the question. Can you go to school for this? How does one get involved in studying? this type of agriculture and
00:02:53
Speaker
the owner. God rest his soul. His name was John Van Dyke. He passed away, unfortunately, a few years ago. But John said, absolutely. And here's a list of universities. But he said, and he looked at me as he gave me this list, but he said, if you're serious,
00:03:08
Speaker
If you're really serious about this, you need to go to the University of Arizona and study with Dr. Merle Jensen and the team at the CEA Center. And I was a sophomore in high school. So it was
Dr. Merle Jensen's Academic Journey
00:03:22
Speaker
a couple of years before I really started thinking about college. But my freshman year of college, and you probably remember this email, I sent you an email saying something like, hey, I'm a kid from Kansas, and I worked at this place called the Tomato Factory.
00:03:35
Speaker
How do I get to the University of Arizona? And that just, it just snowballed from there. Well, remember that very well, this young man calling from, uh, from school, lower grades. And, uh, it was interesting that such would be interested in such a cold climate, uh, in middle America.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, I remember your response to me was, well, here's what you need to do if you want to come to the U of A, because this is the big leagues attending a small liberal arts college. I remember that well, Johan. Yeah. Yeah. So, Doc, tell us a little bit about yourself. Take me back to how in the world did you get involved in agriculture to begin with? Well, I grew up on a farm in
00:04:26
Speaker
in Northwest Western United States in a little Dutch town called Linden, Washington, which was four miles from the Canadian border from British Columbia. And I grew up on a dairy farm, but somehow I got hooked on growing plants. And I went to visit Washington State University and went into their greenhouses. And right away, I knew that's what I wanted to do.
00:04:56
Speaker
And if I wanted to do that type of thing, especially in instruction and research, I'd have to go to college. So I went to Pullman for one year and worked hard 30 hours a week to pay for my education. And I decided that it best that I go into the US Navy and get the GI Bill so that I could come back and have the US government help me pay my tuition as I went back to college.
00:05:24
Speaker
Washington State University for one more year and decided that I would transfer to a college or university that I'd heard of in California by the name of Cal Poly. I went there and really did well. I loved working with vegetable crops, but it wasn't in a greenhouse. And I decided that if I was going to go on to grad school, I would find a place or a professor in school that would give me a good foundation on growing
00:05:54
Speaker
crops in greenhouse. And that was Cornell University. And I interviewed there and ended up going there with my family. My wife got a job. Of course, we had no finances for that, so I had to have an assistantship.
Greenhouse Innovations and Global Projects
00:06:10
Speaker
And she is, my wife was very good as stenographer, and she ended up working for the person that was in charge of the 100-year celebration of Cornell.
00:06:23
Speaker
We were on track and I did very well. And I was under a professor that worked in greenhouses. He was the one that developed the Cornell peat light mix, peat and vermiculite artificial soils, we would call that. And I said that I, that was exactly what I wanted to do in life. And now after I was finishing my master's, I was looking for a way to find another university that goes through where I could have an assistantship.
00:06:49
Speaker
And that was Rutgers University. Rutgers was interested in developing greenhouse industry there. And at the same time, I could get the GI Bill going to school there. With that assistantship, I was on my way to my PhD. Again, Sharon had a job there. At Cornell, she was working on the centennial. And at Rutgers, she got a job as the head secretary with the organizer.
00:07:19
Speaker
for the 200th celebration at Rutgers. And so we got to meet at least Stevenson and a number of important people that came to these universities. But anyway, I got my degree there at Rutgers and then I heard about a job opening here at University of Arizona. And that training would be toward being a horticulturalist in a country I'd never heard of, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
00:07:48
Speaker
That was really a wonderful job, located on a barren island in the Persian Gulf, living with the better winds and building greenhouses five acres in an area where they didn't have snow storm, but they had sand storms. And we were able to conquer the elements of the desert by going in a greenhouse and producing yields that, well, I can tell you it was
00:08:18
Speaker
It was, the story was told worldwide, worldwide. And a number of newspapers and magazines and television shows came out of that. And next thing you know, I'm trying to make it quicker. Next thing you know, I was working with Walt Disney on Epcot as a senior designer of the land pavilion, which now has had 200,000, 200 million people through that. And
00:08:46
Speaker
But I recently retired not too many years ago from the U of A, but still have great interest in controlled environmental agriculture, which is a term we developed here at the University of Arizona. And many, many, many, many, many other events and projects in that time. I mean, how many countries have you consulted and worked in at this point?
00:09:09
Speaker
Yes, I worked in about 45 countries and spent a lot of time in an airplane traveling to those countries. I have now, with American Airlines, 1.8 million miles with American Airlines. But in my days of doing that kind of travel have been reduced. I decided to spend more time at home. And my favorite hobby is gardening. I love growing plants. We grow plants exceedingly well.
00:09:38
Speaker
But still, here at the University of Arizona, I developed a controlled environment agriculture center with support from the state of Arizona. After visiting with the governor, I told her what we needed, and she helped finance that. And today, we have this center of three full-time PhD professors and roughly 100 students that come through our program, and Johan was one.
Founding and Success of CEA Center
00:10:03
Speaker
And he had a profession that we had brought from Japan who spoke fluent English. And Johan ended up working with Dr. Sherry Kuboto. And well, the rest is history. We're well-known at the University of Arizona. Anyone can Google the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, University of Arizona, and get the full information on how that all started. I want to come back to
00:10:33
Speaker
to Cornell, you know, when you studied with Dr. Sheldrake. The Cornell peat light mixes, they were quite revolutionary at the time, right? I mean, so it was media at that time, what was very little development, right? This was something fairly new. That's correct. And what was occurring up until then is that the industry, the greenhouse vegetable industry was mainly in Ohio.
00:11:02
Speaker
in the Cleveland area, and they would have to steam sterilize that soil every year to get rid of the pathogens. But unfortunately, the steam only went down the control and the control of any diseases, root diseases by steaming, only went down 12 inches, and the tomato roots would go down four feet, up to four feet. So that's what it really said in the Dr. Sheldrake,
00:11:29
Speaker
So his guidance said we got to go under a not only controlled environment for the upper atmosphere, but controlled route environment. So we took the Cornell P-Lite mix, which was designed for growing bedding plants.
00:11:43
Speaker
And we had adapted after growing vegetables. The next thing you know, because of that work, I was, of course, went to Rutgers University. And that was the beginning of using soilless media, along with work that was done in England and in Scandinavian countries. They also had their ways of growing. But I would say the use of the Cornell pea light mix has gone worldwide.
00:12:10
Speaker
And today, that's commonplace in the industry. And other soil media has come along, whether it be vermiculatin, peat moss, or perlite, or just growing in flooding drain, where you have a small rock stone environment for the plants to grow. And there are many ways that we can anchor that plant. And it all comes down to economics and what you use.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. From Cornell, went to Rutgers, and that was around the time. Were you there during the time or before or after when Professor Roberts was working on the double poly for greenhouses? Yeah. When I came there, he was developing that, and he had that in a small research greenhouse, very small.
00:13:07
Speaker
And he said, you know, I liked it. And I had a big greenhouse, about 2000 square feet. And he said, I'd like to try this idea in your big greenhouse. And I said, you know, my thesis
00:13:21
Speaker
revolves around that and I can't have any failures. Why he said it's going to work. So I trusted him and what we did was put two layers of poly on the greenhouse. Now we used to put one layer on then we had a two by one inch strip that would put over the structure that held the poly of the greenhouse up and we would put that poly on and put two inches and then two inches
00:13:50
Speaker
a bar over the top of that, and then another layer of poly, so we had two layers. And two layers would give us 40% heat saving over just one layer of poly. So he said, I want to do it where we not put a structure between the two layers, which was wood. He said, I want to put air between. And he said,
00:14:15
Speaker
I said, well, let's try it. I said, it sounded like an idea that would work. And guess what? It worked. It worked great. And you see that idea throughout the world today. But it all starts between a combination of Cornell and Rutgers. It was a time of revolution in a controlled environment. And fortunately, I had a chance to be a part of that. Yeah, that's so neat. It was interesting that
00:14:45
Speaker
to come to find out that information because the greenhouse that I started in, this was back when greenhouse technology, the sidewalls were still fairly short and we had double poly roofs. And I sure got a good lesson in how to install those roofs, which is not easy at the time. So then from Rutgers, you find this opportunity out in Arizona.
Innovations and Collaborations in Agriculture
00:15:09
Speaker
What was the Ag department like at the U of A when you arrived?
00:15:14
Speaker
Well, I went there, and there were a group of young people. In fact, they were in astrophysics. And they understood engineering, but didn't have a clue on growing. And they approached the Rockefeller Foundation on a grant. And Rockefeller said, you're going to have to find someone that knows how to grow plants.
00:15:36
Speaker
So I came down to interview, and I remember my professor from Cornell came with me. He said, I've heard about these people, but I don't know if you really want to work there. And I went there, and I said, wow, I think I can do something. And not only that, they had a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to do a facility in Puerto Pinasco, Mexico. And I said, wow, what a great opportunity to do international work.
00:16:04
Speaker
And so we did that, and guess what? It worked well. And we had visitors from throughout the world. If it wasn't from Israel or Saudi Arabia or countries in Holland, countries in Europe like Holland and England, we were doing revolutionary ideas. And it wasn't with only me, but we had great engineers and other agriculturalists that worked on this. And as a team, we did that. Now, I worked on soft money for 19 years.
00:16:35
Speaker
And I knew we had to succeed. Otherwise, I was going to have to find another job. But we succeeded. Next thing you know, the university said, you know, we would like to bring you on campus from where you were working in the Environmental Research Lab way off campus. And I did that. And I came as an assistant dean.
00:16:55
Speaker
But meantime, spent a lot of time lecturing. And especially when Walt Disney contacted us and said, you know, we want to do your kind of thing in the Land Pavilion at Epcot Center, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow.
00:17:14
Speaker
And a lot of people doubted whether we could do that. And I said, don't worry. We know a lot about growing crops hydroponically, and we'll make this system dance, and it will bring people from throughout the world. And that's happened. Over to it, like I said, 200 million people have visited the land pavilion, designed again by the University of Arizona's Environmental Research Lab.
Graduate School Struggles and Mentorship
00:17:40
Speaker
How did the controlled environment ag center come to be? That's near and dear to my heart, your heart, and many, many other staff, faculty, fellow graduate students, past and present. Well, it's interesting. The whole system of doing things at any version is very regimented, but I would never follow that. If I had an idea, I'd just do it.
00:18:09
Speaker
I heard that the governor was interested maybe in our systems by a visitor from her chief of staff. And I want to visit the governor, and I said I needed so many million, so many hundreds of thousands per year to do that. And she helped fund a facility that we built called the Controlled Environment Act Center.
00:18:31
Speaker
And it was very, very successful, not only in what we developed in the state of Arizona and in the United States, but we brought a whole team of other scientists. And like I said, we have over 100 students per year coming through that.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of students. Great program. I look back fondly on that and appreciate not only yourself, but Dr. Kubota, Gene Giacomelli, you were all on my committee. Which, as you know, wasn't easy for me at first. I remember coming there and all gung-ho, excited, ready to go, and within a few months, quickly found myself in a situation where I thought, I might be in over my head.
00:19:17
Speaker
But fortunately, I had a good relationship with you and Dr. Kubota and Jean, and we had this coming to Jesus meeting, and I expressed my frustrations, because I remember early on,
00:19:33
Speaker
There was one student from Cornell, right? I came from a small university in Kansas. Nobody hears of Fort Hayes State University. Go Tigers. And I remember Dr. Kubota had a couple of graduate students that enrolled the same semester I did from big caliber universities. And within a few weeks, they were gone. I thought,
00:19:55
Speaker
Where'd they go? Oh, they couldn't handle it. What do you mean they couldn't handle it? What's going on? And I quickly realized that myself. I remember Dr. Kubota said something like, I need you to go in and set up your environmental sensors and start running statistics. And I had a high-low thermometer in the greenhouse. So I set that up and I said, all right, I'm tracking the temperature. And she said, no. So fortunately, you know,
00:20:22
Speaker
Husband and assistant, Mark Krogel, what a great guy, helped me set up those systems. But it's an amazing facility, continues to generate revolutionary research. We worked on a great project. I look back fondly on picking those tomatoes early in the morning and you showing up early and walking in and saying, I knew you'd be here. And then go down and grab some breakfast burritos from McDonald's.
00:20:50
Speaker
Well, those are all, you know, a lot of graduate students who succeed, you know, have to do long hours and have some innovation, some ways to add things to make this a scientific kind of thing so they can get a thesis out of that. And you did well at that. And, you know, a lot of young people don't want to go on for a master's or a doctorate degree, but if you want to work
00:21:19
Speaker
at a level of development and have ideas that you want to be able to work on and research through research grants through a university or a company. That can be done. But it's a lot of midnight oil, a lot of long work, but it's worth it. And I just can't tell you how I was so lucky to have professors that were indeed
00:21:46
Speaker
expected a lot from me, but I remember when I was at Cornell, my professor said to me, he said, you know, I've got five people from Holland to come and see our work. And I said to him, you know, well, he said, what's the deal? I said, well, I don't have any good pair of shoes to wear. Them got holes in the soles. He said, I'll tell you what, I got a pair that will fit. You come on over and I'll give you my shoes to wear. And that's what we did.
00:22:16
Speaker
And luckily, my wife Sharon had a good job, but enough to put beans on the table, you might say. And it all was worth it.
Memorable Global Projects
00:22:29
Speaker
But it was long hours. And I remember when I came to Cornell, pulling a U-Haul trader in a little Chevy, too. And my professor, I called him. I said, I'm here. And I have my daughter with me. And she's quite sick. I need a doctor.
00:22:46
Speaker
He said, wait, I'll be out to see you. I'll come out to Varna and see you. And he told me where the doctor was, and he said, I'll see you next morning at the greenhouse. And so we got the daughter, a good doctorate, but next morning I had my footing on my first systems of controlled environment ag. How about that? That is important. Looking back on graduate school,
00:23:15
Speaker
That means a lot to have your major advisor and your mentors, those on your graduate committee, especially major advisor and those that
00:23:25
Speaker
help support in that way. I mean, because it's not easy. It's long hours. You're not only doing research, but you're doing your schoolwork and graduate studies is different than undergrad. And unless you go through it and do it, I don't think people quite understand that process. It is challenging. And yeah, and I look back on it fondly. There were moments during that time where I was probably, yeah,
00:23:52
Speaker
whispering under my breath frustrations, but that's just the way it goes. You're working towards something bigger and trying to achieve. You put a dent in the knowledge base and work on great projects, so that's important. I would say, Johan, one of the important things for young people is that
00:24:17
Speaker
You not only work hard and work on new ideas, but you've got to get those ideas out to the public and have them used. In my case, they were used worldwide. There was a great deal of satisfaction that my work has gone into five languages. To this day, I always go back. You can find ways of people who have cited you.
00:24:46
Speaker
It's a lot of people that have used that basic science in their own work. And it's how we're going to feed our population are these new concepts and developments. Yeah, and that's one thing you did really well for the university. I mean, you taught one class. And what I mean, say one class, it was one class one semester, correct? And then it really became this effort to build
00:25:16
Speaker
essentially brand awareness of the University of Arizona and controlled environment agriculture. I mean, you were always bringing people through and really not only just demonstrating what we do, I mean, it was really, people were entertained. And that I think was a difference maker compared to maybe other universities. I don't know how they do things, but I just know from my experience during my time at the University of Arizona when you were highly active,
00:25:45
Speaker
And that marketing is really important. That's what led so many...
00:25:52
Speaker
companies to come there. We had phenomenal and still have not had have phenomenal faculty at that facility at the University of Arizona. And there are other facilities that are up and coming, which is great to see CEA kind of have this this growth over the last 22 years with Ohio State University where Dr. Kubota is now at Cornell, you know, like Neil Mattson doing a great job at Cornell University. But
00:26:21
Speaker
That was one of the things that was really
00:26:25
Speaker
fun to watch was here we are doing research, academic research, applied and basic research. And you'd bring people in and people would just leave giddy excited. They're like, Holy cow, that was an experience. And I think it's important that people learn from that. Because if they want their facilities to succeed, I think you need to have that as well. It's serious business. But if people enjoy it, and they have a good time, and they wow, this is important. And it's fun, too. Yeah, we
00:26:54
Speaker
One of the things we did is that we did a lot of work in Mexico. And as a result of our work, we put it into Spanish. And I used to go down to Mexico every year for Meister Publications. And I would lecture two between 700 to 1,000 people. And today, the industry is huge in Mexico.
00:27:22
Speaker
Because of that going down there and doing that work, we feed a lot of people, a lot of people. So that work in Mexico, and I will say that a lot of that work in Mexico is feeding vitamins and minerals through vegetable crops coming up across the border, especially during our winter months when it's warmer down there, the cost of heating is not as great down there as it is in the United States.
00:27:47
Speaker
And so it's something that is very important in one's diet that vitamins and minerals are provided. People don't realize this peppers alone are tremendously important from the standpoint of getting the required vitamins. And so we do all of that in a controlled environment. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's 100%.
00:28:15
Speaker
So I want to ask you, of all the projects that you've done, I mean, you've heard so many stories. We just don't have enough time to go over some of those stories. But I mean, you've worked on some really interesting projects. Are there any that stand out to you that are most memorable? Well, I think there were three. Abu Dhabi, of course, was extremely exciting.
00:28:46
Speaker
the one we did for the Shah of Iran in Kargh Island, it was another exciting one.
00:28:53
Speaker
And then I think the other one was the work with Disney because of the thousands of people that would go through the land pavilion and see that. And we had great educational programs. We had a number, they offered scholarships to students throughout the United States. We would have anywhere from five to 10 students there for six months to a year at Disney, where they learned the science, but at the same time,
00:29:21
Speaker
be working with is that they learn how to tell the story where they would come through the backstage background in the greenhouses we'd take tours through. And through that, because of that contact we had with the general public, I think has made a major contribution in growing crops, feeding this country in the United States through that work that we did starting over 50 years ago.
00:29:54
Speaker
And as far as we've come, a lot of emphasis now seems to be vertical farming, indoor production, greenhouse in the US continue to expand.
Future and Challenges of Vertical Farming
00:30:07
Speaker
There's a tremendous amount of growth in Ohio, a lot of vertical farming. I mean, you've seen this from its infancy in the US until today.
00:30:18
Speaker
vertical farming is not without its challenges. Just a couple of weeks ago, a couple of companies announced that they're closing their doors. What are your thoughts on vertical farming and also beyond that, what do you see as the future of CEA based on where we're at today? Well, there's a lot of enthusiasm for vertical farming, but you have to remember that you're in an enclosed structure and the electrical cost can be very high because
00:30:48
Speaker
in a structure that's vertically that may go up 20 to 30 feet is that you got to bring that heat from the top back down to the bottom. And then you got to have artificial lighting to go with that. Not only that, you got to have heating or you got to have refrigeration depending what time of the year you're doing that. So the energy costs can be very high. And I think that unless you're in an area where you can receive a return
00:31:14
Speaker
from your product high enough, and we see vertical farming, but in areas where people can afford to pay that kind of money for the product. And then that's fine, but my interest in this is go through the grass roots of the world, and I don't care if it's in China. You know, again, I have books, books that have been, my books have been translated into five languages.
00:31:39
Speaker
And that's what's important to me is that how we feed people vitamins and minerals. You can have rice and you can have potatoes. They're the major carbohydrate crops that give you energy. But you've got to have the vitamins and minerals that go with it. Vegetables are required.
00:31:56
Speaker
We need that. And to have fresh vegetables that are affordable to the poor is very important. And that's what we're doing. And to this day, I still work with organizations, whether it's in Palestine or Israel or the Middle East. It's not uncommon for me to be answering questions and working with groups on this technology that to us, it's old but new for many people.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, especially on providing for people and that was one of the draws to me of a controlled environment agriculture was you hear you have this technology where
00:32:40
Speaker
If you're in an area geographically that has, let's say, it's limited in its resources. Maybe it doesn't have arable land or water or any number of factors. Controlled environment agriculture offers the advantage to where you can grow crops. And oftentimes, unique crops and very, very nutritiously important crops in areas that you might not otherwise because of those
00:33:06
Speaker
geographical constraints. That's what drew me to agriculture or CEA was I thought, wow, because this could really change the world. This has the potential to help people who might not otherwise have access to nutritious food.
Importance of CEA and Field Agriculture
00:33:24
Speaker
And I want to ask you a question.
00:33:26
Speaker
I don't struggle with this, but I come across it quite a bit because I do work in both field ag and controlled environment agriculture. You spend a lot of time in field ag as well. Growing up, some of your closest friends own some of the largest field operations in the US. What would you say, as we're both advocates of controlled environment agriculture, what would you say to those that are in CEA that
00:33:55
Speaker
maybe kind of have tunnel vision and maybe really advocate strongly for CEA to the point where they might
00:34:08
Speaker
Their opinions of field ag are not very good, but I often wonder if do they fully understand the advances in importance of field agriculture. Do you know what I mean? They kind of have this one-sided view that CEA is the solution to all of our agricultural problems. Well, I'm going to tell you this right now is that what we have
00:34:36
Speaker
what we have existing in regard to field agriculture is going to come slowly to a halt. And there's an issue called water. We are running short on water. And Lake Mead and some of the lakes in the west are far gone down in their volume. So we're not going to be using water and a lot of it wasted as we apply it
00:35:00
Speaker
in the field through furrow or flood irrigation. We're going to have to go under a controlled environment where we can put the water through and put fertilizer in the water going through drip irrigation onto the crops to get 150 tons per acre rather than 10.
00:35:20
Speaker
And the thing is that we're going to see such agriculture. And not only that, but we have, and when we haven't talked about this, we have included aquaponics where we're growing fish. And the fish is tilapia. And a tilapia is one that Israel for years has used from the Sea of Galilee. We have now taken that fish, tilapia, and incorporated that as a part of our growing system.
00:35:46
Speaker
where we can take that wastewater that has the excrement from the fish, fish fertilizer net going onto the plant. So it's a kind of a combination companion crop we're having, animals and plants. And there's increasing interest on that in ways that we could do this economically. And yeah, it's, you know, I take that as we have increased populations in the world,
00:36:16
Speaker
was water shortages, we're going to have to go into more control. And it's happening. There's no doubt about it. It's happening. And so what you have to do, you're going to have to, you're going to have to, and I don't like to say we train people. I always tell people that in the circus, they train monkeys. But in agriculture, we trade, we educate people, not train, we educate people to use our hands and their brain in order for the
00:36:44
Speaker
feeding the future in our world.
00:36:57
Speaker
is increased technology in field ag drip irrigation technologies, as simple as cover crops for soil erosion, improving soil, and really kind of figuring out which crops are best for field ag versus controlled environment, and where we can fit control. The answer is all of the above. That was my point, is you kind of hit these two camps. Well, field ag, controlled environment ag, no. With all these people and all these,
00:37:26
Speaker
It's all of the above. That's for our agriculture. We'll increasingly see more and more CEA, but as far as agriculture as a whole, what's the solution to feeding our growing populations? It's going to be a combination of everything because we're not making any more land. It's being developed. As well as I do living here in Arizona, we see increasingly arable land
00:37:46
Speaker
be developed. That's less land for crops, which means we're going to have to get that food from somewhere. Water's going down. The quality of water is not that great. I talked to an extension agent at the U of A earlier this week, and he said, you know, we use, I think 74% of the water from the Colorado River that we use is for agriculture. And he said the majority of that
00:38:11
Speaker
water alone is used to flood the fields to push that salt deeper down in the soil profile. So even the water that's being used on the fields isn't for agricultural production. So that's a problem. If we can do that, then we work on reducing the water usage for agricultural production. Yeah. And that's one of the excuses to people that flood irrigate is to drive the salt down. And the thing is that
00:38:40
Speaker
reason why they have so much salt because they use so much water. And the thing is that what you can do with drip irrigation is that, yes, you will have a salt. The farther that moisture goes away from the drip system, it will become salty. But we know that when it rains,
00:38:58
Speaker
You've got to add the water to that because that salt will then come into the plant roots and will damage it. So you know when it's going to rain, you add water and go to field capacity. So that water that's that area that's high in salt won't come into the root system. So it's a management thing. And I know that
00:39:18
Speaker
that a lot of people still use technology developed during biblical times. And it's not going to make it today. We've got to use today's science to feed everyone. And it's limiting water. And again, it's engineering and horticulture put together. And it's reasons to understand it and why you do that. And at the same time, have a sharp pencil so that you can get the economics worked out. But it's happening more and more and more and more.
00:39:48
Speaker
is that we're going to these systems. But again, you got the traditionalist, and a lot of the older professors are resistant to adapt anew. But we're getting there because there's no other solution.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I brought something out for a little bit of nostalgia here before we come to a close, because I may have one or two more questions, but I want to show you something.
Retirement Reflections and Mentorship
00:40:14
Speaker
Speaking of retirement, because now you are more officially retired than you were in 2003 when... Can you see that?
00:40:28
Speaker
It's your retirement celebration brochure from September of 2003. I didn't even know I had these. I was going through some books the other day and this slipped out. I thought, how funny. I remember you said we were going to retire and that was 03 and you're still growing strong. Are you working on any projects actively now or are you just taking things as they come and just enjoying your family?
00:40:54
Speaker
Now, you know, I'm not working on any active projects now. It's a time that I take some time out and do work that I love to do. And, you know, I still lecture at the university. And because of my lectures and because of the questions that come out, I can see the all-stars there. So about one out of 10 or two out of 10, they're all stars.
00:41:21
Speaker
And I come to visit and I see them working in the greenhouse and I'll spend time with them. And that's what I really enjoy. And at the same time, you know, I got a granddaughter and other things, but I still love to grow. I still love to do what we're doing right now, just to tell the story and to reach as many people as possible because I know what we have to do and we got to just get the gospel out there. Yeah.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I want to thank you for joining me today to help spread that.
Podcast Conclusion and Acknowledgments
00:41:54
Speaker
We'll see how far this podcast goes. I know a lot of people are excited for me to start this new podcast. And I'm very, very fortunate to have you on as a guest. I'm even more blessed to have you as a friend, go from mentor to a friend. And it's nice to be able to say that even with Dr. Kubota, with her
00:42:19
Speaker
cultivate in last July and it's exciting to see how her career has progressed because I think I was one of her early graduate students here when she moved to the United States and was teaching at the U of A. And just to see accomplishments of that and to see Dr. Giacomelli now out consulting and doing his thing and her fellow graduate students and what they're doing, it's really cool to see. And everybody in their own way is getting the story out there.
00:42:48
Speaker
and doing a lot of great work. It was Dr. Kubota that I used to lecture to when she was just a graduate student under Professor Takakura, and she was introduced to the University of Arizona through my lectures in Japan.
00:43:04
Speaker
And so we do attract some all-stars, and she was one of them. And that's, you know, it's good to know that her basic work in science, her husband, Mark, here at the University of Arizona now has been spread through Ohio State University. And it's her work that brought Ohio to the surface again as one of the more knowledgeable institutions on controlled environment. So it's been a great career, Johan, and I really enjoyed working with you.
00:43:34
Speaker
And there's a lot of opportunity for young people, and you just have to work, and you'll get there. Absolutely. Dr. Jensen, thank you very much. And if you'll hold tight, I'll end the podcast and just hang tight with me as it wraps up. But I also want to thank the listeners for joining us on this episode of the Ag Show podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this episode with Dr. Jensen.
00:44:03
Speaker
and look forward to producing additional episodes. We have exciting guests coming up and we're gonna cover everything agriculture. So this was just the beginning and this one really meant a lot to me because this is where I got my start in agriculture and Dr. Jensen was instrumental in my success in getting to the University of Arizona and throughout my professional career. So again, thank you very much Dr. Jensen and hold tight.
00:44:32
Speaker
One thing in closing. Yes, please. A lot of my papers by googling me, Merle Jensen, University of Arizona, and a lot of my papers are there. They can get those papers by googling me and it will be very helpful for us. Yes, I'm sorry. I should have asked that. Where can people find information about you in your book as well? I think I've got a copy here somewhere.
00:45:00
Speaker
Yeah. No, I don't. What is the name of the book where that's translated into five languages so people can look for that as well? I mean, I'll get it here. It's called this is right here. Can you see it? I cannot see it. It's a little it's a little blurry. All the Saudi miracle called side. Unfortunately, the book is not on Amazon. I'm hoping that they will do that. But it tells the stories of the early controlled environment in the Middle East.
00:45:29
Speaker
And also, again, a lot of those early papers we did on controlled environment, they can get that by just Googling my name and they'll get those and they can print those off.
00:45:40
Speaker
And I'll put some of that information in the show notes. I can get links to some of those. I can also get the title from you and list it there so if and when it's ready for mass production, people can purchase that.
Exploring Dr. Jensen's Work
00:45:55
Speaker
And yeah, because you're probably not very active on LinkedIn or do any of the social media. So if people want to learn more, they can just search your papers. Right. That's right. Exactly. Yep. Yep. OK. Good.
00:46:07
Speaker
Anything else before we wrap up? It's been good. Thank you. Thank you. Hang tight. Good luck.