Archive for the ‘produce safety’ Category

Taking a Rain Check on Irrigation … For Now

A 2014 on-farm irrigation workshop.

A 2014 on-farm irrigation workshop.

Despite a very dry May, this June was one the wettest on record for many areas in central and northern Vermont. So wet, in fact, that registrations for an on-farm UVM Extension irrigation workshop scheduled for July 16 were scant, leading us to cancel the workshop. (Even so, many thanks to River Berry Farm in Fairfax for agreeing to host; we do plan to re-schedule for next summer!)

Prior to our decision to cancel, I had a discussion with one of our invited experts, Trevor Hardy, on the sanity of scheduling an irrigation workshop given all the rain (granted, it seemed like a great idea back in May!). Trevor made the excellent point that farmers with fertigation capabilities, or irrigation systems that can deliver crop nutrients, will be in an enviable position this year. They will be able to maintain/replace fertility, without having to traffic sensitive, wet soil. Undoubtedly, the excess rainfall has leached significant nutrients (especially nitrogen) out of the rootzone, or saturated soils have led to conditions ripe for denitrification loss of any remaining nitrogen. Fertigation equipment can be added onto new or existing irrigation systems, organic or conventional, and can also save on labor and energy required for conventional nutrient applications.

Even though this summer’s weather has been seemingly ‘abnormal,’ we know unpredictable seasons like this are likely to become more ‘normal’ in the future with climate change. The rapid shift from very dry spells to very wet spells and vice versa is expected to become more common, as well as droughty periods interspersed with intense storms where most rainfall runs off. These are the conditions that likely make irrigation a wise investment moving forward, especially water-efficient systems such as drip irrigation (which may also be smart given new produce safety rules).
As you think about irrigation and water management on your farm, please be in touch if we can provide technical assistance (contact information below). I know that Trevor Hardy in Hollis, NH (Brookdale Fruit Farm*) is an experienced irrigation system designer and equipment supplier, and is glad work with Vermont farmers.

For further reading, here is a link to a publication from University of Florida Extension that is one of the best mini-guides to drip irrigation that I am aware of. Also, please let us know if you have favorite irrigation resources and contractors that you’d like share.

Joshua Faulkner
UVM Extension Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Joshua.faulkner@uvm.edu
802-656-3495

*Any reference to commercial products, trade names, or brand names is for information only, and no endorsement or approval is intended.

Adapting to Heavy Rain at LePage Farm

Originally published on the Farming & Climate Change Adaptation Blog on June 24, 2015

As southern areas of the region still need rain, northern areas have received more than enough over the past few weeks.  Given these recent heavy storms, we thought we would focus on measures farmers are using to adapt to such events, which are predicted to become more and more common with climate change.  We welcome Catherine Lowther, faculty at Goddard College, for another guest blog profiling a local farmer working hard to adapt.

CapCityFarmersMktFarmCCBlog

Alan LePage is a fifth generation Vermont farmer and has been growing vegetables organically for 40 years at the LePage Farm in Barre, VT. He sells his produce at the Montpelier Farmer’s Market and shares his knowledge in his radio show “The Curse of the Golden Turnip” on the Goddard College radio station, WGDR, at 91.1 FM or at http://www.wgdr.org Sunday mornings from 6:00-9:00.

The biggest climate change problem Alan has experienced is “gully washer storms,” localized storms when 4 – 6 inches of rain falls in a short period of time. His soil is clay loam and is slow to drain. When that much rain falls in early summer on fresh tilled ground, a farmer can lose everything. There can be serious damage with sandy soil too, but it drains more rapidly. With clay loam there will be standing water, he can’t get onto his fields with equipment for some time, and he has lost crops as a result. To manage these events, he has switched to using extensive raised beds. To create the raised beds, he uses a bog harrow that has two large harrow disks that toss dirt up to the side to form the beds. If the soil is loose, the harrowing alone works fine, but if it is clumpy, it will need to be raked after harrowing.

If water runs off into the valleys on the sides of the beds and the ground is bare, this will create ravines, so he leaves the areas between the beds protected by weeds to hold the soil. To prevent the weeds from going to seed, he trims them with a weed wacker.

He is also making extensive use of plastic to cover beds to protect them against rain. In years with successions of intense rainstorms, he has covered entire seedings with 10×500’ tarps. This is especially helpful when seeding in June for a fall harvest. He has tried using hay mulch, but a big storm will push hay into the mud.

Most of his fields are on a slight incline, and using raised beds has obviated the damage that occurs in intense storms. He has had to be more careful about the placement of beds so that there is less chance of getting a river running through a field. In general, he finds it is very important when planning a sloped field to terrace it to minimize the downward direction of water flow. It also helps to break a field into sections with strips of cover crops that will absorb and break the flow of water.

He has also had to do a lot more plant staking, especially of fava beans. On Memorial Day weekend in 2013, he had 6 inches of rain, and if he hadn’t had his fava beans staked and roped, rain would have knocked them down, they would have gotten caught in the mud, and he would have lost the whole crop. Corn can stand up again after a rain, but fava beans are a Mediterranean plant and aren’t used to intense water events.

Insects

Alan is seeing more squash borers and squash bugs. Squash bugs inject a toxin that deforms plants. There can be enormous populations of them in late summer, and their little white progeny sometimes cover the ground. They damage cucumbers and zucchini. He never used to see them, and now they are a perennial problem.

He has also had tarnish plant bugs. These suck plant juices, attack the primary meristem of a plant, and destroy it. They also sting strawberry blossoms so that the fruit is deformed. They are especially active at temperatures in the 90s. Tarnish plant bugs are very difficult to treat. He uses an organic product called Entrust that costs $600/lb., or people can use the same thing in Monterey Garden Insect Spray that is ready to spray on. Growers can use it only three times per season per crop because insects will build up resistance to it, but it does work.

Higher Temperatures

Alan has not had too much trouble with heat as his soils are high in clay and slow to warm. He has noticed that in a very hot summer, it is hard to get lettuce to germinate. It won’t germinate in soils over 75 degrees, goes into dormancy, and comes up next year. He has tried starting seeds in flats under lilac trees and keeping them watered to keep them cool. Spinach also doesn’t like high temperatures, especially if it is late summer seeded and soil temperatures are too high.

Drought

Alan has had only one year of drought. Many farmers are near rivers and irrigate their fields from the rivers, but he has a hill farm. In 2001, he had to truck in water to keep his plants alive. Others growing on well-drained land lost a lot. The spring for his house also went dry.

Benefits of Warming

On the positive side, increasing temperatures over the last 30 years have made it possible to plant some crops he could never grow before. September is especially warmer. Sweet potatoes are now viable, especially if there is good soil, and he has had some spectacular sweet potato crops. He is also planting “yard long” beans, an Asian species that requires a long season.

Catherine Lowther, PhD

Catherine is faculty in the Sustainability program, and Chair of the Sustainability Committee at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.  She is partnering with the Center’s Farming & Climate Change Program by appearing as a guest blogger on the Farming & Climate Change Adaptation Blog, a project with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub to engage, learn from, and share information with organic farmers within the region.

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