Gallery

I take far more pictures than I post on social media, so I dug through the collection to select some of the best ones and included a little bit of information about them. I’ll periodically add a new section that covers significant events.

Research

I find that there can be inspiring things to look at in research facilities, especially agricultural. I picked prime examples that demonstrate the infrastructure and technology needed for the incremental knowledge gain and advancement of science.

Pots in a high throughput phenotyping facility at Wageningen University and Research moving from one greenhouse to another.
A greenhouse equipped with “smart” pots that track soil pH, nutrient absorption, and transpiration of each plant individually.
An image from one of the growth cycles during my Ph.D. research on the Modified Energy Cascade.
Lettuce transplanted and ready to enter the growth chamber.
Algae wheel water treatment in Okeechobee, Florida. I visited a few times to help collect data.
A low cost apparatus used to collect sludge from the wastewater facility in Okeechobee for further analysis.
The first iteration of a whole canopy gas exchange chamber.
A neat visual of a UbiQD quantum dot film (left) compared to a traditional greenhouse film. The left side actually has more photosynthetic light reaching the plants due to the quantum dots.
A glimpse of what agricultural research requires. Each of those boxes maintains the environment of a separate greenhouse keeping any of the disease vectors contained within.
The infill pattern of a 3D printed plant stand to ensure that all plants receive the same amount of light.
A glimpse of the HyPer Gator at the University of Florida. It was fun to see (and hear) the servers I used to conduct a global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis.
I was excited to see a staple crop like rice being researched in a greenhouse.
An image of the mushroom cultivation chamber I created as part of my masters research.
Thomas Edison planted this Banyan tree in Fort Myers, Florida (among many other plants) for research about rubber production.

Pictures of Me

Pictures of me are hard to come by, here’s a small collection of the one behind this whole site working hard and having a good time in life.

Donald Coon hard at work preparing for another growth cycle for his Ph.D. research.
Donald Coon with his lettuce at University of Florida’s growth chamber facility.
I sent this picture to my committee over winter break to announce that I finished my first experimental run.
Donald Coon presenting at the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research annual conference in the Plants session.
When the American Society of Horticultural Science conference came to Florida they rented this and I couldn’t pass up giving it shot or three.
Looks staged but this is a candid shot of a couple crop modelers working on a group project for a course.
Taken at the Bolens Bluff Observation Tower on one of rare occasions it was accessible.
Aquaponic romaine lettuce production at Traders Hill Farm while I was the Lead Horticulturist.
Me as Lead Horticulturist inspecting the construction of this test NFT system.
My wife and I after finishing our wedding ceremony.
“Donald look like your having fun” Easy task in the CEA student association greenhouse.
I didn’t get to make snowballs in Arizona, so I once rolled up all the root mats from a NFT system.
Rex Butterhead lettuce taken in the Vertical Farm at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, University of Arizona.
Weekly harvest from the Nutrient Film Greenhouse I used to manage at the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center.
Taken at Plenty’s Laramie Wyoming indoor agriculture research facility. This was a long evening when we were scrambling to balance the water flow to the newly installed chambers.
Donald Coon excitedly sharing a poster about his analysis of the Modified Energy Cascade crop models.
Me next to a gigantic winter melon grown in the Living with the Land Greenhouses. Makes great soup and candy.
Riding the Living with the Land boat with my outgoing intern cohort and the incoming one for a show quality check.

Agriculture

Plants and plant production systems that I have come across and managed to take decent photos of.

A Tucson sunset shining through one of the greenhouses at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center.
A hazy evening in the greenhouse complex.
Panoramic view of University of Arizona Farm with a rainbow.
The Mars Lunar Greenhouse prototype shortly before it was shut down. Turns out this was important in working on the Modified Energy Cascade Model, which I learned years later during my PhD.
The indoor vertical farm at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center
One half of a greenhouse I managed during my Masters degree.
Lettuce at 2, 3, and 4 weeks old in a nutrient film system.
A view of all the entire greenhouse including the seeding station, nursery channels, and production area.
The enclosed space between two greenhouse evaporative pads.
A small portion of the greenhouse at the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens, the elevated walkway provides an excellent view.
A view from that walkway.
Waldmanns’ Dark Green lettuce as viewed through the growth chamber window.
A tomato greenhouse filled with young plants..
The temperate greenhouse at the Living with the Land in EPCOT.
A living wall of orchids I installed and cleverly hid all the irrigation for in the Living with the Land tropical greenhouse.
A small portion of the cactus selection at Bach’s Nursery in Tucson, Arizona.
A section of the soil on display at the Museonder in De Hoge Veluwe National Park, Netherlands. It shows the encroachment of sand and attempts to plow it under to maintain agricultural productivity.
Commercial microgreen production at Traders Hill Farm.
A beautiful canopy of romaine lettuce at Traders Hill Farm
Dense production of asparagus seedlings that looks like a forest at the proper angles.
A glimpse through the window of the tissue culture facility at Agri-Starts in Florida.
A greenhouse good enough for leafy greens can also grow an orchid on its structure quite well!