Farmers describe organic, no-till vegetable production
ing a roller-crimper and a vertical tillage tool and strip tillers to manage residue, along with power harrows and spaders. He said crimpers don’t always kill cover crops that cancompetewithcrops suchas melons, but undercutting addressed that. Fosterhasusedplasticcover inhissystem forgrowingwatermelons,showingincreased moistureandhigher yields. Plasticulture fa- cilitatedmorestablesoilaggregates,hesaid, and showed increases in total nitrogen, nitrates, ammonium, inorganic nitrogen, organicmatter,availablenitrogen,phospho- rousandnutrientvalue.Hesaidheplansfur- ther researchonplasticultureusage. Duringaquestion-and-answer session, TomWilley, a retired farmer of a 75-acre patch inMadera, said he has been an ad- vocate of using plastics and joked that he has beenaccusedof being “aplastic sales- man sometimes.”
Willey called plastic an excellent mois- turebarrier “toholdaveryhumidenviron- ment against the soil on top of which we have left a great deal of biomass.” Heconceded“we’renothappywithusing plastics,” and theymust be removed from the field. He said therewill be experiments with biodegradable plastics and research intowhether thosecanbecomposted. The program was presented by the Ecological Farming Association. Fo r mo r e i n f o r ma t i o n a b o u t Conservation Innovation Grants, which areofferedby theUSDANatural Resources ConservationService,seetheNRCSwebsite at www.nrcs.usda.gov; find the Programs tab, thenchooseFinancial Assistance. (Denni s Pol lock i s a repor t er in F r e s no . He ma y b e c on t a c t e d a t agcompollock@yahoo.com.)
ByDennis Pollock Three California farmers gathered virtually for a report on two years of re-
around a tractor, engulfingmuch of it. “How do you flow with nature and not have nature fight back?” Park asked. PaulMuller,co-ownerofFullBellyFarmin theCapayValley, grows 80crops in rotation alongwithproductsproducedwiththehelp of chickens, sheep, goatsandseveral cows. Muller cited five rules for healthier soil with reduced tillage: avoiding or reducing tillage, including chemical intervention; keeping living roots in the soil; creating diversity of plant species for cover crops; keeping soil covered withmulch; and in- troducing animals if possible. He said the conservation grants help farmers look for techniques for growing vegetable and tree crops with reduced- or no-till practicesandtool uptogrowquality crops while enhancing soil fertility. Full Belly Farm is also looking at the impacts of keeping ground covered and changes in the soil after three years while measuring organic matter, carbon, wa- ter-holding capacity and fungal/bacterial ratios, andnitrogencyclingandavailabili- ty, while assessing yield and quality. Muller acknowledged setbacks with certain crops, including melons, which yielded at 30% of comparable melon crops. Questions that were raised include whethermelons like themix of living cov- ersonthesideof theplant line,Muller said, and “did we mix soil in the seed line and change the decomposition process?” Phil Foster and Katherine Foster farm 250 acres of certified organic fruit and vegetables on two ranches near San Juan BautistaandHollister. Theyhaveadiverse range of crops and market up to 60 pro- duce items at peak season. Phil Foster said undercutting with a McElroy machine has proved successful in terminating cover crops. He described tools important inreducing tillage, includ-
search in com- mercial-scale, no-till, organ- i c vegetabl e produc t i on . The farmers discussed ex-
periments supported by Conservation Innovation Grants offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Topics included cover-crop biomass digestion under plastic and weed barrier fabric, carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, novel equipment and cover cropping. Scott Park, his wife, Ulla, and son, Brian, farm 1,700 acres with 10 to 20 dif- ferent crops south of Meridian for Park FarmingOrganics. Indiscussing reduced tillage for organic farming, he said grow- ers need to match their cover crops to their farming system. “Trust your own instincts,” he said. “Believewhat you see.” He advised using legumes as cover in early spring, and amix in later spring. Park di scussed di f f icul t ies wi th cover crops in tomatoes and recom- mended “changing the farm system in small increments.” “Youneedtohavemiscellaneousequip- ment that fits your farm, not fitting your farm to available equipment,” he said, and referred to his operation as “a normal California farm, farmed abnormally.” Machineryheusesincludesaverticaldisk tomixthecovercropwiththesoil,andacut- tingbar that slides throughthebedtolift the plant.Hesaidaminimum-tilledfieldcanbe ready for planting in twoweeks, and it can beamistake toplant toosoonafter tilling. Park also incorporates animal grazing into his system, and uses a flamer to con- trolweeds.He saidnatureadjusts toman’s intervention and, to illustrate that, he showed a picture of a tree that had grown
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Pozzolo is experimentingat theVentura Countysitewitharoller crimper toprovide weed control—a critical issue in organic production—and Rodale researchers are looking at other practices for organic veg- etableweed control. Gonzales-Siemens said the facility has donecover cropexperiments and is estab- lishing an experiment comparing living versus plasticmulch. “We areusing clover as amulchand the cash crop is broccoli,” he said. “Ideally, growerswouldbe able tomove away from plastic. The clover won’t mitigate weeds as well as plastic, but there could be other benefits in terms of soil health.” ( Bo b J o hn s o n i s a r e p o r t e r i n Sacramento. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@gmail.com.)
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June 9, 2021 Ag Alert 15
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