Your footers make me jealous. They want mine down 2 feet and 2 feet wide. I believe it is solely because their family owns the concrete company in town. No other reason for it.

You might consider injecting small amounts of hydrogen peroxide into your water to cut down any molds or fungus that pop up.

This is a cool thread. Have you ever researched chia-pet seeds as feed?

When I was a kid, my dad and I built a 15x25" greenhouse against the back wall of our house using some heavy aluminum-framed windows that were taken out of a courthouse during a remodel. We had a poured footing, with a brick-on-sand floor.

It had vent flaps up high and a swamp cooler but got quite hot in summer.

We grew about 20 lbs of tomatoes a day all year long, and a lot of flowers and stuff. It was fun.

my wife eats chia in her daily shake concoction, but it's not really suitable for this.  I can't buy a semi load of it from a farmer 10 miles away.

We've actually used all kinds of things in our fodder.  Wheat sprouts well but most horses turned their noses up at it and the cows would eat it, but weren't crazy about it.  We've also added sunflower, sprouted cheap bags of bird seed and I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  Chickens love the variety, but they do really well off of plain barley too, so we've just fallen back to doing the simplest thing.

The pics of my set-up are of the second one, the first one is a lot larger and uses the same kinds of tray that the large facility uses, but I don't have pics of it.

OK, so this is somewhat of a question of how I'm going to do this on the new setup, just because it's in my back yard and I don't want to look at any ugly farm equipment looking stuff.  If my view costs too much I'll change my opinion, but for now I'm just trying to keep a high standard.

So- Storage.

I sort of run in three phases of storage right now, long term, short term and immediate use.  

Immediate Use (IU from now on so I don't have to keep misspelling immediate) is just 55gallon barrels.  Each one holds about 400lbs, if it's really nice clean stuff that doesn't have a lot of chaff on it we can get closer to 500lbs, the last crap I got I was lucky to get 400 per barrel.

Short term is right after we get it, and despite the name we actually have left it this way for a pretty long time.  We've mostly been getting it in one-ton tote bags (that hold about 1100lbs).  We've been storing it this way in barns in order to have some on hand and refill the barrels at each sprouting location, which are currently spread out around the area a little.  What we are doing in the future is using auger/bins for the short-term storage.  I'm actually working simultaneously on two fodder operations, one in an old 45' reefer trailer and the one on my greenhouse.  The reefer will be parked at a friends hog farm where we have a three-sided cooperative effort, he's raising hogs, I'll raise cattle and the last guy (my partner on the fodder) is raising rabbits (and already making good money at it).  The farm already has 4 of this style of grain bins in place, but empty.


That works well and I think it will hold about 8 tons of grain per bin, but it's exactly what I don't want in my yard.  I'm thinking I'll get something like this and use it to shuttle grain from the farm to my house.  I'll have storage space for about 1-1.5 tons inside the fodder sprouting area and storage room, so with the large access duct we cast into the concrete wall I'll be able to drop grain through a chute and into the barrels inside, sprout it and carry it back out in biscuits.  I gave up on the easy access out of the fodder room in exchange for improved insulation/thermal mass, we'll see if it's the right decision.


Long term storage is in underground bins.  If you think back at the grain found in the pyramids, it was kept at minimal humidity and constant temp for thousands of years and still had a decent sprouting rate.  By that example I'm using water tank buried about 4' underground (to the top of the tank) nearby.  This isn't really easy to access, but I just like to play like a good Mormon and have my 2 years of food storage, which for me means about $800 in grain stashed in a $500 water tank.  

Here's the tank I have, 550 gallon and holds about 4,000lbs of well cleaned grain.


Here's another that a friend is doing similarly.  This is a 2,500 gallon tank and will store a lot of grain.  When you seal it up just drop a few bricks of dry ice on the top, screw the lid down tight, tarp, and cover.  It is well protected and great long-term storage.  I've heard of people even doing this with bagged wheat, but never seen it.  Not sure how they stack it or if they just bombs-away and lose a lot of potential volume.


Here's a few more pics and details from our first/oldest/biggest fodder operation that we are now just finishing up our 4th year of year-round fodder production with.
First step, pre-soak.  We found that soaking the seeds really helped them sprout faster, but soaking them in a splash of chlorine helped reduce mold, and soaking them with an aquarium bubbler helped even more.  He's got it hooked to a cheap O2 generator that probably doesn't actually even work anymore, but whatever.  The bubbles help lift off some of the chaff, dirt, etc and make it easy to pour it off before the seed goes into the trays.



A few things in this simple pic (below)-

1- You can get REALLY good production on something as simple as trashed standing seam metal roofing.  It really works well, we like it quite a bit.
2- Our new tray is the plastic tray in the background.  We have to punch holes in the bottom for the new method of watering we are going to be using, more on that eventually.  
3- This has been in a dark room with no lights or windows, it doesn't need them to create good sprouts, but the light will make the sprouts greener and a little more robust, barely.  In other words, you really don't need to provide light it it sacrifices your ability to keep 70 degrees 24/7/365.


A variety of fodder ages all on standing seam roofing trays. Notice the great growth and healthy root mat on each of them


Current watering system in the long skinny trays is a flood irrigation.  It works well, but you have to keep the seeds back a bit or it won't spread the water along the base of the tray well.  Same problem at the bottom end, we lose about a foot overall to wasted tray length this way.


This was another learn by experience thing- we found in the winter we were stunting the growth simply by putting the cold water on them, so we added 100' of hose to the watering system, wrapped it around his water heater and hung it up high in the warmest spots of the garage, production rate jumped by 50% overnight.  Duh, once you think of it.


Timer and manifold.  We have tried sprayers and a few other methods of getting the water to the seed, this works best by far.


Size of the new trays-




Another shot of the trays.  These are marketed by several companies as fodder trays, but we really have learned (expensively over the years) that they suck.  There are far better ways to sprout fodder and these dumb things were like $6/ft, but when we started we thought we needed it to get good results.  Another trick for anyone who wants to try this at home, slope the trays a lot.  At first we started with about a 1/2" slope over the 12' tray length.  When we changed that up to about 4" we found the best results, get the seeds wet and let them dry.  That's the biggest problem most of the big commercial units have, they soak the seeds 24/7 and they spoil as fast as they sprout.




And last, here's a crappy seed cleaner he's been using to try to polish up the stuff we've got.  It doesn't really work, we need to thresh not clean, but the cleaning process will remove whatever is really loose or already off, so it's something.  And the cleaner was free.

Sunlight, my next problem that I really need to sort out soon (that means I could really use some help from the GD crowd).

As I mentioned above, I don't really need light for sprouting, but I'm trying to keep the greenhouse and fodder 100% operational year round without any power or external heat/cooling.  On my fodder bunker that means I need light just for working, although it's fine on the fodder too.  There are types of mold that only grow in the light, but there are types that only grow in the dark too so it's really is matter of just keeping the environment right.

My fodder will be all concrete, walls, slab and roof.  The roof will be metal decking with concrete poured over the top, but I need at least two skylights in it.  I'm thinking about using one of these-



Here's the problems-
1- I'm going to have nearly 2' of soil over the top of the slab.
2- We frequently get 3' of snow on top of that, especially where this is on the north side of the main greenhouse roof
3- this will be in the middle of the chicken run, I'm building the chicken and turkey run over the slab and down the back side of the property, and I don't want them to destroy whatever is up there.

Was also thinking about building something like this-


Advantage to the big one is that it would provide another vent (not sure if needed), but it also needs additional protections to keep chickens out and even chicken poop, I don't want to create pathways for mold.


I can also build something up like this, it needs to be a good 4' high anyway.

I would think anything you do allowing natural light will kill your thermal efficiency
What about some type of artificial light powered by either solar & battery or just electric.
Same thing goes for ventilation for temp control
Temp controlled dampers which use little power if you get the design right.

For example, I have a big green egg grill which with a lot of practice it will hold temp very well due to its design by adjusting the top and bottom vents.
Long cooks require tweaks from time to time as the charcoal burns down.
I got a BBQ guru which has a temp controlled fan & meat thermometer.
It held 225 for 28 hours straight with 0 assistance from me.

Just a thought.

See if you can extend the skylight 3' above the ground surface and figure out a cone of light wire that will prevent chickens from parking on top? Like an inverted tomato cage?

Or solar cells, battery bank, motion activated LED lighting?

What about fiber optics?  Anyone ever mess with those?

I did some brief searching online and didn't really learn anything related to this application, lots of people selling small stuff for models or crafts.

How much weed can you grow in that....

Expensive and dumb.

Let me put it this way.  I'm going to put Colorado out of business.



OK, so stick with the window or tubular style.  I kinda like that little steel tubular skylight, minimal effect on my heating/cooling, I can build a stand around it to stick it up above the dirt a bit and put an electric fence around it set to 'BBQ'.

They are expensive though, $400 each for the high quality ones, half that for crap.

I need a small amount of power anyway, I need to pull hot air off the peak of the greenhouse and pump it underground and into the fodder room in the winter, so I'm not completely opposed.  The other problem is that I kinda like the more robust, green heavy fodder which requires light.  I've read that it doesn't matter nutritionally, but I don't care, I still like it.  so I'd like to have a natural light source that is always 'on' during the day.

But your idea still has a lot of merit, it's easy and fast and keeps the thermal properties maxed out.

Electric fences work on flying chickens?


Just get a double wall chimney pipe, waterproof the shit out of it in situ, and put some plexi glass on top or something. You could even set it in at an angle to match the winter sun so you get all the winter light and only some of the full power summer light.

Subscribed.  This is way beyond my skill level but interesting as hell.  Keep sharing your progress OP.

Maybe if I do a pipe/tube and put a 12" plastic pipe over it and well anchored in the concrete, then fill the space between the two with perlite or something similar to insulate it.  I could have it stick up 3-4' and be insulated, then I just need to wire up a bird diverter.

Waterproofing it like crazy will be the key, spray on tar preferred. I'd imagine the air gap would insulate better than perlite, but iwk

Following... This has peaked my interest.  I pay a lot of $$ feeding horses.  When you say you were feeding your cow 30 lbs., was that a day?  And how much time did it take to make 30 lbs.?  I'm looking for a time money comparison.

It seems that you could solve a lot of heating, cooling, self sufficiency, and lighting issues w/ some solar panels and a storage bank.  You could use them for lights, heating in the summer, and ventilation for cooling in the summer.   

Some friends of mine purchased several rolls of TPO roofing that had factory blems, it's really cheap and I think they still have some around.  Assuming they do, I want to put a waterproof layer between the dirt and foam anyway, and the TPO can be welded to itself and a plastic pipe.  I hope to also either weld it to the concrete or lap it over the top of the wall to make sure I've got a waterproof path from the roof to the dirt.

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It takes a few minutes to-
Empty the 8 day old tray
dump the soaked seed onto the tray
refill the presoak bucket

Watering is done automatically so you're not babysitting it all day.

Hay is normally figured at 2% of the weight of the animal, so our horse was about 1,000lbs and we gave her 20lbs of fodder a day and she lost weight.  Bumped that to 25lbs and she looked awesome, glossy coat, good disposition, etc.  So you really need to take the weight of the DRY hay you are feeding, bump it by 20% or so and that's the WET weight of the fodder per day.

We get about 5-7lbs/sq-ft of fodder space, so if you had trays providing about 4sq-ft, each tray per day will feed a horse.  Roughly.  Lots and lot of variables.

OST

Awesome

Fascinating thread, really looking forward to this as it progresses.

We're planning a move to Alaska, eventually also planning on some greenhouses. You've got some very interesting ideas.

You guys are more than welcome to come over and help!    Plenty of work to do, although figuring out WHAT to do is really a hard part of the whole thing too.I'll be pouring the cap on my fodder room soon so I've got about a week to have whatever parts I'm going to use here and ready to install.  Metal decking is already here, I really just need the skylight figured out in the next couple of days.

Is there a way to store it for a road trip?  example would be to have fodder to feed on the road say a week - 2 week trip?

Thanks, we'll swing right on over lol.

I'll see if I can dig up some of my old passive solar books from the '70's. Lots of good ideas in them.

I'm also wondering if it would have been worthwhile to make a few scale models of different designs, and run those for a bit to find the most optimal one? I'll have to check into that software link you posted earlier.

I think road trips is actually how this sprouted fodder really got it's start.  Guys that were traveling the country racing horses were finding they had trouble sourcing good feed at each location and hauling enough feed for a long trip is problematic.  Instead of constantly changing the feed on their horses, they built fodder units in their horse trailers so they could provide the best quality feed all the time wherever they were.

But outside of that, it can last a few days in a cooler.  You can even take it out and give it some sun once in a while, water it and it will last longer, but as soon as it starts sending up the second blade of grass, it's grass not sprouts and the nutrient density drops significantly.  Still good stuff and some of that density drop is simply because of the extra growth, but it's something to consider.

We've got a few full-scale models around here!  I've been doing the fodder and a friend of mine has the model greenhouse, his has not heat or power and uses crappy plastic sheeting for glazing, and he still had tomatoes alive when it was -17 outside a few years ago.  We talked quite a bit as we came up with this design, learned a lot and tried to improve on it.  

It would be interesting to see what you've got in those books.  I haven't tried reading yet,

That's what I am talking about. Way to go man!

Where are you getting your supplies?  Locally or online?

Very interesting OP and thanks for sharing.  I love build threads.

I have access or can help with any waterproofing details if need be and / or solatubes / skylight designs (looks like you might be using some in the design).  Let me know.

here's a greenhouse (high alpine plants) / roof system we just finished up in Vail, CO.  Very fun project:

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Good thread OP. So reminiscent of reading The Martian

Tag

OP - another vote here for LED + PV for your lighting.

One of the best ways to reduce your required wattage is to only run LEDs in the spectrum(s) your sprouts need (ie, don't run white LEDs).

I do small scale Kratky method hydroponics in the basement here and 100W of LED is enough to grow out trays of dense greens.

Given the light requirements for sprouting is fractional that of growing out mature greens, your lighting requirements is even less.

One or two decently sized panels would likely be sufficient to directly drive the LEDs much of the year for your - along with a modest battery bank buffer.

At these wattages, the LEDs also wouldn't generate much extra heat either nor introduce the thermal breaks the solar tubes would - and easier to put the light where you need it.  Thin ribbons of LEDs could go right over the grow trays without effecting their spacing.

I'm thinking you're right.  Here's an LED ribbon on Amazon, only $30 (and I think there are better prices than this) for a 16' ribbon.  I could run two or three of these strategically in my 10x26 fodder room, which will be completely coated with stark white epoxy, and really have a bright work area.  

Amazon LED

I want some battery support and solar panels anyway, so this isn't really a complete departure from what I'll be using anyway, I just didn't realize it was as easy as a few ribbons.  From what I saw it will take about 24W per ribbon, so I'll want at least 100W of supply I think. No clue what that will look like, I'm a total newb, but a neighbor is completely off grid in his 8,000sq-ft house, so I'll ask him for input.

I should also nail down which fans I'll be using to pump air into the fodder room so that I can plan on enough wattage for them too.

EDIT-

Here's a good 12V blower that should work for pushing my air around.  Can't find the amp draw on it, but I'll order one and build the PV setup around it.

Moving hot/warm air down is not an easy task and I've never had any luck doing it .  It wants to go up and is persistent.

got some work on the greenhouse done today, I'll be up till midnight trying to keep up with my real job, but it felt good to be out of the office chair and seeing the blue sky for a change.

State of the greenhouse as of now-


Maybe some explanation here.

I decided that I didn't have enough air flow based on the calcs I ran, which may or may not be applicable to a greenhouse as they are intended for residential air conditioning.  So I had the idea to bury a line in the backfill as I went.  There's a flip side to that coin though.  I have a few friends who have used large air tunnels into their house to help condition their homes in the summer, but as the summer progresses the tunnel will slowly heat soak and become less effective.  I know I'll have the same trouble, but as long as I have enough air moving I shouldn't be in too bad of shape.  With the air line being buried right along the wall, the wall will heat soak the dirt behind it, then the air line will pull some of that warm air in, reducing the heat soak in the dirt to a degree but still using that energy back into the greenhouse.  So in the winter the wall is like a big bucket of heat that I slowly fill all summer long, but I've just punched a hole in it to drain the bucket faster.  Good idea?  Dunno.  It's likely that pulling the air through there is an inefficient way to use that heat bank, but I dont know till I try it and I'm not going to go to all the trouble to dig it up and try later, so it's in.  And I'll do another on the other side too.  At worst I simply never use them and just have a hole through my heat bank, at best it's a great source for conditioned air and everything works well.  

I do need to bury at least 4, maybe 5 6" lines through the yard still, but I'm waiting until we won't be driving on it anymore because it's so wet and slippery that we might get stuck in the back yard now.


We forgot to put penetrations in the wall, so we had to dig through the frozen dirt and slop.  Huge mess.


Inside the greenhouse-


Slowly backfilling.  This is nearly painful on a mini, but the local guy with a big excavator is having it repaired and I don't know about paying someone.  I like doing it, it's my mini, but at some point I could be getting other stuff done.  I only got about 20% of the backfill done today, so I'm not sure if I'll get sick of the slow progress and hire a real excavator or not, I'd like to get the backfill done so I can pour the slab in the fodder room and then the cap asap.  Like next week.





Also, since I screwed up my last post-

Here's the fan I'm thinking of using. this will be used to suck some warm air through a 6" pipe off the top (inside) of the greenhouse and push it underground.  I'll use a solid, smooth 6" line above ground and a 4" perforated pipe below ground, about 18" into the native dirt and 3-4' under the top of the final grow bed elevation.  It will vent back out the other end, hopefully constantly pushing some heat into the dirt through the winter and charging that heat bank under the greenhouse.  Fan draws about 60 watts.
Inline fan



I called my friend nearby that is completely off grid in his house, he just got solar panels for about $0.45/watt for 240W panels.  Apparently that's a really good deal, and he's sure I will be able to get in on the next group buy.

So with a few batteries and a controller, I should be able to use two panels to run 5 of the 24W led strings and one of these fans.  The fan won't run too often, but it's still going to be some trial and error to see how it works.

Oh, and the cranky PITA lady next door came over to complain that the HOA didn't approve, lol.  I'm the HOA president, she is on the board but is such a huge pain in the ass that she's losing all the support she thought she ever had, so I'm kinda hoping this will be the breaking point of the HOA.  Or of not, at least a rubicon where we can get past telling people what to do with their property.  I was waiting for a change to have a show-down, didn't plan on it this soon. I've only been the pres for a few months.

Sorry, I missed this.

Are you referring to the fodder supplies or the greenhouse stuff?

Heres a link to an interesting design for a green house.  I really like the straw matting they use to insulate the top of the green house during the night.  

3 walled green house

How many CFM will that inline fan move?  It might be worth taking a look at some indoor gardening duct fans because some of them can move a lot of air.  
what cfm fan do you need

Inline duct fans


Check out Farmtek, but i bet you already know about farmtek.   they sell all kinds of green houses and fodder systems.  They might be a good resource to call and pick their brain as far as air exchange or anything else you can think of.  

Farmtek


ETA:  You mentioned in one of your fodder posts that you almost get high from the high levels of O2 in the fodder room,  Have you ever thought about supplemental CO2 in the fodder room to see if additional co2 helps with the growth rate?  A lot of people use a Propane or Natural Gas burners to generate Co2,  Ive seen some people use instant on propane or NG hot water heaters or camp showers to generate co2 and as a additional bonus you get a source of hot water.   Maybe you could pump the hot water into a radiator for a heater in the winter time.   In the summer, Im not sure about what to do with the hot water as you will be trying to lose heat.  Maybe you could do a closed system and pipe the hot water into the ground and let the ground absorb the heat. 

This is fascinating!

Fodder supplies as in trays, shelfs, lights, Pump, and stuff.  Seed I know your getting local from a farmer.

I'll answer a couple of questions here at once-


Yes, we've dealt with both fodder tech and farmtek.  Fodder tech was terrible, I really don't recommend anyone shop from them, they're happy to take your money, but no support and overall jackasses.

We bought our first set of trays and some chemicals from fodder tech in SLC.  

The second set was from Farmtek, they answered a lot of questions and worked with us a lot before we ever purchased from them.  Great folks.

There are lots of great options when you add power and other commodities.  But I'm trying to keep as self sustainable as possible, no power, no heat, etc.  I'm hoping even in the winter the rising warm air in the greenhouse will pull plenty of fresh air into the greenhouse and keep plenty of carbon available.  

I won't be able to charge that thermal mass unless I use a fan, so a few small fans run on solar panels are acceptable to me.  But I'm hoping the chimney action will pull enough fresh air year round to keep things working well.  It appears that because I buried the entire greenhouse I should have lots.of thermal mass to get me through the bulk of both the summer and winter.   In the worst part of the winter here we are below zero for a few weeks at a time, I figure if I start pumping hot air underground I'll be able to keep the ground warm enough to get me through those 3 or 4 weeks each winter.  Feeding 70 degree air to the fodder will be interesting.

You sir have a shiny steel pair to pull this off in a HOA without approval! I wish you the best and hope you dont end up fucked by the HOA! (Even if you are the pres)

Your dedication and hard work on a project that in your own words is ''just for fun'' should serve as an inspiration and example to all. You have earned my utmost respect as a man willing to go to great lengths to provide for his family.

You should disband the HOA at the first opportunity you get. They are in direct violation of ''Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness'' this country was founded on.

I hope your project continues without problems or delays. Best of luck to you and your family.

That is amazing!