Even on a snowy day in early April, Montreal residents can expect fresh, locally grown strawberries thanks to Gush Farms, a pesticide-free vertical farm in the heart of the city.
Gush Farms grows berries in about a 105-day cycle and uses short-day strawberries in its three grow rooms that have six tiers and four double rows.
“Growing vertically allows us to be more space efficient, so cracking the code of this style of farming can improve yields and domesticate strawberry production and move away from reliance on imports here in Canada,” said Zachary Mason, chief technical officer for Gush Farms.
Mason said Gush Farms recently planted its youngest grow room.
“They’ll start flowering in a few weeks and then fruiting after about 50 days, at which point we’ll start harvesting for 50 days and restart the cycle,” he said.
In its second grow room, green berries and some nearly ripe berries start to progress. While the berries continue to grow, crews come in and help prune runners off to help the plant better focus its energy on fruit growth.
“The plants are putting out a lot of runners,” Mason said. “Our team here is pruning them diligently, and also in an indoor context, it’s important to prune for light distribution.”
Plants in Gush Farms’ oldest room is about 3-months-old and is in between harvests, where the plants produce more green fruit for the next flush.
Crews harvest at night or early morning to fill orders, which get sent to Lufa Farms.
“The customer will have it in their fridge the same day it’s harvested in most cases,” Mason said. “That freshness is kind of unbeatable and you can taste it compared to what grocery store varieties, and also the cultivar we grow here is not optimized for shelf life transport. It’s optimized for taste, and so you can taste the difference just in the variety that we grow as well.”
Gush Farms uses an NFT — or nutrient film technique — system where water flows constantly with a set amount of nutrients and the perfect pH.
Mason said that Gush Farms is pesticide-free and that the cultivars used are selected for flavor, not for shelf life or shipability.
“You really notice the difference when you try them,” he said. “Our problem is that we can’t produce enough to meet the demand. It’s a good problem to have, and we hope to drop the price to serve a much larger market once we scale up to our next farm.”
