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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Eco Plots for Small Farms Serving Cities
  • Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:45:25 -0600


Eco Plots for Small Farms Serving Cities

http://www.extension.org/pages/More_Food_Grown_Near_Home,_Less_Oil:_Ohio_State_Tests_Eco_Plots_for_Small_Farms_Serving_Cities

02/21/2008
Eco Plots for Small Farms Serving Cities
Writer:Kurt Knebusch, knebusch.1@osu.edu, 330-263-3776

WOOSTER, Ohio - Joe Kovach set out to gross $10 per row foot, equal to a
robust $90,000 per acre, in his innovative farm plots of mixed fruits and
vegetables.
So far, based on the crops that he has in production, the Ohio State
University scientist has achieved exactly that. The two final crops in the
lineup, apples and peaches, are set to start producing this summer.

An ecological pest management expert, Kovach is midway through a six-year
study of four different types of polyculture modules - plots with a mix of
such high-value crops as snap peas, green beans, blueberries, raspberries,
strawberries, tomatoes and edamame, or edible soybeans.

He aims to determine the best-working layout - best in terms of economics,
efficiency and pest density - for intensive mixed plantings by small farmers.
He calls it "modular ecological design." The goal is food for urban consumers
that needs precious little oil to reach them.

"The whole concept of urban agriculture is to grow the food close to where
the people are," said Kovach, who holds joint appointments with the Ohio
Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and with Ohio State
University Extension.
Urban agriculture cuts shipping and fuel use; Ohio's rural/urban Medina
County, for example, is closer to Cleveland than California is.

"My view," Kovach said, "has always been that eventually we're going to run
out of oil."

Good for Small Farms, Big Yards

The researcher, who heads Ohio State's Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Program, designed, established and continues to study a total of 16
polyculture plots: four treatments replicated four times each. Each plot
measures about 44 by 60 feet, good for small farms or even big yards.

The study began in 2005.

"My goal at the start was to get $10 per foot of row," Kovach said. "Of the
six crops we had producing last summer, on average, we got $10 per foot of
row. We lost on things like edamame soybeans, but we made it up on other
crops.

"Right now, we're still not in full production," he said. "We don't have any
peaches or apples yet. So we haven't technically hit our goal. But I'm
hopeful with everything producing we will. I don't think we'll have any
problem reaching it."

The peach trees were planted in 2005. But spring frost killed their flowers
in both 2006 and 2007.

The apple trees, planted in 2006, will start to bear fruit this summer.

"Then we'll really get an idea of how productive we can be," Kovach said.
"The system's starting to balance out now. It takes a while. But I think
we're reaching some stability."

Among the past three years' returns, all based on prices received through a
local farmers' market: $1.99 per row foot for green beans in 2005; $3.65 per
row foot for edamame last year; $5.67 for blueberries last year, the first
fruiting year; $11.83 for tomatoes in 2005, $26.67 in 2006 and $25.52 last
year; $9.21 and $12.65 for strawberries in 2006 and last year, respectively;
and last year $13.27 for summer raspberries and $15.36 for fall raspberries.

Layouts Hinder Pest Spread

The four test treatments - solid row, mixed row, mixed row on raised beds and
"checkerboard" - represent four different ways to arrange the crops.
The aim of each treatment is to earn a living - for a farmer or gardener to
do it, that is - while keeping pests from doing the same.

The layouts are meant to stop or slow the spread of pests from plant to plant
- previous studies having shown that alternating crops and heights can do
that. Kovach wants to verify it and to see which arrangement does it best.

Each "solid row" grows a single crop, with crop height switching from row to
row: a row of tall apples, a row of short strawberries.

The "mixed row" treatment has multiple crops in a single row but keeps tall
types and short types together in their own rows: a row of tall apples,
peaches and raspberries; a row of short tomatoes and strawberries. The same
layout then is used in raised beds to make up treatment #3.

The "checkerboard" treatment has varying types of crops within a row and also
alternates heights in the row. The same row down the line may have low
tomatoes, high apples, low strawberries and tall peaches.

New High Tunnels a Boon

Changes made last year included laying weed-stopping landscape fabric in all
16 of the plots. And high tunnels were set up over four of the plots - one
plot representing each treatment.

The landscape fabric eliminated the need to weed or mulch the plots.
"Basically, weeds are a non-issue now," Kovach said. Weeding costs, thanks to
the fabric, fell from $1.35 per foot to less than 10 cents per foot.

And the high tunnels - unheated structures covered by clear plastic designed
to lengthen the growing season - boosted average growth inside by 14 percent
when compared to the same crops grown outside.

Tunnel-grown raspberries especially saw big gains: the yield of summer
raspberries inside went up by 96 percent, of fall raspberries, by 79 percent.

The tunnels added $9.50 per foot to the $3.20-per-foot establishment cost of
the basic, non-tunneled, plant-in-the-ground plots.

The raised beds added $1.20 per foot to the basic establishment cost.

All together, the establishment cost for the raised-bed plots totaled $4.40
per row foot, for the high-tunnel plots $12.70, and for the
raised-beds-in-high-tunnel plots $13.90.
Are raised beds, high tunnels or both in fact worth it? The results so far
suggest that they are. Kovach said the yield jump seen in the raised beds -
20 percent to 125 percent more than the on-the-ground plots, depending on the
crop and probably due to better drainage and fewer pests - paid for their
extra cost the first year. After that, the yield jump is "pure profit," he
said.

The high tunnels, meanwhile, will take another year or two to pay off their
establishment cost. Then their higher yields should start to show up, too, as
profit.
Overall, the crops in the tunnels saw different but generally fewer pest
problems. For example, last summer, while Japanese beetles plagued outside
crops, few of the pests ended up getting inside. Instead, the tunnel crops
saw aphids and mites and also more powdery mildew, a disease.

The tunnel's benefits, including greater growth, higher-quality fruit, and
earlier- and later-in-the-season yields, should more than offset such
drawbacks, Kovach said.
The Japanese beetle indeed created tremendous problems last summer, Kovach
noted, especially on raspberries and edamame. Populations of the ravenous
pest were 15 to 20 times higher than they had been the past two years.

"We kind of expected that to happen," Kovach said, since the beetle is a
generalist and the plots serve a wide-ranging, general menu. Certain
varieties of certain crops saw little if any damage, however - a possible
clue to controlling the pest.

"If it wasn't for the Japanese beetle," Kovach said, "it would have been
paradise out there."

Also invading Eden last year: deer, which jumped the electrified
woodchuck-height fencing and caused modest but unwanted crop damage. Tall,
plastic deer fencing went up.

The plots stand ready for 2008.

'I'm Pretty Optimistic'
"Right now I'm pretty optimistic," Kovach said. "We've accomplished our goal
of increasing biodiversity out there. We have spatial diversity - we have
different heights of plants - and we have temporal diversity through
different planting times and different varieties and when they mature.

"I think we can produce a lot of food," he said. "But success all depends on
your market. The more you can get, the better off you are; it's a lot easier
to earn $10 per foot of row if you get $6 a pound for a crop versus $2. You
really need to make sure that your market is available. I think that it is.

"All indications are that we're moving in a direction where this will work."
Links: Ohio State modular ecological design research,
http://ipm.osu.edu/pageview.asp?id=16.
Ohio State high-tunnel research,
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=3392,
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ news/story.php?id=3944.

http://www.ipm.osu.edu/files/SW%20Ohio.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KEN ADDS (and I agree completely) :

Dear Reader,

I wish that he were organic, no-till. I believe that his goal should be
highest profit per acre rather than highest gross per acre.

See the Joe Kovach Farm folder above. PDF file of photos and information.

Ken Hargesheimer






  • [Livingontheland] Eco Plots for Small Farms Serving Cities, Tradingpost, 06/23/2008

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