[Market-farming] Organic vs conventional agriculture production

E C GRANATA elainegranata at msn.com
Mon Sep 10 14:12:56 EDT 2007


I'm is Colorado and know that Colorado State University is also gearing up with more research in organic production and the Extension Service Agents are also learning more about organic production.  We had to fight a few years back to keep the only faculty position working on organics at CSU, and now it's expanding.

Elaine
Denver
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bill Shoemaker<mailto:wshoemak at inil.com> 
  To: Market Farming<mailto:market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org> 
  Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 11:53 AM
  Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Organic vs conventional agriculture production


  Jay

  That's a great vote of confidence Jay! Thanks.

  I should say that there are actually many faculty involved in organic 
  research or non-chemical methodology at land-grant Universities all over the 
  US. The mood in these institutions has changed considerably in the last 20 
  years. I have several colleagues who are making organic research the focus 
  of their programs.

  Plus, it looks like new sources of funding are emerging to support organic 
  or sustainable production methodologies, the USDA being one source. In the 
  state of Illinois, the state government is developing programs to support 
  organic research and educational programming. So I think the research-based 
  information you're interested in is coming.

  Regarding the issue this thread has been discussing, I think Jim Riddle 
  (Univ of Minn) addressed it quite well. Dennis Avery was politicking, 
  nothing more. Expect it to continue, and expect consumers to drive more 
  agriculture toward organic and sustainable methods. I think the base Mr. 
  Avery stands on will continue to dwindle.

  Just a note on projects we are working on. One of our primary vegetable 
  crops in Illinois is pumpkins. One of the biggest challenges to pumpkin 
  production is viruses, which are vectored by aphids primarily. We had a 
  season several years ago which had yields reduced about 80% by viruses, so 
  it's a major problem. Growers used to try to control the problem by spraying 
  an insecticide for the aphids. But it didn't work because the aphids would 
  transmit the virus before the insecticide could kill them.

  So we needed a strategy that would prevent the aphids from landing on the 
  crop, at least until the fruit were set and largely sized up, when the virus 
  would have little impact. We began looking at reflective mulches as a 
  deterrent to the aphids. It works pretty well, though not perfectly. Cloudy 
  days  sometimes will reduce reflectivity. And you need to use a lot of 
  reflective mulch for it to work. But, you get some increases in yield to 
  compensate for the cost of the mulch. In a nutshell, it's promising, though 
  not perfect. We're still working out the strategy.

  We also just recieved notice for funding from USDA on a project to evaluate 
  cover cropping systems and integrating them with vegetable planting 
  schedules to optimize soil rejuvenation while cropping the fields. this is 
  led by Dr. John Masiunas and a colleague from Cornell. It'll be several 
  years of work before results are published but I think it'll be a promising 
  project.

  We are also planing on establishing a series of orchards next season that 
  integrate the new disease-resistant varieties with non-chemical 
  pest-management strategies for apple production in Illinois. This will be 
  complicated as there are so many diseases and insect pests of apples. But 
  there are a number of new strategies available that make this project 
  promising.

  Just a few of the projects we're working on at the UI. I think the younger 
  generation of farmers has reason to be hopeful that they won't have to 
  listen to folks like Dennis A. too much.

  Bill Shoemaker, Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
  University of Illinois - St Charles Horticulture Research Center
  www.nres.uiuc.edu/faculty/directory/shoemaker_wh.html<http://www.nres.uiuc.edu/faculty/directory/shoemaker_wh.html>







  > Since many of us who support organic methods may feel a need to
  > occasionally support our position, I would appreciate research Bill
  > Shoemaker or his students might provide.
  >
  > Jay
  > Palisade Garden
  >>
  >>
  >>
  >
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