Elisabeth Heslop
The first cut of hay has been taken in, the cereal crops are heading out, the canola is blooming, and the veggies are, well, new.
The Emo Agriculture Research Station is growing a handful of rows of lettuce and carrots this year—something it hasn’t done before.
Kim Jo Bliss, the station’s research technician, said the vegetable trials are being done with Deb Cornell and the Clover Valley Farmers’ Market, and are intended to encourage more people to grow their own veggies.
Bliss admitted the vegetables have been a bit of a challenge for her.
“I’m not a gardener,” she chuckled. “The vegetables are more finicky, more work than . . .” she trailed off, waving her hand at row upon row of cereals, legumes, and forage crops.
“The kids have even been carrying water to them, and that is something we don’t do,” Bliss added, shaking her head at how much extra work it takes to coax garden vegetables out of the ground compared to field crops.
The carrots still are a little sparse but the lettuce is doing well, Bliss noted, though deer have been a real problem.
“[The deer] seem to really like the soybeans,” she said, pointing to the broad leaves of the plants growing next to the vegetables.
“And the veggies are right next door.”
Matt McQuaker, one of Bliss’ summer student assistants, was hard at work building a sturdy frame to hold up a cover over the tender lettuce leaves—intended to protect them from both the deer and wind.
Also new at the research station this year is a trial of “green manure.”
Last year, station staff planted crops that were high in nitrogen, plowed them under while the plants were still green, and then planted wheat on the same ground this past spring.
They took soil samples beforehand to test the levels of nutrients in the soil, with Bliss saying they will take more samples after the wheat has been harvested.
The goal is to find out how much they can fertilize the soil without adding any fertilizer other than the green plants that were plowed under.
“It’s new to this generation,” Bliss remarked. “Our grandparents did it because there wasn’t commercial fertilizer then, so it’s sort of like reinventing the wheel.
“But we need to know what happens,” she stressed.
In related news, the research station will be holding its annual open house next Wednesday (July 29) at 7 p.m.
The event will include a barbecue as well as a tour of the crop trials.
