How One Colorado Farm Grows Crops and Power Under the Same Panels
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📰 The quick summary: A Colorado farm combining 3,276 solar panels with crops, herbs, and berries has shown that panel shade can boost plant growth by up to 90% during dry years, offering farmers both food production and a stable electricity income from the same land.
📈 One key stat: On the east side of solar panels, grass production was up to 90% higher than in nearby open plots during dry years, showing how strategic panel placement can meaningfully protect crops from drought stress.
💬 One key quote: “The solar array provides me with the basic income that covers the cost of the farm,” said Byron Kominek, owner of Jack’s Solar Garden.
1️⃣ The big picture: Outside Longmont, Colorado, a family farm called Jack’s Solar Garden has been running a 1.2 MW solar array alongside crops, herbs, berry bushes, poultry, and pollinator habitat for several years. The setup, known as agrivoltaics, places elevated solar panels over farmland so that both electricity and food can be produced from the same land. Four years of field data from Colorado State University and Cornell University researchers show that panel shade reduced water stress and boosted plant growth by about 20% or more in dry years, with grass yields up to 90% higher near panels than in open plots. Colorado already has 5,687 MW of solar capacity and is now funding agrivoltaic research through state grants to test whether this model can work more broadly. Jack’s Solar Garden stands as one of the most concrete examples of how farm income and clean energy can reinforce each other rather than compete.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: Farmers facing hotter, drier summers now have a real-world example showing that solar panels can actually protect crops from drought rather than simply taking land out of agricultural use. The electricity income from the array covers core farm operating costs, giving growers a financial buffer that makes it easier to survive a bad harvest year. Shade from elevated panels creates cooler, moister pockets that allow more vulnerable crops like berries and herbs to thrive in conditions that would otherwise damage them. Pollinators, poultry, and diverse vegetation can all coexist within the same solar footprint, turning what might have been a single-use industrial installation into a more resilient, multi-layered farm ecosystem. At a broader level, this model offers a path for rural solar expansion that does not require removing land from food production, which could help ease community resistance to new solar development across the US.
3️⃣ What’s next: Colorado’s state government has already committed funding, including $300,000 for five new agrivoltaic projects in the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year, to test whether results from Jack’s Solar Garden translate to other crops and climates. Researchers still need to refine panel height, spacing, and orientation recommendations so that future installations are designed around farming needs rather than electricity output alone. Byron Kominek plans to monitor the 1,500 berry bushes planted in spring 2026 to gather more data on how panel shade performs for fruit crops over multiple seasons.
Read the full story here: Ecoticias – A Colorado farm now grows berries and herbs beneath 3,276 solar panels, and four years of data show the shade actually helped crops survive drought
