Day 2 of the Eastern Shore - Candice Dalton

On day two of the Eastern Shore, our first stop was to the Eastern Shore Agricultural Research & Extension Center (ESAREC), they hare many crops they study such as tomatoes, potatoes, and small grains. The crops such as tomatoes are the third largest production in the US on the Eastern Shore. Third in poultry in the state, largest clam production for aquaculture with sales at $40 million, potatoes is sixth largest producer in the country, and soybeans are number one in the state. The Eastern Shore is a very diverse in production of agriculture, they have very few livestock productions such as cows. There is four to five thousand acres on the Eastern Shore that produces potatoes and five to six thousand acres that produces tomatoes therefore there are basically three farmers or companies that grow tomatoes on the Eastern Shore. Making it ninety percent are grown on the Eastern Shore of the state of Virginia is tomato production.
 
     Dr. Steve Rideout a Plant Pathologist helps with "truck crops" also known as vegetables for producers. Dr. Rideout gave some back ground of the facility the ESAREC, they merged with Virginia Tech in 1985  and it is fifty percent Research and fifty percent Extension and the Education for Grad School students. The extension center has 226 acres, approximately 100 are tillable and approximately two acres are organic. Then Dr. Rideout introduced Dr. Mark Reiter who focuses on soil quality and general fertilizer use. He passed around different fertilizers that help with improving soil quality and crop production. Potassium Chloride is one of the most commonly used fertilizers and chicken litter as a fertilizer is becoming increasingly common on farms. When the chicken litter is burned it becomes more effective and smaller to a ratio of 1:6 from a 1:1 ratio making it easier to transport and be sold easier. Lime  helps manage and adjust the pH of the soil, the pH needs to be at 6 to 6.5. We went outside and were shown how mapping a field can be done using the Varius Machine attached to a Ranger for the yield potential to make a soil mapping diagram for Precision Agriculture. The machine "culture" reads zero to one or zero to three feet of soil and a half inch correction and tells soil texture not soil type.

 

We moved back inside and Kyle Sturgis from Helena with Precision Ag discussed what Helena does and how mapping works. For precision agriculture it is whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources. The sustainability part is the fact they use farming techniques to protect the environment, as well as, maintaining the environment by using GPS, Satellite Imagery and Georeferenced Ag applications for field and farm boundaries, soil and tissue sampling, and much more this is vital for all agriculture production to maintain and manage your livestock or crops if not there could be problems and then the need for veterinary assistance (where I would come in for my major) and extension services to help rebuild and manage the farm.

         

            Our second stop for the day was to a CSA farm known as Copper Cricket Farm. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, this is where the customers can come help with the farm and purchase the vegetables that are produced. There are two acres of cultivated land and six acres that are used for his chickens mobile lots, as well as, his bees. Mr. Upshure started the farm in 2007 and began selling to customers in 2008. They have weekly baskets that are delieverd on Monday, Wednesday, or Fridays. Delivery is once a week on one of the specific days and the payments are weekly for a basket. $20 for a two person basket, $15 for a individual basket, and $30 for a family basket, only have to agree for a subscription for the entire season and pay weekly. The costumer does not get to decide what goes in the basket, Mr. Upshure uses what is ripe and fresh for the baskets. There are approximately forty customers. To keep the vegetables fresh Mr. Upshure built a cold room for them using an air condition unit and a cool bot. He uses European equipment to manage such a small farm because American equipment is too large.

The bails of hay weight forty pounds and go around his plants as buffer. For irrigation he uses a drip tape and he does not use pesticides or herbicides. The compost used is a horse manure and bedding, he allows it to sit for a year to be broken down and allow the heat for aeration.

       Our third stop for the day was at the Tri-S farms, where they manage precision ag and large acreage production of small grains. They are predominately a grain farm that includes sorghum, corn, wheat and soybeans. Sorghum is a drought tolerant crop which helps during their dry seasons. They run a GPS, end row stops, and mapping on their equipment for records. They have approximately 1000 acres and other acres that aren't used for planting. Four hundred of those acres are planted in wheat each year. Last year Mr. Sturgis planted four and half acres of carrots for a company and they came up small. Mr. Sturgis allowed us to look at his equipment used on the farm, included a sprayer, combine, and a tractor and planter attached.

 Mr. Sturgis sprays his crops three times and to do a burn down. To burn down  he uses 15 gallons of round up. He does not use 2-4D on his tomatoes because it is harmful to the plant. The Planter he uses would cost approximately $20,000 to simply upgrade. For irrigation purposes when needed he uses hard hose irrigation systems. Mr. Sturgis uses many techniques to maintain and keep his farm sustainable for the each year to keep public health with his way of producing his grains.