New growing practices at Warner Farm

Just wanted to update everyone on a few new growing methods we will be employing this year in our quest to become self-sufficient and sustainable. First, we are participating in a USDA pilot program to evaluate the use of high tunnels for crop production. High tunnels are mobile, unheated greenhouses. Using a high tunnel, we will be able to plant crops outdoors two weeks earlier, and harvest them an additional two weeks early. Also, high tunnels prevent moisture from accumulating on plants, all water is provided by trickle irrigation feeding the plant roots. This limits leaf wetness duration, an essential factor in disease development. Also, the temperature is elevated in these high tunnels, further thwarting disease pressure. We are excited about using high tunnels because they allow us to reduce disease pressure and lessen the impact of the many issues surrounding excess water and cool temperatures we have had to deal with in the last few years. Also, we will be able to provide our customers with more produce earlier in the year and later in the year, increasing the amount of local food available year round.

Second, we are planning to implement zone-tillage on our farm this year. Zone-tillage stands in contrast to conventional tillage, in which whole fields are plowed and many field operations are necessary to prepare the field for planting. Zone-tillage utilizes a few different traditional tillage implents, combining them into one implement which prepares a strip of soil for planting, rather than preparing the entire field. Rather than plowing in the traditional manner, which inverts roughly the top foot of the soil, zone tillage creates deep slots in the soil with a sub-soiler, then breaks up clods on the surface to ensure optimum seed-soil contact, essential for germination. You can think of zone-tillage as tilling deep "strips" as opposed to tilling the whole field in a more shallow manner. The main benefit if the breaking up of the "plow-pan," a hardpan in the soil about twelve inches down as the result of many years of plowing. The downward pressure of the plow as it moves through the soil compacts the soil at that level so that plant roots will not be able to penetrate much farther beyond those top twelve inches. The zone-tillage implement does not create this downward pressure, rather it tills a deep slot, breaking through the plow-pan. Breaking up the plow pan allows plant roots to penetrate deeper, accessing a greater wealth of water and nutrients.. It also allows water to drain more easily during times of excess moisture, which we have seen much of in the past few years. A second benefit of zone-tillage is  decreased time and fuel spent preparing fields. Zone-tillage requires about half the time and energy to prepare a field than traditional tillage.

We hope these new innovations lead to benefits for you, as the high tunnel will allow us to grow crops for you when we otherwise couldn't, and also allow us to grow clean, healthy, chemical free crops. Zone-tillage reduces our impact on the soil and the environment, and frees some of our time up to concentrate on delivering you all the best produce possible.