Innovative Greenhouse Design for Nutrient Farm: Enhancing Local, Organic Food Production

Join us as we visit Nutrient Farm in New Castle, Colorado, an organic and biodynamic farm founded by Andy Bruno. A few years ago, Andy approached Ceres Greenhouse Solutions with a vision: to build a year-round greenhouse capable of withstanding the region's high winds and heavy snow loads.

We responded with a custom-designed solution: a single-sloped 60'x120' greenhouse with an attached 15'x120' head house on the north side. This state-of-the-art greenhouse features our GAHT™ (Ground to Air Heat Transfer) system and triple-layer ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) glazing, designed to maximize sunlight transmission and durability.

Before this greenhouse, year-round growing at Nutrient Farm was nearly impossible due to the challenging climate. Now, it plays a crucial role in their sustainable and regenerative agriculture model, helping them provide fresh, local produce to their community.

We're thrilled to showcase how our greenhouse supports Nutrient Farm’s mission and enhances their ability to grow year-round.

Learn more about Nutrient Farm on their website: https://www.nutrientfarm.com/

Interested in something similar for your farm? Contact Ceres today to make your dream a reality just like Andy! https://ceresgs.com/contact/?utm_sour...








my name is Andy Bruno originally I was a software engineer once I started learning about clean and organic food and later biodynamics I quickly changed my mind that food production was uh a much more important use of my time well we all want to feed our families the best we can so growing our own food was clearly the the best way to ensure the quality and at the same time help change the community and the world I bought the property in 2018 and I moved here in 2020 we're an organic and biodynamic practicing Farm and Ranch in Newcastle, Colorado

well we were searching for a professional Greenhouse Builder and it certainly helped when we found one that already was knowledgeable about renewable energy such as geothermal and phase change material and new revolutionary materials like the ETFE triple glazing that we have on the roof here when the owner of Nutrient Farm approached us wanting to build a greenhouse first thing we did was to look at the environmental conditions in order for us to properly guide him through the best choice of materials and once those materials were selected how we would go about designing it to fit its needs in this case we chose ETFE given the harsh conditions of the high desert Colorado Rocky Mountains we are at about 5,800 ft in altitude and ETFE is able to withstand both the snow loads and the uplift forces caused by the blowing strong wind throughout the year as you can see here in this greenhouse we have a variety of plants this is a thriving ecosystem inside of this greenhouse and in order to allow for such ecosystem to exist in here Ceres has put a lot of design hours and different solutions together to achieve this outcome a very robust climate control system that in this case it blows the air from South to North using highly insulated intake louvers that are controlled by actuators for precise and reliable controls it's about 90°F outside and you walked into the greenhouse and it's about 82°F environmental conditions here are proper for happy plants and happy people we believe at Ceres that this project here at Nutrient Farm is a great model for what sustainable agriculture could look like we believe in in Grassroots movements and we believe that you know by seeing it on a smaller scale people can become inspired and see what's possible and start something themselves and know what a fresh tomato tastes like learn more move to different places start systems like this I think our our impact has yet to come we're starting to provide Local Foods to the community we're a small mountain town and people have limited options for grocery and fresh grown food the long-term plan of Nutrient Farm is to incorporate the agricultural aspects along with ready to eat food as well as recreation and education so that way we could be an agricultural tourist destination if you will teach people and feed people and pass this information on to generations to come this greenhouse is a very exciting greenhouse because it not only is the first of its kind being the first three layer ETFE installation in the world but it also serves a very noble purpose and that's what people at Ceres believe in we believe in energy efficient sustainable food production this project serves as a as a role model as a proof of concept that local food production can be done at a smaller scale or relatively medium scale these initiatives can definitely take a huge impact in the world's food system as a whole