The Great Kansas Experiment: Could these little fish be the answer to organic farming?
He sits at a red and white checkered table, drinking Michelob Ultra in a frosted stemmed glass with a cigar in his right hand, chewing it slowly.
The 87-year-old retired doctor from Hutchinson, Kansas, talks about the great opportunity that tilapia represents for Kansas in the area of organic farming by creating a supply of organic fertilizer, which is difficult to come by, while not endangering local ecology from the invasive nature of tilapia, or as they’re sometimes called, “trash fish.”
Jack Mull owns the Grassland Game Preserve in the rolling sand dunes north of Hutchinson, a smaller, 486-acre preserve that offers the public deer and bird hunting and five ponds for fishing.
Behind the scenes, the preserve is incredibly self-sufficient, for example, using solar-powered fish and deer feeders, but the owners want to do more. With the organic movement coming to Kansas, it was time to get on board, Mull said.
“We are trying to work with Mother Nature, without destroying Mother Nature,” Mull said. “We do so many crazy things as people that we forget about what the good Lord gave us. So I hope he would see we are trying to build something here.”
It was around this cluttered table where Kansas locals wearing muddy boots talked about redefining organic farming. With backgrounds in farming and medicine, they learned from each other, while they sipped beer they keep by the keg and feasted on cold-smoked salmon or pork ribs they made just outside the front door.
Tilapia won’t grow here
For several years, the preserve had raised tilapia, these small freshwater fish, for its own use. Tilapia had several desirable traits for those wanting to stock their fish ponds because they grow and reproduce quickly, they’re an excellent food source for larger fish that fisherman want and their young eat algae.
But, there was one giant financial drawback to growing tilapia in Kansas: as warm-weather fish, they couldn’t survive Kansas winters.
But that same drawback is why growing tilapia in Kansas is easier. While other places have to be careful of their tilapia populations, and the species has even become a nuisance, clogging up canals and displacing native species, that couldn’t happen in Kansas, where the winters would freeze them out.
But just as the preserve managers were thinking about giving up and no longer growing tilapia, they got a call from a private hunting club in south Kansas that wanted 2,500 pounds of tilapia, way more than they had on hand.
Once they found significant demand, they decided to go all-in and have dedicated lots of time and resources creating the only tilapia sanctuary in Kansas.
“Each year, we add on to it,” said Pat Falter, a preserve employee. “It’s very risky when you have a large volume in a small area ... disease can come in and ruin it.”
Don’t waste the wastewater
While the fish may be small, they eat a ton, and Falter, the self-proclaimed fish “dad,” has to regularly change the water so they don’t poison themselves with ammonia.
The preserve partnered with Elevate Ag, a Herington, Kansas, company that consults with conventional, regenerative and organic farmers. Part of what they do is help farmers find new ways to treat their crops and cut back on synthetic fertilizers.
Organic farming can be a time-consuming and challenging transition to make, and with limited use of fertilizers, farmers have to spend extra time growing the soil’s health before they’re able to farm.
“This was a very unique alternative that didn’t have to be analyzed in a lab because there’s no need to check if chemicals are in it. It’s just wastewater,” said Travis Kraft, of Elevate Ag. “It’s just a very unique situation and is being used ... with great results.”
The wastewater is sold “as is” at $1 a gallon and is alive, full of tiny creatures and bacteria, which add to its usefulness as a fertilizer. In January, they sold 4,700 gallons to an organic farmer, and they have another order for 10,000 gallons of water at the end of April.
They’re currently installing a concrete pad and a 12,500-gallon fiberglass tank, which will store the water.
‘You do get attached’
Falter wears the Kansas working man’s uniform of blue jeans, a hoodie with a sports team logo, a camo baseball cap and work boots, and he is always ready with a joke. Although he’s only worked at the preserve for just over a year, when he talks about his fish, that’s when he really comes alive.
His salt and pepper beard wraps around his smile and his blue eyes shine underneath his glasses as he details all the complexities of raising tilapia in Kansas, and his regimented food schedule that helps them grow to adulthood with all the necessary nutrients.
All his fish start with compressed algae wafers, or “infant formula,” as he calls it, and he dropped a Necco wafer-like green disk into the water.
“It’s like watching a hockey or a soccer game,” Falter said. “They just scoot the wafer around like crazy.”
During the winter, the fish are kept, depending on their size and age, in a greenhouse-covered pool, which is kept warm using a solar water heater or in a building with a fish tank and four plastic stock tanks. In one gray tank, there were more than 1,000 fish, just bought, that are three weeks old.
“The other thing the fish seem to like is music, or maybe, I do,” Falter said with a laugh as he turned on the radio. “Classic rock and jazz are what they get exposed to, whether they like it or not.”
Each tank sits on insulating material. The tubs have two heaters to keep the water at a minimum of 83 degrees and are hooked up to an aerator and filter.
Even during the record cold during mid-February, they didn’t lose a single fish, because of Falter’s continuous care, according to Mull.
The fish will be moved outside at the end of May, but until then, Falter will check on them each day, checking the levels of ammonia, oxygen, and heat in the water, and tucking them in each evening.
“I do kinda like these guys,” Falter said as he put a plastic cover over the fish tubs, which reduces evaporation, retains the heat and, perhaps most importantly, prevents accidental deaths as fish jump out and cannot get back in. “You can’t hug or squeeze and kiss them, but you do get attached.”
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 5:52 AM.
