News

Ask Matt ... about Mills River greenhouses, campaign text messages, AI deepfakes

Nourse Farms bought the former Lakeside Produce greenhouse on Ladson Road, where it grows strawberry plants. [MATT MATTESON/Hendersonville Lightning]

By Matt Matteson, Published: April 6, 2024

Q. Driving by the Ohalo greenhouse next to Van Wingerden on N.C. 191, I noticed pink lights. What do they grow there and why pink lights?

   We reached out to our experts at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research & Extension Center in Mills River but got nothing. But Google knew the answer: Most plants thrive in pink lighting. You remember your high school biology teacher explaining how plants need, water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to grow. Well, pink lights speed up photosynthesis that produces energy in plants. Pink lights also draw less power than standard greenhouse lights.

Ohalo Genetics (pronounced “Oh-hollow”) does research on vegetables at its Mills River facility and develops genetically engineered corn and potato seeds for farmers. Although greenhouse manager Kyle Skinner declined to be interviewed, we found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved a potato that Ohalo scientists genetically engineered to alter the sugar profile to reduce glucose and fructose.

   Genetic engineering is often a controversial process. Doing research for this story, I tripped over a video interview of David Friedberg, Ohalo’s CEO. The fast-talking Friedberg laid out his company’s philosophy:

• Plants are machines that are inefficient compared to their full potential.
• Plants can be reprogrammed by software called the genome.
• This is not haphazard editing. Ohalo takes a gene that would naturally change in evolution and simply accelerates the process.
• Ohalo’s research will save farmers money by increasing a plant’s yield and reducing acreage and water use.

Former tenants of the 1½-acre greenhouse in Mills River were Plants Direct and Gaia Herbs. California-based Ohalo took over the facility in May of 2023.

Q. What will they grow in the big greenhouse on Ladson Road that has been empty for well over a year?

   Strawberry plants. The former Lakeside Produce greenhouse in Mills River was sold last fall to a 90-year-old Massachusetts-based berry-producing company named Nourse Farms. The sales price for the greenhouse and the 121-acre site was $26.5 million. A large “We’re Hiring” sign hangs on the side of the massive greenhouse that for a short time grew tomatoes hydroponically. Work is underway to expand the facility by adding an 8,000-square-foot “bunkhouse” to house greenhouse workers.

   “We are not a production operation,” said Shannon Hurley, Nourse’s marketing director. “We propagate the plants and ship them to home gardeners, farmers or commercial growers.” Hurley said the Ladson Road greenhouse will begin with strawberry plants. It takes four to six weeks before the offshoot  “runner” can be separated from the mother plant. Those offshoots become “daughter plants” and can be packaged and sold. Nourse’s main farm in Whately, Mass., grows eight varieties of berries plus asparagus.

   I spoke with J.D. Obermiller about the change from growing greenhouse tomatoes to strawberry plants.

“It’s really not a stretch,” said Obermiller who grows strawberries at his large “U-pick” farm Horse Shoe. “Nourse already has the watering system and the lights.” Obermiller buys strawberry “plugs” that he plants in September.  His strawberries are ready for picking around Mother’s Day of the following spring. Obermiller’s Strawberry Farm has 28,000 plants. He also grows blueberries and blackberries. “We have a connection with Nourse Farms,” he said. “We have bought plants from them in the past and they are a reputable operation.”

When Lakeside Produce opened its 15-acre greenhouse in early 2021, it was touted as the largest in the state. It was also a point of discussion as nighttime greenhouse lighting projected far beyond the site. Neighbors called it a “heavenly glow.” Lakeside grew tomatoes and mini-cucumbers for less than two years until things went badly for the Canadian company. Many believe their problems had to do with a tomato virus that devastated the crop grown in its Ontario facilities. The corporation filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, declaring it owed creditors more than $188 million.

Q. I used to just get non-personal text messages on my cell phone for years for doctor appointments and pharmacy refills but now I get them from political candidates. How do they get my phone number?

   Your number has been “out there” probably for years but political campaigns are getting savvier about using that data. Based upon my research the most likely source is from voter registration rolls. The standard North Carolina voter registration form requires a name and address but leaves optional one’s gender, race and ethnicity plus email and phone number. All this information is public record. Henderson County’s elections office lists more than 105,000 names of voters, many of which are inactive voters. Roughly 70 percent of the forms provide contact information. Also, your phone number may be on a database exchanged by other campaigns or sold to campaigns by companies that deal in the data business. Just walking around with your smartphone, data about yourself can be retrieved by someone with the right equipment and software.

   Remember the Do Not Call lists? It should come as no surprise that FCC laws exempt political campaign calls and text messages. However, there is a rule that says candidates’ text messages must be manually dialed rather than by using autodialing technology. That one might be hard to enforce. If there are 7.3 million registered voters in the state, that means that somebody is manually dialing some 5 million texts. Hmmm.

   We all whine about getting multiple text message reminders from known senders. Patients of UNC Health Pardee, for example, sign a consent form before getting such calls. I get reminders from my dentist who uses a texting service called Solutions Reach. It saves the appointment clerk two to three hours a day calling patients on the phone. Square, the company my barber uses for credit card transactions, includes texting at no cost. I found a service online that charges $15.50 a month and another that charges 2.5 cents per text. Unfortunately, texting is not compatible with answering machines — for those few who still have them!

Update on AI

   Last year we ran a piece about AI (artificial intelligence) but we didn’t cover the term “deepfake.” This is where, using available AI technology, a video’s sound can be re-created using the speaker’s own voice to say things totally bogus. Some notable deepfake videos posted on the internet include one of Elon Musk speaking but with Charlie Sheen’s voice. Another showed a solemn Richard Nixon reading a report of a moon landing disaster. In January, a deep fake robocall created a Joe Biden voice discouraging residents from voting in the New Hampshire primary. In North Carolina a PAC circulated deepfake video showing congressional candidate Mark Walker saying things he would never utter. The video showed Walker saying he was way over his head, caught in lies and lacked leadership skills. If the deepfake video was not so ludicrous it might be believable. Sadly, maybe to some it was. Walker, by the way, finished second in a Republican primary for the Sixth Congressional District, on March 5 and subsequently accepted a job serving as faith and minority outreach director for the Trump campaign.

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Send questions to askmattm@gmail.com.