Belushi’s Farm: A 12-Day Fertigation Retrofit

April 19, 2023

In 2023 we retrofitted the irrigation and fertigation system at Belushi’s Farm in Shelbyville, Illinois. Start to finish it took twelve days, and part of it was filmed for the Discovery Channel series Growing Belushi. This is what the job actually involved.

What was there before

The farm was feeding the way most operations start out: mix a batch, pump it, repeat. That works until it doesn’t. Batch systems tie your feed to whatever was mixed hours ago, they occupy floor space that could be growing, and every tank is a surface for biofilm to establish on. When the recipe needs to change, you wait for the tank to empty.

The irrigation side had the problems that usually come with a system that grew piecemeal rather than by design: uneven delivery across zones, and piping that had been added to over time rather than sized for the flow it was carrying. If you want the arithmetic on why that matters, we wrote it up on the custom water piping page.

What went in

The core of the retrofit was the Paragon, our on-demand fertigation system. Rather than pre-mixing a batch, it meters each nutrient into the water line as the water is delivered — to the milliliter, per zone, on whatever schedule you set. That removes the tanks entirely, which is why the farm got floor space back as a side effect of the install.

The practical difference on a farm like this is recipe freedom. You are no longer choosing between “what is in the tank” and “waiting”. Different zones can run different feeds on the same day, and a change to a recipe takes effect on the next irrigation event rather than the next batch.

Nanobubbles on the water side

We also installed Moleaer nanobubble generation on the water loop. Nanobubbles are gas bubbles small enough that buoyancy barely acts on them, so instead of rising and popping they stay suspended and travel with the water — down the mainline, through the emitters, into the root zone. The effect growers usually notice first is inside the pipes rather than in the canopy: the anaerobic conditions biofilm depends on become much harder to maintain. There is more detail on how nanobubbles work and on biofilm and clogged emitters.

Why twelve days is the interesting number

Twelve days is fast for a retrofit of this size, and it is worth being honest about why. It was not heroics. It was that the design work was finished before anyone arrived on site.

Retrofits stall for predictable reasons: the pipe schedule turns out to be wrong for the flow, a zone count changes mid-install, or nobody measured the peak day demand and the water treatment is undersized for it. We had the irrigation numbers, the zone map and the pipe sizing settled in advance, which meant the on-site work was installation rather than problem-solving.

If you are planning a retrofit, that is the transferable lesson. The schedule is set long before the first fitting goes on. What we need from you up front is your peak daily water demand, your zone layout, and an honest picture of the existing plumbing — including the parts that were added later.

On camera

Nik walked through the system on Growing Belushi, which was a useful exercise in explaining fertigation to people who do not run a grow. The short version we landed on: irrigation gets water to the plant, fertigation decides what is in the water, and doing it on demand means you are not committed to a decision you made in a tank three hours ago.

What we would tell another farm

Sort the water before the feed. A precise dosing system on unpredictable source water still gives you an unpredictable result. Start with a known baseline.
Size against peak day, not floor area. The number that matters is the largest volume you need in any 24-hour window at full canopy. Sizing an RO system covers the method.
Count the floor space the tanks are using. It is usually more than people estimate once you include the access room around them.
Do the piping properly while everything is open. It is the cheapest it will ever be to fix.

How long does a fertigation retrofit usually take?

It depends on the size of the operation and how much of the existing plumbing is reusable. Twelve days at Belushi’s Farm was quick because the design, zone map and pipe sizing were finalized before we arrived. The on-site time is rarely the constraint — the design work is.

Do you have to shut the grow down during the install?

Not usually. Retrofits are normally staged so irrigation keeps running while the new system is built alongside, with a short changeover. That staging is part of the planning, which is another reason the design work matters more than the install speed.

What is the difference between irrigation and fertigation?

Irrigation delivers water. Fertigation decides what is dissolved in that water and delivers both together. On-demand fertigation meters the nutrients into the line as the water flows, instead of pre-mixing a batch and feeding from it.

Was this only possible because it is a large farm?

No. The same approach scales down — the reason to do it is the shape of the problem, not the acreage. Commercial fertigation walks through how it works at different sizes.

If you are planning a retrofit and want to talk through the sequencing, start with the Paragon or get in touch with the team.