The first thing a person is likely to notice when stepping into the balmy confines of the main greenhouse at Hutchinson Community College’s South Campus is a serene little waterfall. Water trickles down large slabs of rock and collects in a small, lily padcovered pond which is home to some particularly shy koi. The pond narrows to a small stream. On the other side of the stream is an area that features some exotic-looking plants like large barrel cacti and pony tail palm trees. Beyond this miniature oasis sits row after row of greenhouse benches, upon which there may be hundreds or even thousands of plants, depending on the time of the year. One thing that can almost always be found in the greenhouse, however, is a man by the name of Alan Roberts-Mitchell, Greenhouse Manager. The greenhouse welcomed Roberts-Mitchell in August 2011. He helps support the agriculture and horticulture departments by growing plants for plant science and crop science. The greenhouse also grows plants for the Block & Bridle plant sale and is involved in community outreach programs, including a preschool garden for the First Christian Church and gardens for the HCC
Childcare Center, as well as research for Kauffman Seed. “We’re doing a salt study for Kauffman Seed on soybeans to distinguish which soybeans can take the most salt for the farmers that have a higher salt content in their water,” Roberts-Mitchell said. “That’s a good research program for the students here at the school to be able to see.” Roberts-Mitchell also teaches a class at the greenhouse called Let’s Get Growing, a non-credit class that started in February. “I have a family member on campus who told me about [the class], knowing I like plants, and I was excited to hear that there was a big changeover in the greenhouse,” Becky Mullins, Hutchinson said. She is one of several students who meet at the greenhouse on Wednesday evenings to learn both from Roberts-Mitchell and from each other. Mullins said her favorite part of the class was “working with her hands in the dirt.” Prior to working at HCC, Roberts-Mitchell was a scientist and was involved in several interesting projects. One project was “a hierarchical database of scientific and medical nomenclature,” which NASA will take to the moon and to Mars, and which is being used
by Iceland to genetically code their population. Pharmaceutical companies also use it for drug discovery and clinical trials. Another interesting story Roberts-Mitchell tells is about Ziggy, a tomato plant with a fascinating history. In 1997, Ziggy (in seed form) and 1.4 million of his “seed relatives” were treated to a zerogravity weekend retreat on the Russian Space Station Mir, courtesy of NASA. “It was a combined project, 4.2 million seeds were cleaned and divided into 3 equal sets.” RobertsMitchell said. “One set was flown aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, those seeds experienced zero atmospheric pressure.The second set was placed in the Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station deployed underwater in Key Largo, Florida at 1.6 atmospheres. The 3rd set of seeds was the earth-based seed control group that experienced pressure of 1 atmosphere.” The seeds were then distributed to schools and universities to see what differences there were between the sets of seeds. Roberts-Mitchell figures it’s likely that Ziggy is the only plant from that experiment that is still alive and kicking, which would make him the oldest plant to have ever gone to space. Ziggy was planted in 2003, making him about nine years old now. Roberts-Mitchell brings Ziggy into the greenhouse every fall and puts him back outside every spring, where he grows and still produces about 85% of the harvest that he did when he was just 1 year old. Roberts-Mitchell’s work has taken him around the world. He was born just outside of London and has lived in many places including Germany, Montana, Los Angeles, and Okinawa, Japan where his
Space Shuttle Atlantis
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Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station
two children were born. On a bad weather day, a native Kansan might wonder why such a well-traveled man would decide to settle down here. Was it work? Was it love? Does he just really like HCC? Well... yes. His wife is originally from Kansas, and he has a history with HCC as well. “I took several classes out here, fell in love with the greenhouses and thought that this would be a wonderful place to work. At the time I was traveling every week somewhere in the world. I was a scientist and I thought,‘You know, I want to do something different, and I don’t want to wait until I’m in my 70s or 80s to find a job that I really enjoy,” Roberts-Mitchell said.“I was very fortunate to get this job, I feel honored to work here.” Roberts-Mitchell said if there was one message his students took away from him it would be this, “It’s all about the fun.”
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