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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Organic vs conventional agriculture production

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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Organic vs conventional agriculture production
  • Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:53:08 -0500

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







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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