Rodale hosts the Pennsylvania Women in Agriculture Network

The PA Women in Ag Network (PA WaGn) and the Rodale Institute partnered on June 4th to showcase Rodale’s latest research in organics and provide a great opportunity for farmer-to- farmer networking. Are you interested in measuring your soil organic matter instantly in the field? Are you tired of throwing away plastic mulch? Read on.

Ann Stone from PA WaGn and Jeff Moyer from Rodale kicked off the day, welcoming us to Rodale. Then we were off to a tour of the farm led by researchers Jeff Moyer, Rita Seidel, Alison Grantham and their team. After a fabulous lunch, we spoke with Temra Costa, author of “Farmer Jane,” and learned about certification from Pennsylvania Certified Organic, and opportunities available for farmers from Natural Resources and Conservation Service. Here are a few highlights.

Alternatives to Black Plastic – Many of us use black plastic mulch. The alternative in a weedy field can be days lost to cultivation and hoeing. And boy do those tomatoes and melons grow faster and produce earlier with their roots warmed under plastic. But in the fall when it is time to rip up the plastic, you like me, might not be as cheerful. Plastic is expensive and time consuming to rip up, and the bill at the landfill is expensive. “Not only do none of us want to see our precious resources buried in the landfill, research shows that we lose 30-40% of our agricultural chemicals to runoff in fields with black plastic compared to un-mulched fields,” says researcher Alison Grantham.

Rodale researchers are hoping that rolled cover crop mulches can provide a viable alternative to plastic mulch. Grantham and her team planted vetch, rye and vetch/rye cover crops last fall. In early June they rolled or flail mowed all three types of cover crops. Tomatoes will be planted directly into the rolled or mowed cover crop by hand. The cover crop will act as a mulch, suppressing weeds and keeping the ground moist. They will compare the yield, and quality of the fruit to other plots where the tomatoes are planted into regular black plastic. Think of it this way. Instead of tilling up the ground in spring, and going to all the trouble of hauling in tons of straw to mulch your tomatoes or other crops, you could grow your mulch in the field. There is little question that growing your own mulch can work. In fact, I visited a farmer yesterday who does just that. But the question remains whether the yield you may lose to colder soils is made up with fewer costs and less labor.

Can I track my soil carbon? First, why would you want to track soil carbon? You might have heard of carbon sequestration. We know that carbon in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming. Sequestration is a way to store carbon – in the soil, in trees, in the ocean, where it can’t cause problems in the atmosphere. As we acknowledge that it is important to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, there is increasing talk of paying farmers “credits” for practices that keep carbon in the soil (organic matter is primarily carbon). So far farmers would be paid for doing a number of practices scientists have found are good at storing soil carbon. But we know that every farm is different, and the science showing which practices work is far from complete. If we can easily track how carbon changes on each of your farms, and see where and after which practices it changes, it will give us much better information about what practices really store carbon in the soil. Instead of paying for what we think works, we would be paying for what really works. Since farmers are great innovators and know their farms the best, tracking soil carbon in real time, with easy measures could be immensely effective.

At Rodale, researcher Elaine Viglione (right) is working to develop a mobile lab that would measure soil carbon right there, in the field. The lab is simple – a cardboard box holds a plastic tube that you lay a core of soil in. Elaine runs a hand-held tool called a spectrometer to measure the visable, near-infared and mid-infared reflectance (color) of the soil core. Remember the colors we see are the distribution and wave length of light reflected off a surface interpreted by the light receptors in our eyes. This machine is acting like a more sensitive version of our eyes “reading” the light reflected off the soil in a core from your field. Elaine will be comparing the readings from this machine to the numbers from traditional soil carbon analysis to see if the tool can give us better and quicker data.

Keep an eye out. It may not be too many years before you are able to measure your contribution to slowing global warming with this quick, effective technology.

What do women have to do with how America eats? The new book “Farmer Jane,” profiles women farmers, educators, advocates and chefs who are changing the way we eat. We were lucky enough to speak with Temra Costa, the book’s author. A few years ago Temra looked around the table in the non-profit/advocacy end of sustainable food systems and realized, “Hmm, we are mostly women.” Not all the movers and shakers in the sustainable food and farming movement are women, but many are. When Temra looked closer, she realized that of the top 15 national nonprofits focusing on sustainable agriculture issues, women comprise 62 percent of the employees and 60 percent of the executive directors. As mothers of children, nurturers of health and the ones in control of 85 percent of household budgets, women have the largest impact and concern when it comes to what they feed themselves and their families. Just look at your CSA members – most are women. On the farm, women are one of the fastest-growing demographics to own and operate farms in the United States and they are tending toward diversified, direct-marketed foods that create relationships with eaters.

Temra highlights many women in the sustainable food and farming movement in her book. Of course, there are many more (and men as well as women), Temra admits, but she hopes the few she was able to describe will be an inspiration.

Spinach Leaf Miner

Spinach leafminer seems to be more prominent than usual this spring in Southeastern Pennsylvania. After receiving a call, I started asking growers and many of them have seen it in fields that are not usually affected. I have seen leafminer damage in Swiss chard, beets and even arugula, in addition to spinach this year.

From a distance, damaged leaves will appear to have blisters – white squiggles on the leaves. When you take a closer look, you may be able to see the legless, yellowish-white larva burrowing between the leaf layers. When the larva is mature, it will cut a hole in the leaf, drop to the ground and pupate. Two to four weeks later it will emerge as an adult fly. The flies are small – 1/4-inch long. Apparently, they are gray with black bristles, but without a hand lens they look like any other small fly to me – perhaps a little slimmer. The adult flies lay clusters of small, white eggs on the leaves.

Usually early spring plantings escape damage. This year the soil temperatures warmed up sooner in places – possibly contributing to earlier than normal problems.

What can you do? Start with cultural controls. Once the leafminer larvae are inside the leaf they are relatively protected from pesticide applications. Crop rotation is important for leafminers. Spinach, beets and Swiss chard (and apparently arugula) are hosts. Make sure you plant in an area that has not seen these crops for two to three years. The spinach leafminer flies overwinter in or near spinach fields and emerge in April and May to lay eggs. Planting early or overwintering spinach can help you escape significant damage, especially if you will be harvesting before mid-May. Deep spring plowing can also reduce the numbers of overwintering fly pupae.

In smaller plantings, they recommend using row cover. The row cover keeps out the egg-laying adults. Install the row cover immediately when you plant, and keep it in place until harvest. One note of caution: If you place row cover over beds that have overwintering leafminers or flies enter under the row cover, you are trapping them inside. The naturally-occurring predators and parasitoids would normally be helping you keep the populations down. Instead, you have created a haven for leafminers and they will multiply!

Unfortunately, if you have significant leafminer problems now, it is hard to go back and do cultural controls. If possible, it is a good idea to pick and destroy leaves with leafmining damage before the larvae emerge and lay eggs for the next generation. On a small scale it is possible to scout for and destroy eggs. For organic growers, Entrust is the only labeled product that has shown any efficacy in research trials. It will penetrate leaves and so it has more activity. Other products, including garlic, may be effective; unfortunately research trials are lacking to back them up. I have also heard of growers using beneficial nematodes. Non-organic growers can use abamectin, cyromazine, dinotefuran, permethrin and
spinosad products.

See the 2010 Production Guide for Organic Spinach at www.nyipm.cornell.edu/organic_guide and Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations at http://horticulture.psu.edu/node/465 for details.

Insect Resistance to a GM Crop

Monsanto has revealed that a common insect pest has developed resistance to its flagship genetically modified (GM) product in India. The agricultural biotechnology leader says it "detected unusual survival" of pink bollworms that fed on cotton containing the Cry1Ac gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which codes for a protein that's toxic to many insect pests. In a statement to Science, Monsanto claims that the finding from western India "is the first case of field-relevant resistance to Cry1Ac products, anywhere in the world."

From: Science 19 March 2010:Vol. 327. no. 5972, p. 1439 "Hardy Cotton-Munching Pests Are Latest Blow to GM Crops Pallava Bagla"

DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5972.1439

Growers Visit Juniperdale Farm to View Cover Crops

Brian Fulmer of Juniper Dale Farm in Pen Argyl, PA told a group of local farmers his reasons for wanting to experiment with cover crops this year: To keep the soil in place, as well as to increase the nitrogen supply in his soil for sweet corn next year. “In other words,” he says, “the whole nine yards.”

Northampton County Cooperative Extension is taking part in an 11-county wide study of cover crops in Pennsylvania. They are using 15 different crops including: Aroostock Rye, Tillage Radish, Oats, Crimson Clover, Annual Ryegrass, Wheat, Triticale, Austrian Winter Pea, Hairy Vetch (Lancaster County), Hairy Vetch (Texas), Persian Clover, and Red Clover, as well as different combinations of the plants. The experiment looks at how well the different cover crops grow in local conditions and the most effective planting time.

Each plant has its own advantage. Winter pea is high in nitrogen. Rye has excellent nutrient uptake ability. Tillage radishes work as a “bio drill” (it breaks up the soil for your future crops). But they also have their disadvantages (some are very hard to control). After walking around the 15 different plots and discussing the soil and cost benefits of the different crops, the group of cover crop-curious farmers were left on their own to decide which cover would be the best for their own farms and soils.

Remember cover crops are an excellent way to stem soil erosion and depending on the crop you choose, can help enrich your soil with nutrients leading to healthier crops in the years to come.

Are you using more compost or manure than you should?

“Putting on too much compost is expensive and it pollutes.” - Klaas Martens. Organic Grain Farmer. Finger Lakes, New York.

We all know that using organic nutrients such as compost and manure have many benefits. They can increase organic matter, improve soil structure and build a reserve of nutrients in the soil. But the difficulty with using compost and manure is they release nutrients slowly at rates that we cannot always predict. Often the ratios of nitrogen to phosphorus and potassium don’t match what our plants need.

Recently I learned that there can be too much of a good thing. I spoke last week to Klaas Martens an organic grain farmer in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Working with Thomas Bjorkman, a researcher from Cornell, they applied a poultry based compost at different rates in order to determine if they could predict the best compost applications using traditional soil test recommendations. They found that compost applied at rates based on the soil test, did not increase yields or increase organic matter. But, weeds grew better! Where compost was applied at double the recommended rate, weeds were twice as tall (Bjorkman, 2008).

Over application severely impacts the environment. Agriculture account s for 73% of nitrogen and 64% of phosphorus in the Chesapeake Bay. Excess nitrogen easily leaches into ground water and into streams. Phosphorus binds tightly to soil particles that are washed into streams. These nutrients encourage growth of algae and aquatic weeds that use up the oxygen dissolved in the water, making it impossible for fish and other organisms that need this oxygen to survive.
Even the best organic farmers commonly over apply. Researchers surveying organic farms in the Northeast found that vegetable farms that relied on compost often had surplus nutrients, as much as 180-200 lb P and N/ acre – yr in excess (Drinkwater et. al. 2005).

It is easy to apply too much. We often apply at a rate of 1” or 2”s which is easier than calculating how many tons we are applying. Researchers at Penn State did just this, applying 1” or 2” of dairy based compost compared to inorganic fertilizer before peppers. They found that adding just 1” of compost released 441 lbs N/acre compared to the 100 lbs N/acre the peppers needed. This was considering that compost generally only releases 15% of its N per year. Another 2,450 lbs of N/ acre was still tied up in soil organic matter (Sanchez, 2008).

Don’t guess, soil test. Test your compost and soil. If your soil nutrients are too high (over 320 P2O5, 335 K2O, 2505 CaO, 490 MgO lbs/ acre), compost may not be the best choice this year. You will know your soil test is saying you are to high when the bars go into the “exceeds crop needs” section of the table.

Don’t guess, compost test. There is no such thing as the average compost. The average nitrogen content of 126 dairy manure based compost samples analyzed at Penn State was 1.45% nitrogen. But when we looked at three individual dairy manure compost samples from the same farm, the amount of nitrogen applied in 20 ton/ acre of compost ranged from 510, to 415 to 842 lb/ acre. Phosphorus ranged from 88, to 146 to 200.

If your soil test is okay calculate how much N,P,K is available based on your compost test. The compost you apply will be decomposed by bacteria and fungi that live in the soil which release the nutrients slowly over time. Use simple calculations available in Penn State publications “Managing Organic Nutrient Sources” to evaluate how much compost to apply to meet your crop needs. We have also put together a flow chart to help you decide which calculations to do for your farm. Ask for the “Organic Nutrient Sources Decision Making Tree.”

Innovative Cover Crops

Despite heavy mud and threats of rain more than 100 people came to Groff’s field day at Cedar Meadow Farm October 28th. Organized by Cooperative Extension folks came out to see novel cover crops and combinations.
Groff collected cover crop seed from Europe, Australia, the Midwest and the West to trial alongside old favorites from our area. “The prices for cover crop seed are always fluctuating,” says Groff, “If we can find additional cover crop varieties that do well in our area that will give us greater options if vetch or other seed becomes too expensive.” Combinations and unusual cover crops might also provide additional benefits, such as building soil structure.
A few highlights:
Tillage Radish is a forage radish that Groff grows for seed and promotes for its ability to break up hard pans. The fine roots projecting from a large tap root corkscrew through compacted soil providing a channel for crop roots and water infiltration. Groff’s latest interest is planting radish at a low rate of 2-3 lbs/ acre with wheat. “The word mellow is most popular,” Groff said for soil after radishes or radish small grain combinations.
Indian Head lentil was one experimental legume cover crop Groff planted. He brought it from the Midwest where they love it. “You would think if it grows in North Dakota it would grow here,” Groff said. But in Pennsylvania we have dramatic freeze thaw cycles and Indian Head lentil seems to fail most years. In comparison Early Cover vetch seems to tolerate freeze thaw cycles the best.
Although Common Vetch does not over winter well it may have an important niche. Seed is generally less expensive $30-$40 per acre versus $50 per acre for Hairy Vetch. For early planting, Hairy Vetch will not over winter either. It tends to smother if it is too massive going into winter. Common Vetch may provide nitrogen at a lower price where you want to plant early.
Phacelia is grown on thousands of acres in Europe, but virtually unknown in the US except where it is grown to attract beneficial insects in California. The fine root structure of Phacelia is thought to build soil more quickly than anything else. However, plots at Groff’s were less than impressive. One lesson learned is the seeding rate must be higher. The germination rate is only 50% and so a rate of 10lbs/acre may be more appropriate than the 5lbs/acre we saw. Another caution with Phacelia is it is a host for Sclerotinia. Don’t plant it where you will plant beans.

Cover Crops Demonstration Plots at Juniperdale Farm

Cover crops offer an opportunity to reduce erosion, increase organic matter and fix nitrogen for the following crop. The trick is incorporating them into an already full rotation. Visit our cover crop demonstration at Juniperdale Farms November 19th at 3 pm to see fifteen cover crops and combinations. Cover crops were planted at two planting dates to allow us to compare the benefits of early and late planting.This project is part of a statewide collaberation where cover crops were planted at 11 locations.