Day 1 of the Eastern Shore - Candice Dalton

On day one of the trip to the Eastern Shore, our first stop was at the Southern Piedmont Research and Education Center (SPAREC). In there facility they have agents that attend to the different tobacco plants, livestock and forage. They are the 12th of 13 off campus research centers from Virginia Tech. Research done here helps the extension agents in the surrounding area suggest farmers and growers of a good, helpful way to make educated decision of what to plant and use for their crops and livestock. This is where my studies at Ferrum and its relevance to my career are intertwined due to becoming a veterinarian and studying animal nutrition at Ferrum how they need certain foods and forage to survive on farms.
        In the lab at the facility they test samples every two hours of vacuum packed grass to check the lactic acid from being in those bags and this shows there acid/nutrition level for the feed and forage of animals.

Here you see the Chemical lab where the tests are run and also the leaf litter is checked for carbon and nitrogen in each sample. At the facility they also have tobacco plants and seeds. The plants grow in a soil mixture, where it increases in the stigma Pete grown in a float system in water and the white grates. These grates are being changed to see if any improvement can be made on them to help with there growing and ability to not get roots and contamination on the next plants grown in the flats so they will change to alternative trays such as painted trays, biodegradable paper trays (the problem with these are degrading before time to plant), and a two part plastic tray for floating from Middle Asia (these last 20 years but are more expensive). In the green house the tobacco plants are give 20 gallons of water per tray and float in a shallow area for the roots to absorb the water. There are 288 plants per tray, they manage the trays by clipping the plants tops evenly to reduce the spread of diseases and to maximize the number of plants per tray.

       On the farm part of the center is planted wheat residue and strip killed twelve inches wide area for cover down the middle of the field called strip tiled. They grow flue cured tobacco and over 1000 acres in Virginia raises tobacco in this manner. Five to eight percent of tobacco in VA is organic for organic grown cigarettes. In the Forage area they have twelve 12th acre ponds to test environmental fades of pesticides but they are not used anymore. They are currently studying bailage and the fungus in tall grass such as fescue. To test this they are injecting the bails with Urea to change the ammonia which decreases the Urgoalkoloids. The white wrapping of the bails helps with the fermentation and benefits is to cut one day and it won't wilt over night which allows to keep the moisture on the inside. They wrap the bails in four layers normally but you can wrap more or less this helps with how long the bails last. There methods of keeping sustainable agriculture is very prevalent in the way they grown the plants and there farming techniques that protects the environment such as planting Serisia les Pastesea or AU grazer which helps the land and has less parasitic quality. This plant helps farmers with small ruminants. They maintain this area with Lime, Phosphorus and Potassium. The AU grazer is great for using in hay and grazing operations.
      
           Our second stop was at C&C farms, they maintain over three hundred acres of land with 6000 tobacco plants per acre. They grow tobacco, grains, and soybeans. He employees three or four workers, the rest are guest workers. Mr. Burney's farm has expanded from "box barns" and audited "star barns." They grow three types of tobacco flue cured, burley, and dark fired (smokless tobacco). New to their farm is a Leaf loader and no one has to touch a leaf by hand then are placed in a black tumbler to get out all the sand and to bail the tobacco.


In the barns they are computer controlled barns that connects to the farmers phone to know when or if something is wrong. The "book barns" use to have direct flame to the plants an now the farmer has placed the heater in a container that helps with heat exchange and helps with better management. There are control panels in the barn that have two bulbs, one wet and one dry the wet bulb indicates the humidity level. Mr. Burney has transformed buses into trailers that haul the green tobacco leaves from harvest. He has two types of harvesters one a Multipass harvester these hopper fill the school buses the Multipass has an individual collector where the second harvester is a Granville Stripper that has six collector that collects what is left from the fields and grinds the stems. Mr. Burney's farm helps maintain sustainable agriculture and productive agriculture he helps with the environment of plants products using farming techniques as shown below.