MCCOOK, Neb. (AP) - Mary Kircher was the kind of kid who liked challenges. At 17, she took apart an engine and put it back together, just to see how it works.
Now, she’s used that sense of ingenuity to start OYUM, an aquaponics business at her home in rural McCook where she will grow fish (tilapia) and vegetables, the McCook Gazette (https://bit.ly/1FEPm9r ) reported.
Aquaponics is a method where water is recycled and re-used, with every drop of water put to use. Using about 90 percent less water than traditional garden watering, aquaponics operates with a system of pumps and filters. In Kircher’s greenhouse, water from a large fish tank is pumped two or three times an hour into several soil-less growing beds of produce, with the waste from the fish broken down into nitrates and nitrites. These are used by the plants as nutrients. The water is then re-circulated and filtered to additional growing beds and fish tanks, eventually returning back to the original tank.
Already, Kircher is growing lettuce, tomatoes and green beans using the system and will filet and sell the tilapia when they reach about two and half pounds. Although still in its beginning stages, Kircher sees OYUM eventually producing and supplying the area year-round with fresh Blue Tilapia, herbs and vegetables to individuals, restaurants and grocery stores in southwest Nebraska.
The trend of buying fresh, locally-grown products is growing, Kircher said, especially with concerns of chemicals, hormones and questionable places of origin. But the prices for buying organic are often too expensive for many grocery budgets. As the housing development director at the McCook Economic Development Corp. and a real estate agent, even Kircher found the prices a little steep for her taste.
That’s why when a magazine article on aquaponics caught Kircher’s eye, she thought, why not?
“It was so cool. And I’m one of those kind of people who always wants to try something new,” she acknowledged. Kircher figured she would set up an aquaponic system as a hobby, as a way to help with her own food bills. After she spent some time on research, her husband helped configure a system of pumps and filters Kircher installed in a greenhouse behind their house in rural McCook.
Last winter, she started breeding fish in her basement with two males and three females. She soon found herself swimming in baby fish - 4,000 of them, to be exact.
“I was surprised at how quickly they propagated and lived,” she admitted, with one fish alone having a batch of 950 babies. When they were older, the fish were transferred to tanks in her garage and from there, they were moved to tanks in the greenhouse.
When people heard about what she was doing, the response was overwhelming, Kircher said, with many wanting to buy the tilapia. “Even the fish guy behind the counter at Whole Foods in Lincoln was excited,” she related.
With tilapia as the cash cow, she decided to turn the hobby into a business.
As one of seven finalists in the Hormel Entrepreneurship Competition April 24, Kircher won $1,000 she will put toward upgrading the greenhouse. She hopes at some point, OYUM can be a one-stop shop where customers can buy fresh fish and vegetables. Not that it will be easy, but that’s part of the challenge anyway, Kircher believes.
“I’ll be an expert when I’m about 80,” she joked.
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Information from: McCook Daily Gazette, https://www.mccookgazette.com
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