A Conventional Farm Transitions to Organic.

I regret to inform you...

2011-10-25T13:19:00.001-07:00

That A2R Farms has been sold. There is still much to work out, and we don't know what the nature of the new farm or our relationship to it will be. This is the reason for my lack of blog posts over the last few months. I would like to continue this blog in some way moving forward, perhaps as an outlet of information for our company Willamette Seed & Grain. I will provide an update once we know more about the new situation. Thank you all for your readership and support over the past year or two.

-Clint Lindsey

Garbanzo Beans combined

2011-08-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last week we threshed our crop of garbanzo beans from last year. I know, a long time from harvest to threshing, but this is a totally new thing for us. We used Harry MacCormack's JD 40 combine. Thanks Harry! We ended up with about 2-300 pounds of beans. There are still some stems in the beans. Hopefully we can clean those out with a gravity table. We just tossed huge bundles of the stalks into the header on the combine. The whole process took less than half an hour. Not the most efficient way to harvest garbanzo beans. Hopefully in the future we can combine them directly in the field.

A2R is unable to participate in the Bounty of Benton County Tour

2011-08-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

Due to circumstances beyond our control, A2R Farms is regrettably unable to participate in the Bounty of Benton County tour. We apologize for this as we know we are already on the passports. We hope to participate in the tour next year. Thank you!

Final stretch of harvest.

2011-08-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

The next week or so should see us finishing up the harvest for this year. Due to the late, wet spring, the flax and oats are taking longer to dry down. We tried combining the flax yesterday, but the moisture was up around 17 percent. Not good for combining. The oats are also largely green. Instead of combining them standing we are windrowing them so they can dry down faster. The oats are probably our best crop this year. They seem to tolerate the wetter springs fairly well. The weeds have not been a big problem in the oats this year either. Not so with the flax. Our biggest flax field has large sections that are chock full of Queen Anne's Lace. The wheat was largely devastated by stripe rust and other fungal diseases. We have a small amount fit for human consumption, but most of our wheat will have to go for animal feed. One of the biggest things we can do to ensure a better yield is regular applications of lime. This is a prime example of what short-term compromise for cash flow costs in the long run.

Untimely Rain...

2011-07-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

We have been getting a huge amount of rain for this time of year. We have fields that have been cut that are getting soaked now. I spent the whole morning turning over piles of grass and rows to help dry the grass out, only to have it start raining again as soon as I finished. If this keeps up the grass will start to rot in the field. Bad news...

Harvest is ongoing...

2011-07-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, sorry I have not made any posts for quite some time. We are in the thick of the grass-seed harvest right now. There are several subjects I would like to talk about at length, but now I can't give it the time it deserves. As soon as we get a break I will post my thoughts on several topics that are heavily influencing the way we farm right now. Thanks for reading!

Spring planting complete

2011-05-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

We have finished our spring planting. We managed to squeeze in planting in between rainy spells, and now have all the oats, flax, and wheat planted for the year. We ended up planting roughly the same acreage of oats as last year. We increased our flax acreage slightly from last year. We have less red wheat than last year due to the requirements of our crop rotation. We have decided to let several fields lay fallow for the summer so we can let the ground rest and get rid of a rather large weed problem in a few pieces. This season is shaping up to be much like last year, which was a long wet spring that prevented us from planting as early as we would have liked. The longer we have to wait to plant, the lower our yields will be. We may need to look for shorter-season varieties to ensure that we get maximum yields despite the poor spring weather. It's a work-in-progress.

Benefits of winter legume cover cropping

2011-04-22T10:49:00.001-07:00

We have started to till up the fields planted last fall with winter peas. The peas have developed a significant amount of root nodules as far as I can see. The presence of root nodules indicates a healthy amount of nitrogen fixation going on. This is the main benefit of cover-cropping with legumes. It reduces our need for additional nitrogen as a fertilizer. We hope to dramatically increase our usage of winter legumes as a cover crop in the future. They also help crowd out weeds and prevent the need for multiple passes with a tractor in the spring to kill weed sprout mechanically. Now if we can just find a reliable source of organic seed!

Spring planting update

2011-04-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

We have been planting oats and flax over the past week or so. It has been tricky to find windows of good weather that allow us to actually get on the field without tearing it up. We managed to get about 20 acres of flax and 20 or so acres of oats in the ground so far. We have a long way to go. This is starting to look like a repeat of last year. A long, wet spring does us no good. I need to go spray compost tea on the fields I've planted this spring, but various mechanical problems with trucks are making that impossible. I can't use the 3-wheel buggy to spray the fields...too wet, and I need to take the tube buggy on a trailer to the field. Okay, that's fine, but the tube buggy only holds 200 gallons of liquid. The truck with the holding tank has bad brakes right now so we are delayed.

We are pleased to announce the formation of Willamette Seed & Grain

2011-04-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

Willamette Seed & Grain (WSG)is a partnership between A2R and several other local farms including Stalford Seed Farms and Sunbow Farm that is designed to help fill the gap in the local food supply chain by providing seed cleaning and processing for local grains, beans, and edible seeds. WSG has several certified organic seed cleaning facilities, as well as 2 grain mills either operating now or under construction. We also have the capacity to roll oats. Check out the WSG website at www.willametteseedandgrain.com for more information. This is a huge step forward for the local food system in the Mid-Valley. Thank you to all of the members of WSG for your hard work in the last 6 months!

A2R Farms featured in The Oregonian

2011-04-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

The Oregonian did a feature on us about our flax. Flax is getting a lot of interest up and down the valley. Thanks to Brent and Eric from The Oregonian for a great piece. Click the title of this post to link to the video.

Compost tea going on the fields...

2011-04-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

We've been spraying compost tea and fish fertilizer on the fields for the past week or so. We are better set up this year to crank out back-to-back batches than we were last year. We have the holding tank which we put a finished batch in as soon as it is done. This allows us to get another batch brewing right away. Or at least when the tank is done filling, which takes 4-6 hours. We also have several pre-treatment bins for treating the compost with fish and humic acid for 3 days prior to brewing. This activates more fungi in the compost. We also have a large tote of fish set up right next to the brewer. This is great because now we can just pump large amounts into the spray buggy instead of pouring bucket load after bucket load out of small jugs. That was no fun lemme tell ya. I am really excited about the tea this year. I can't wait to see the results of using several applications of fish as well as tea on the crops. The rate of application is roughly 16 gallons per acre of the tea/fish mixture. The fish is going on at roughly 2 gallons per acre.

Rain, rain, rain... and other spring notes.

2011-03-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

So it looks as though the rain won't give us a window to get some work done anytime soon. The spring work is piling up. I have lots of acres to plant and lots of compost tea to spray, and the forecast does not look good. I tried looking at a field yesterday and got stuck in mud on the road on the way in! I wasn't even close to the field. Not a good sign. On a positive note, the peas and wheat seem to be coming along fairly well. The flax I planted last fall is looking buried by ryegrass. Fall planted flax may not work out so well in fields that have had grass in them. We still plan to plant 40 more acres of flax this year. OSU has asked us to try a new variety this year. They are interested in getting yield data and want to be here for planting and harvest.

A2R Farms is now Food Alliance certified

2011-02-23T08:10:00.001-08:00

We have recently acquired Food Alliance certification on most of our crops. From the FA website, "Food Alliance provides comprehensive third-party certification for social and environmental responsibility in agriculture and the food industry.

Today, there are more than 320 Food Alliance Certified operations, and over six million acres managed by Food Alliance Certified producers throughout North America.

Food Alliance Certified products include meats, eggs, dairy, mushrooms, grains, legumes, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, and prepared products made with these certified ingredients.

With clear standards and criteria, Food Alliance certification is a practical, credible, and effective way for farmers, ranchers, and food companies to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability in agricultural practices and facilities management."

One benefit to us is that we will be able to more easily market our transitional crops for a premium. One of the biggest challenges we have faced during our transition to organic has been the ability to get a good price for transitional or "no-spray" crops. The three year period of transition to organic is fraught with difficulties, to say the least, and having a well-known and respected company like Food Alliance standing behind our product helps set us apart. To read more about Food Alliance and their certification criteria visit www.foodalliance.org.

Planting Hard Red Wheat

2011-02-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

We have begun planting hard red wheat. This is much earlier than we were able to plant last year. We have had a long window of dry weather which allowed us to work the soil and get quite a bit done. I planted about 23 acres of red wheat last Saturday. The fields had flax on them last year. We will spray them with compost tea as soon as we have another dry spell. Hopefully that will be in a week or so.

Breaking ground...spring work has begun.

2011-02-03T08:55:00.001-08:00

Since we are having an unusually long stretch of dry weather here in late January and early February we are about to start tearing up some ground to get ready for planting. We have lots of beans, oats, flax, and wheat to plant. The wheat will go in first, then we'll play it by ear for the other crops. I also need to get the compost tea brewer going again soon as we will be spraying lots of tea on the fields this spring. The push is to get everything in as early as possible this year. Last year was tough for a lot of crops because we couldn't get them in the ground as early as we should due to the long wet spring. Hopefully this year we will get much better yields from the spring crops.

Video on the Southern Willamette Valley Bean & Grain Project posted.

2011-01-29T01:34:00.000-08:00

I posted a short video by Erik Silverberg on the Bean and Grain Project on the blog. It's the youtube window below the main picture. Erik did a great job! This sums up very nicely what we are working on here in the Valley. Thanks Erik.

Winter 2011: Thoughts for the coming year and beyond.

2011-01-20T12:13:00.000-08:00

Well it's the middle of winter here in the valley. Not much to do in the fields so my day revolves around phone calls and paperwork. Organic certification paperwork is due this month. Oregon Tilth is going to a web-based system for record-keeping. Good news for those of us who don't relish the idea of a large renewal application to fill out each year. We have also applied for certification from Food Alliance. Food Alliance certifies a farm based on its use of sustainable farming practices. You can read about their criteria here. http://foodalliance.org/ This will help us market our transitional crop until we are certified organic. Marketing transitional crops for a premium is challenging. I saw that Grand Central Baking in Portland had started getting all their wheat from Shepherd's Grain in Washington. SG is a co-op of growers who are all Food Alliance certified. I researched Food Alliance after I read that article and decided to apply. We have also spoken to Oregon Kosher about getting certified. NatureBake has asked us to look into kosher certification. This year we have several big challenges facing us. We still have a lot of processing equipment that we will need if we want to grow crops such as sunflowers. We have no drying and de-hulling equipment right now. We also need a reliable bean sheller to handle garbanzo beans. This is big because growing garbanzos will provide us with the all-important legume for our rotation. I can't overstate the importance of a legume in the crop rotation. We need something that won't just fix nitrogen, but will yield and pay well in its own right. We also need oat processing equipment. Without a good roller that will handle a few hundred pounds an hour we won't be able to fill large orders for rolled oats. Rolled oats are very much in demand so this is important. Trucking pallets of oats around the valley to be processed does not appeal to us, and it eats heavily into our margin. One of the most important pieces of equipment for our cleaning operation is a gravity table. We have recently acquired one, but are still waiting for its auxiliary equipment such as feeder hopper and piping to be fabricated. Having all the equipment to handle these processes is vital to our operation. Without them it is very difficult to provide the finished product in large amounts that the valley demands. We have some very big news coming shortly. I can't spill the beans yet, but it will be huge!

We are pleased to annouce the launch of "Oregon Grains Bread," a new loaf from NatureBake featuring grains from A2R Farms.

2010-12-15T12:22:00.001-08:00

We are very pleased to announce the launch of Oregon Grains Bread, a new loaf made by the fine folks at NatureBake in Milwaukie Oregon. NatureBake is most well-known for being the bakery behind Dave's Killer Bread, a favorite in Oregon and the Northwest. NatureBake has been looking to do a loaf made from local products for some time, and we are honored to be able to provide them with the wheat, oats, and flax they need to make this bread happen! At present, A2R is the sole source of grains for the bread, but that will change in the very near future as we are working very closely with Stalford Seed Farms and several other growers as members of Willamette Seed & Grain, a collaboration of a handful of like-minded growers and other ag industry folks. The web page that NatureBake has posted sums up the experience so far, so I encourage everyone to go to their site and have a look! You can find this bread on the shelves beginning this week at Fred Meyer, New Seasons, and First Alternative Co-op. This is a HUGE step forward for local farmers growing food for local markets! Thank you to Harry MacCormack for his work leading up to this, and a very special thank you to Willow Coberly of Stalford Seed Farms, without whom this bread would not have been possible. Click the title of this post to go to the Oregon Grains page on NatureBake's website.

Applying compost tea

2010-11-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Over the past 2 weeks I have been making and applying our own compost tea. I am still experimenting with different recipes and seeing what kind of results I can get. The idea is to get the highest quality tea at the lowest price per gallon. I have used several different people's solid compost. Harry MacCormack's leaf, Shepard Smith's compost, and Joe Richard's vermicompost. I have used various things as food: Hendrikus Organic's Organobloom 5-2-4, EarthFort's Solu-Plks and Acadian Kelp, and fish from Bob Wilt. The first batch had zero active fungi so I didn't apply it. It hindsight I wish I had, as the bacterial counts were good and you don't necessarily need high fungal counts all the time. The second batch I used a recipe from Soil Foodweb and pretreated the compost for 3 days with fish and Solu-Plks. The results that came back were very good, but the cost of the ingredients is very high. I am trying to find out if I can get good tea without using the kelp or pretreating the compost. The kelp is extremely expensive, about 167 dollars for 10 pounds, and it takes 5 pounds per 1200 gallon batch. Pretreating helps increase the fungal counts, but it takes an extra 2 or 3 days. Having that much time between batches is difficult this time of year when every patch of good weather has to be taken. I am waiting on the test results from my latest batch which was made with Joe Richard's vermicompost, 40 oz of fish, and 80 oz of Solu-Plks. I have been applying the tea to our higher value ground first. That is to say the wheat, peas, and flax. The grass seed ground is a lower priority but is still important. Due to various hang-ups with getting the brewer up and running and figuring out a recipe that works we are a few weeks behind schedule on spraying. After this fall application we will not spray again until the spring.

Planting winter peas as a cover crop

2010-11-16T09:51:00.000-08:00

This fall we planted about 75 acres of golden and green peas as a winter cover crop. Having a legume in the ground over the winter will help increase the nitrogen in the soil for the next crop. It also helps prevent soil erosion. Not only are these peas going to provide nitrogen-fixing and "green manure" benefits, but we are being paid by the NRCS to put them in. The fields with the peas have now been limed and sprayed with compost tea in addition to the planting of the peas. The fields should provide us with much better yields on our next crop of wheat or oats.

Grain mill construction progress

2010-11-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

Construction of the large grain mill at our warehouse is progressing well. The building is taking shape and the main equipment has been delivered. Electrical work will proceed soon. We hope to have our 1000 pound per hour mill up and running within 6-8 weeks at the earliest. Thank you to Rick Laymen for the carpentry, and Willow Coberly for keeping us on our toes!

Fill-Your-Pantry Market a HUGE success! Thank you!

2010-11-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Wow what a response! The market here at A2R Farms last Saturday surpasses all expectations with the huge turnout. Between 300-400 people came out looking to stock up on a wide variety of goods. We want to thank everyone who participated, including the planning group, the Bean and Grain Project, and all the farms who brought such wonderful food to sell! A2R had several snags such as lack of availability of processed product, poor visibility of pricing, and no separate line for pre-orders. Rest assured we will address all of the issues we had and be much better prepared next year! We have set a date of November 6th, 2011 for the next event. Here is a list of the product sold by A2R:

Hard Red Wheat Berries - 1139 lbs.
Soft White Wheat Berries - 251 lbs.
Brown Flax - 86 lbs.
Hulless Oats - 95 lbs.
Rolled Oats - 147.5 lbs.
Cayuse Oats - 29 lbs.
Soft White Flour - 99.5 lbs.
Hard Red Flour - 79 lbs.

Again, THANK YOU to all who came out!

Building a compost tea brewer

2010-10-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I have been working on putting together a compost tea brewer. Transitioning to organic farming necessitated a shift from conventional fertilizer and amendments to organic, and it made sense to build our own brewer after looking at how much use we would get out of it, not to mention how much money we would save. First, we looked at how much tea we would need for at least 2 yearly applications, one in the fall and one in the spring. All of our acres at the recommended amount of 15 gallons per acre puts our need at around 13,000 gallons per application if we did every acre. After looking at various tank sizes we settled on a 1400 gallon tank. When a batch is brewed in this tank we end up with around 1200-1300 gallons of tea. Our spray buggy holds approximately 450 gallons, so 1 batch of tea will give us nearly enough for 3 full buggy loads. 3 buggy loads will do about 70-75 acres. So one batch of tea a day will allow us to spray every acre in about 10-12 days. There are 3 main parts to the tank: The tank itself, the air pump, and the liquid pump. The air pump agitates and aerates the tea to allow the organisms to multiply. The liquid pump is for filling the buggy after the batch is done. I put a float valve on a fitting and attached a hose to it for filling the tank. It takes several hours to fill the tank to 1200 gallons. It took many, many trips to JTI Supply (the tank and fitting company) to get the correct fittings. We decided to put the air pump above the tank on a bracket to prevent backflow. We had previously tried putting it on the ground and looping a length of hose up over the tank to prevent backflow, but the head pressure in the tank was too great, and water flowed back into the pump. Next we tried a check valve between the air pump and the fitting on the bottom of the tank, but the check valve inhibited the air flow too much. When we put the air pump above the tank and turned it on with the tank full, it worked for about 2 hours until the air pump couldn't sustain enough air pressure to keep the tank agitated. Turns out the air pump can only perform with less than 65 inches of water. The tank, when full, is about 75 inches high. Because of this I tried putting another opening in the side to allow the air in. This worked but we determined that the agitation wasn't sufficient on the other side and the bottom of the tank. Ultimately we decided to put less water in the tank and keep the air coming in through the bottom fitting. This will also help prevent a layer of anaerobic organisms forming on the bottom of the tank, which could degrade the quality of the tea. I purchased a bag for the tea from Earthfort, a local company specializing in compost tea. The bag hangs down from a clasp on the underside of the lid, keeping it suspended in the middle of the tank. I used quick release fittings on all the connections to make cleaning easier, as biofilm on the inside of the tank, hoses, and fittings can harm the beneficial organisms in the tea. I started brewing the first batch of tea yesterday. I used 25 pounds of solid compost. About half is from Harry MacCormack at Sunbow Farm, and half is from Shepard Smith at Soilsmith Services. I also used about 28.4 pounds of 5-2-4 Organobloom as food for the tea. This is a very basic recipe that will probably need significant tweaking to get right. I'll take a sample in to Soil Foodweb for testing today when the tea is done brewing. If the results are acceptable we can start spraying tomorrow, although I'm sure I'll need to make some adjustments to the recipe to get it right. Big thanks to Joe Richard at JTI Supply for all the materials, Kevin at Earthfort for all the advice, Harry MacCormack at Sunbow Farm for the compost and great tips, and also Shepard Smith at Soilsmith Services for the compost.

Fall planting update.

2010-10-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

We are close to finishing the fall planting. So far we have planted the following crops: Hard Red Wheat, Soft White Wheat, Brown Flax, Golden Peas, Green Peas, and Annual Ryegrass. We are trying to get more wheat planted in the fall this year, as we anticipate higher yields from the red when it's fall planted. The peas we planted as a cover crop. We will till them under in the spring, then plant wheat or oats or another spring crop on that ground. The peas act as a nitrogen-boosting crop, which cuts down on our fertilizer needs for those fields. We also had our 3 pea fields limed to raise their pH. They should produce a pretty good crop this year.

Product list for Fill-Your-Pantry Market here at A2R Farms on October 23rd.

2010-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the Ten Rivers Food Web's recent article on the list of foods available for bulk purchase at the first annual Willamette Valley Fill-Your-Pantry Market here at A2R Farms. More than half a dozen farms will be selling bulk quantities of winter storage foods such as grains, flour, beans, root vegetables, honey, canned fish, and frozen meat at very low prices. Local beer and wine, as well as live music, will be on hand. Support your local farmer! Click the title of this post to navigate to the list. Thank you and we hope to see you there!

Upgrading the seed cleaning warehouse

2010-10-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

We have been steadily upgrading the cleaning warehouse to allow us to handle more crops. When it was originally put in back in 2005 it was designed specifically for grass seed. In order to allow us to handle many different seed types we have had to put in a bypass which allows us to pour seed directly into the main cleaner. The two machines being bypassed are a pre-cleaner, which takes out heavy material such as dirt clods and rocks, and a debearder which removes the small beard or "tail" from grass seeds. The blue pipe in the photo has a lever which diverts the seed from the first elevator directly into the main cleaner's feeder hopper. If we put wheat and oats through the pre-cleaner and debearder it would fall into the waste pipe or get crushed in the debearder. Other upgrades we have done are adding new screens for the main cleaner. Specific size screens are needed for each crop. We didn't have screens for flax or hard red wheat initially. We ordered the flax screens last year for the Deck Family Farm flax, and we ordered screens for hard red wheat so we can clean our own wheat crop. Other modifications we have planned are adding another Heid and replacing the discs in the Carters. These 2 machines separate out weed seed using a system of rotating discs and cylinders. Adding and upgrading these machines allows us to get extremely pure test results. We also are looking to install a gravity table in the near future. A gravity table is a precision cleaning machine that separates out seeds and other elements such as tiny bits of chaff and pebbles by their weight. Now that our warehouse is certified organic we expect to get more and more cleaning business for specialty crops, and we want to be able to handle most any crop. Things are looking good!

Planting fall flax

2010-10-04T10:34:00.001-07:00

This year we got 1,250 pounds of brown flax from the OSU Foundation Seed Bank. The variety is called Linore and was grown by 2 farmers here in the valley. We planted about 25 acres and seeded at around 42-45 pounds an acre. That is quite a bit heavier than last spring when we planted flax at roughly 30 pounds per acre. We hope the fall planted variety and the heavier seeding rate will result in much higher yields. Thanks to Dan Curry and Russ Karow at OSU for the seed.

A2R visited by a delegation from India accompanied by representatives from the Asia Foundation

2010-09-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last week we received a visit from a delegation of officials from India. The visit was sponsored by the Asia Foundation, a non-profit organization. asiafoundation.org

The purpose of the visit was to give the delegates an idea of the challenges facing American farmers transitioning to organic farming practices. We took them on a tour of our cleaning warehouse and a few of our fields. They had many questions about what we've done differently, what costs are associated with transitioning, and what if any government funding is available. The visit went very well and we hope the delegates got a good idea of exactly what kind of problems farmers face transitioning away from conventional farming. Thank you to Harry MacCormack and Cheri Clark for setting up the tour. Here is a list of the representatives names and positions.

Ms. Sayeeda Bano, Member, Zila Parishad, Madhubani, Bihar (State)
Dr. Harendra Prasad, Joint Director - Department of Planning and Development
Government of Bihar (State)
Mr. Avanindra Kumar, Programme Manager - Development Alternatives, New Delhi
Dr. Alok Pandey, Manager (Programme)Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
New Delhi
Mr. Amit Sengupta, Executive Editor - Hardnews Magazine, Delhi (South Asian Partner of Le Monde Diplomatique)
Oliver Petzold, Program Officer - Asian American Exchange, The Asia Foundation
Tamara Failor, Junior Associate - Governance, Law & Civil Society, The Asia Foundation

Harvesting sunflowers

2010-09-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Last week we harvested all of the ripe sunflowers. They were ripening at vastly different rates so we had to walk through and select the fully ripe flowers, then cut the heads off. A BIG thank you to all of the volunteers that came and helped us cut, carry, and spread the flowers! We will have to go back through in a week or so and cut the rest of the ripening flowers. Slightly less than half of the field was not thinned sufficiently, which basically meant that they didn't fully ripen in time and will be plowed under.

Announcing the first annual Willamette Valley Fill-Your-Pantry Market October 23rd @ A2R Farms

2010-09-25T13:09:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the First Annual Willamette Valley Fill-Your-Pantry Market, which will take place Saturday October 23rd from 2-5pm at A2R Farms. Here is the text of the save-the-date notice that went out this week.

What: 1st Annual Willamette Valley Fill-Your-Pantry Market
When: Saturday, October 23, 2010 2-5 p.m.
Where: A2R Farms, 7205 Cutler Lane (2 miles west of Corvallis Municipal Airport off Airport Rd.)
This is your opportunity to purchase staples (grains, flour, beans, seeds and winter storage produce) directly from local farmers. Stock your pantry for the winter at discount prices. A list of foods available, growing method (conventional, natural, certified organic or transitional) and price per pound to follow shortly. Orders for over 100 pounds of a single item (e.g. oats) must be reserved by October 19th. Smaller orders can/should be reserved, as well, or may be purchased at event. All orders must be picked up at the event. Payment by cash or check only, made out to the farmer.
Stay tuned for order list~
Sponsored by the Southern Willamette Bean & Grain Project and Ten Rivers Food Web

This is a collaboration between the SWVBGP and several area farmers. The goal is to create awareness of the availability of local storable foods through a fun, market-like atmosphere. Local beer and wine will be available...for free! We are emphasizing bulk sales to encourage families to save bulk product over the winter, both to increase food security and support the local food system. The prices will be lower than supermarket prices in most cases.

Cleaning flax

2010-09-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

We have just finished cleaning the flax in the warehouse. This is our second season cleaning flax, and we are getting much better at it. Last year we cleaned about 6000 pounds for a small farm near Junction City. Since our system is designed for large amounts of seed, it was difficult to get the flax as clean as we would have liked. This year we were much better prepared, but we still had issues such as screen placement, machine speeds, air flow speed, etc. We had to tweak and re-tweak the setting many times to finally get it right. We had a lot of help from the Cimbria rep. (Cimbria is the manufacturer of our main cleaner). We were able to minimize our seed loss to the point that we only had about 2-3,000 pounds of screenings out of 16-18,000 pounds of seed. Which isn't bad considering the screenings from flax are worth several hundred dollars a ton to poultry farmers. Flax screenings make valuable feed additions to chickens for the omega-3 content. Although we got the flax very close to retail-ready, it will still have to be re-cleaned on a gravity table as there is a small amount of weed seed remaining. Kudos to Bill our warehouse manager for being so persistent in going after high quality. Nice work Bill!

Harvesting garbanzo beans

2010-09-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

Today we started harvesting the garbanzo beans. This entailed walking along with shears and cutting them at the roots, then coming along behind with a wheelbarrow and picking them up. Sounds simple, right? Sure, but one 3-acre field took 9 hours, and we're still not done, and it was raining! We can't use a combine because there aren't enough to justify using it, too many beans would get lost in the machine during threshing. Also, the beans aren't tall enough. The average height is about 10-12 inches. We would probably crush as many as we cut. So, 4 of us trundled out there and stooped, crawled, kneeled, and hacked our way across the field. We are laying the bushes out to dry on a large tarp in the hay shed. We haven't decided how we are going to separate bean from pod yet. We should finish that piece and the other 2 very small pieces tomorrow.

Grain harvest is done!

2010-09-13T11:09:00.001-07:00

We have finished with the grain harvest and have moved on to preparing the ground for next season. I don't have accurate yield figures yet, and I won't until we clean and process all the crop. The white wheat yielded higher than expected. The red wheat was about what we expected to get. The flax was lower than expected. The oats yielded slightly higher than expected, with the exception of the hull-less oats which was slightly lower than we hoped. We didn't have expectations of a huge yield from the hull-less oats as the variety was from Manitoba and needs to be acclimatized. We feel that this year we will have better yields as we will plant all the wheat in the fall. Hopefully we will get better red wheat yields if it is fall planted.

Harvest update

2010-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

We are almost done with all the combine work. We've finished the hard red and soft white wheat, and most of the cayuse oats. We have about 9-11 acres of flax left to do, and all of the naked oats. By the end of this week all the standing grain will have been thrashed. The beans, sunflowers, and walnuts still have a little ways to go before they are ready to harvest. The yelloweye beans looked pretty bad not too long ago, and they still don't look great, but we looked at them closely today and saw lots of pods. There is a photo of a yelloweye with pods, as well as a photo of the yelloweyes next to the pintos. What was interesting about that was the pintos failed completely in that part of the field, while the yelloweyes did not. The pintos were a total failure actually. It seemed that the yelloweyes did better in areas where the pintos just stopped growing. The sunflowers are ripening at vastly different rates. We will have to be harvesting them continually for weeks once the most mature ones are ready. Some flowers have still not opened at all, while others are starting to drop their petals already. In a laughably inept effort at deterring birds, I have placed mylar "scare tape" on tall T-posts around the perimeter of the field. I have also made a scarecrow that I am putting up today. Hopefully that will help some in keeping out the birds. I also included photos of the uncleaned flax and red wheat.

The recent wheat price increase...A case for buying local!

2010-08-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

I would like to say a few things about the recent furor over rising wheat prices on the commodity market. As many of you may know, Russia suffered a severe drought this year and is reporting a huge crop loss in their wheat harvest. As the third largest wheat producing country on earth, this has a profound effect on the global wheat market. There has been a huge jump in wheat acreage planted in the Willamette Valley this past year due to very low prices on grass seed. I'm sure there are plenty of happy farmers in the valley who will be making another dollar or two per bushel on their wheat crop. The people who are REALLY making the money in this situation are the speculators. Farmers make slightly more, and the consumer pays slightly more, but the traders make MUCH more. This rise in wheat prices is for conventional wheat only, but it may have something of a trickle-down effect on the local organic grain market. There have been articles written in the past week or two that say consumers will feel the pinch at the grocery store through higher bread and meat prices. (Higher meat prices because higher feed grain prices affect meat prices). One of the goals of our farm and the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project is greater food security and stability in the valley. We are capable of producing a huge amount of food for the local market, but the bulk of the grain grown in the valley is exported, and the vast majority of the food consumed in the valley is imported. If you want to insulate yourself from the fluctuations in the world market to a greater degree, then buy food produced by local farmers! Help us build the local food system!

Harvesting soft white winter wheat

2010-08-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

This week we started harvesting the soft white winter wheat, yamhill variety. We have approximately 140 acres of it this year. Most of it was planted in October and November, but one field got planted in mid-December, and is looking much weaker as a result. The yield in the fields close to our buildings have been very good so far. It has been a bit stop-and-go while we wait for the moisture content to get down to around 12-12.5 percent. This usually means we can't start combining until about 1-2 pm.

Chef/Baker farm tour a BIG success! Thank you!

2010-08-03T09:43:00.001-07:00

The chef/baker farm tour of Stalford's, A2R, and Hunton's farms yesterday was a huge success. We'd like to thank Allison for organizing the event, the Bean and Grain Project for dreaming it up, and all the chefs and bakers who came out with an interest in seeing where some of their ingredients come from! We look forward to the public farm tours later this month. I'm sure there will be a BIG turnout!

Walnuts

2010-07-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

The walnuts are doing nicely. 3 of the 5 trees seem to have thicker foliage and more nuts on them. We should be harvesting them in late September or early October. Then we'll have a shelling party!

Sunflower progress

2010-07-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

The sunflowers are growing so fast! They are almost 5 1/2 feet now. Some of them are starting to show flower buds. We abandoned the idea of putting netting up over them. When we sat down and thought about it we realized just how difficult it would be. A friend recommended using reflective streamers on poles to deter birds. We still have a little time before we need anti-bird countermeasures in place!

Pinto bean progress

2010-07-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

The pinto beans are doing even worse than the yelloweye beans, unfortunately. They are almost all very tiny, and have slug damage as well. We are not sure we will be able to take a crop of pinto beans off the field at all. Again, the late planting, lack of water, and low pH are all negatively affecting the beans. The weeds are a problem. Yet another case for acquiring a tine cultivator for next season.

Yelloweye bean progress

2010-07-20T18:02:00.000-07:00

The yelloweye beans are doing fairly poorly. We would have like to plant them at least 4-6 weeks earlier, but were unable to get on the fields due to muddy conditions. They almost all look small and underdeveloped. The few spots where they look okay are clusters of plants. They seem to do better when planted closer. The planter we used made it very difficult to control planting rates. We would have liked to plant at around double the seeding rate we used, which was 40-50 pounds per acre. This field would also have benefited from tine cultivation. The weeds are pretty bad in much of the field, with annual ryegrass as the main problem.

"Naked" oats progress

2010-07-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

The "naked" or hull-less oats are also doing extremely well. We planted them about 2 weeks after the cayuse oats, so they are not quite as far along, but they look great. Weed pressure is almost nonexistent in both fields. We are excited about this crop as there is huge potential for naked oats.

Cayuse oats progress

2010-07-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

The cayuse oats are doing fantastic. They came up extremely quickly. They seem to tolerate slightly more marginal ground very well. This field isn't particularly wet, but the other field we planted cayuse in is very wet, and they came up very thick. The weeds don't seem too bad at all, in fact they are almost nonexistent in both fields.

Soft white wheat progress

2010-07-20T17:47:00.001-07:00

The soft white wheat is almost ready to harvest. In about 2 more weeks we should be threshing it. This field looks outstanding. The wheat is chest-high and very thick. The broadleaf weeds are a problem in the soft white wheat, but we have just started upgrading our cleaning facility to handle wheat very efficiently, so cleaning out the weeds after harvest shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Hard red wheat progress

2010-07-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

The hard red wheat has started to dry out. It looks pretty good in most of the fields. This field had a touch of stripe rust that doesn't seem to have done too much damage. The broadleaf weeds are a problem in this field, but in almost all the other hard red wheat fields the only weed problem is annual ryegrass.

Flax progress

2010-07-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

The flax is doing very well. This field has recently dropped its blooms, and the seed heads are developing quickly. We have been very pleased with the flax results. Next year we will probably do more than the 45 acres we planted this year. We were disappointed that the seed stock we used was contaminated with mustard seed. We hand-weeded this whole field.

Garbanzo bean progress

2010-07-20T17:30:00.001-07:00

The garbanzos seem to be doing fairly well in the field near our warehouse. They have been getting watered regularly and are starting to form pods. The weeds have been a constant battle, as you can see. Next year we would like to have a tine cultivator so we can mechanically weed. All of the weed control has been done by hand. A losing battle, in the long run. We would have liked to plant the garbanzos at least a month earlier. The top right photo is of a garbanzo from another field that has no water. No water, plus low pH, means very poor results. 2 or 3 acres of garbanzos are like this.

Harvest season is here!

2010-07-14T22:48:00.001-07:00

Last week we began the summer harvest. We started cutting the grass last week, and started combining last Monday. The annual ryegrass is first, then the fescue, then winter wheat, then the oats and spring wheat, and finally the flax, beans, and sunflowers. I'll post photos as we go, along with yield figures.

Flax in bloom

2010-07-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

The flax has begun to fully bloom. It looks beautiful with all the flowers open. The field in the photos has been hand-weeded. The seed we got from California had some mustard in it. We paid a guy to clean up the field. Broadleaf weeds don't seem to like flax fields very much. All of our flax fields are pretty clean, except for the mustard, and one field which has wild radish come up every year.

Organic hay

2010-06-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

Our organic hay field was cut last week. The guy we have take care of it raked it into rows yesterday and baled it today. We should take about 50-55 tons off the field. We're keeping quite a bit for the horses, and selling the rest.

Disease problems in hard red wheat

2010-06-21T16:18:00.001-07:00

We have a few disease issues in one of our hard red wheat fields. The cool wet spring has encouraged a proliferation of stripe rust and smut. Stripe rust is a fungus. The leaves turn yellow and are covered with an orange dust of spores. The smut attacks the seed head and turns it black. Thankfully the field is very small, about 7 acres. Hopefully the late outbreak won't affect the yield dramatically. All the other fields look okay at this point. We talked to Shepard Smith from Soilsmith Services about the fungus issues. He suggested treating with a mixture of compost tea and stimplex (liquid kelp), and something called Stealth. In the end we decided not to treat the field at this late stage. Shepard indicated that preventative treatment would have worked wonders. Yet another case for applying compost tea several times a year. The field in question is actually one of the few wheat pieces we didn't treat with tea a few months back. Now we are seriously thinking about getting our own compost tea brewer so we can apply year-round.

Photos of crop progress pt. 5

2010-06-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

This is the sunflower patch. We thinned them out this past week. They are averaging about 10-12 inches tall. We spaced them out to about 2-2 1/2 feet apart. We will need to start thinking about the netting very soon. I don't want to see this field turn into one giant birdfeeder!

Photos of crop progress pt. 4

2010-06-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

This is soft white winter wheat. The wheat is looking fantastic. There is some grass in it but we should be able to clean that out after harvest. My brother ben is standing in the field to give you an idea of the height of the wheat.

Photos of crop progress pt. 3

2010-06-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

This first photo is one of the naked oat fields. It is coming up very well and looking good. The other photos are of several of our flax pieces. The flax looks great. 2 of the pieces in the photos are wetter fields. The flax doesn't seem to mind a slightly wetter piece.

Photos of crop progress pt. 2

2010-06-16T20:39:00.001-07:00

This is one of the hard red wheat fields and a garbanzo field. The hard red in this photo is around 2 months old. The seed heads are starting to come up. This is one of the largest and best hard red pieces. The garbanzos are coming up fairly well. The largest are about 3-4 inches. They are spotty in places. The planter was having trouble feeding the seed evenly. It tended to smash some of the seed in the release wheel.

Photos of crop progress

2010-06-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

These are photos of the pinto and yelloweye beans. The yelloweye seem to be coming up a bit faster. There's a photo of a damaged pinto. It may have been hit by slugs. There are a few spots in each bean patch that look like they either got hit by slugs or didn't germinate completely. For the most part they are coming up fairly evenly across the field.

Planting beans...and final crop acreages. Spring work is done!

2010-06-04T14:30:00.001-07:00

We planted 3 kinds of beans last week, the last of the crops to go in the ground. We planted roughly 4 acres of garbanzo beans, 4-5 acres of pinto beans, and 2-2.5 acres of yelloweye beans. All of the beans were planted using a 2-bottom drill we borrowed from Gathering Together Farm. One of the fields is right next to our buildings at the farm, which has 2 acres of garbanzos in it. The other beans are up the road on a field that also has hard red wheat and flax in it. We planted the beans at approximately 40-50 pounds per acre. It was somewhat hard to tell with the planter we used. We worked the ground several times to try to reduce the weed sprout. When I walked one of the fields today the weed sprout was almost nonexistent. So far, so good. Now that all the beans are in we are done planting for the spring. Here are the final tallies of crops and their acreages.

Hard Red Wheat - 122 acres
Soft White Wheat - 142 acres
Hull-less Oats - 49 acres
Cayuse Oats - 84 acres
Brown Flax - 44 acres
Sunflowers - 1 acre
Garbanzo Beans - 4 acres
Pinto Beans - 4.5 acres
Yelloweye Beans - 2.5
Annual Ryegrass - 222 acres
Tall Fescue - 77 acres
Tall Fescue (hay) - 30 acres

We should begin cutting the grass in a month or so. If this rain holds up through June it will do the beans, wheat, flax, and oats a lot of good as we got them in the ground later than we would have liked. Then we just need to pray for an indian summer!

Planting "naked" oats

2010-05-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Over the last 3 days we planted about 48 acres of "naked" or hull-less oats. Oats are a huge staple and are in high demand locally. Most oats have a hull that must be removed before rolling. Once the hull is removed the oats begin to go rancid unless they are toasted or steamed. The de-hulling and toasting of the oats requires specialized machinery that only a few companies in Oregon possess. One company is Grain Millers out of Eugene. They are very large and can handle lots of volume, unfortunately they can't process "on spec." Basically that means they can't contract process. Once we deliver the oats that's it, they are mixed in with their other oats and we get the standard price per ton, which at 160-170 dollars is pretty low. We started looking around for other options and heard about hull-less oats from another grower. The advantage of hull-less oats is that they have no hull, so require less processing. They do not go rancid once rolled, or so I'm told. This eliminates a lot of steps in the processing chain. We know a small processor that can handle the rolling of the oats, which is great because that allows us to market them locally for a better price. We started looking around for the seed stock and found that hull-less oats are hard to find in quantity. We ordered about 10,000 pounds and split them with another grower. We think this variety, being from another region, will need a season or two of acclimatizing before we get decent yields. We planted our 48 acres at around 115 pounds per acre. We have no idea what they will yield. These oats have a lot of potential, and we are looking forward to watching them grow.

More photos of crop progress

2010-05-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of the flax fields and one of the hard red wheat fields. The flax is sprouting already after only being in the ground for 3 days. Michael is standing in the middle of one of our flax fields. Behind him the green hill is one of the hard red wheat fields. I am standing at the top of the hill in the hard red wheat with the flax fields at the bottom of the hill behind me. The hard red is about one month old.

Pictures of the crops' progress

2010-05-18T14:31:00.001-07:00

Here are photos of the crops and their progress. The soft white winter wheat planted last october/november is doing excellent. It is almost chest high and the seed heads are coming up quickly. It is surprising how well it is doing considering it has had no chemicals of any kind applied to it. There are very few weeds in the field, only some orchardgrass, ryegrass, and a little brome. The sunflowers I planted last Sunday have sprouted and look like they will do very well. Michael is kneeling between the rows in the field.

Flax planting.

2010-05-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

Last week we planted 35 acres of brown flax. We are growing it transitionally, and will also have another 15 acres of organic flax that is going in soon. Much of the flax is being sold as whole seed for food. Some flax is grown for oil, some for fiber, but the variety we are growing is an excellent food seed. The organic seed stock arrived from California last month, and we have been waiting until the wheat and oats were in before we planted the flax. Hopefully it will yield around 1500 pounds per acre. Organic flax is fairly valuable, but the transitional must be marketed properly to find a good price. There are buyers out there willing to pay a premium for locally grown flax, even if its not organic. Since there are very few flax growers in the Willamette Valley its hard for local bakeries to find local flax. I think that we will be the second largest flax grower in the valley after Shawn Caid's Shekina Farm, which is growing around 50-60 acres of brown flax I believe. Flax has so many potential uses that we are excited about seeing how well it does on our farm.

Planting sunflowers

2010-05-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I planted 1 acre of mammoth grey stripe sunflowers. The area I planted is right by a few of the houses on the farm. They should look great once they start getting tall. I planted about 20-25 pounds of seed in rows about 2 feet apart. I used a small push-planter that my friend Jason Bradford lent me. It can hold about a pound of seed. It drops the seed in a row at around one seed every inch, and about half an inch deep. Once they get about a foot tall I will start to thin them out. If we don't thin them they will compete with each other pretty heavily. This variety can get up to around 10-12 feet tall! The heads are tremendous and should yield lots of seed. We have been told by several people that birds will be a huge problem, so we plan to put up a large amount of netting to keep them off. I'll keep posting photos of the sunflowers as they grow. The photo I'm posting here of the sunflower is what they look like once fully grown. The other photos are of the planter I used and the field I planted in.

The first day of applying compost tea

2010-04-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

We had our first delivery of organic compost tea today. Shepard Smith from Soilsmith Services brought 1000 gallons of tea and 100 gallons of organic fish fertilizer, as well as 10-15 gallons of liquid kelp. The tea is a kind of all-in-one amendment that restores nutrients to the soil. The fish fertilizer will help the crop enormously as well. The kelp aids in disease resistance. A few applications of the tea a year, at around 10-15 gallons an acre, should help restore good biology to the soil. Hopefully after a few years of tea and good crop rotation, we will have immense yields of healthy organic crops. The cost savings as compared to conventional chemicals is pretty amazing too. We are paying close to 30-35 dollars an acre for the tea, fish, and kelp. That is about half the cost of conventional fertilizer, although we will have to do several applications of tea a year.

Here is a link to Soilsmith's website. They are only about 10 minutes from us.

http://www.soilsmith.com/

We've secured some federal funding through the NRCS

2010-04-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

We applied for federal funding through the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service). They pay farmers a financial incentive to adopt certain agricultural practices such as farming organically, conserving water through more efficient irrigation, managing pests without conventional chemicals, etc. The areas we applied for include: Organic cover crops, organic nutrient management, organic pest management, and crop residue incorporation. Organic cover crops are things like clover that you plant in the fall and allow to grow during the winter. They fix the nitrogen in the soil, meaning we use less fertilizer. We plan to grow crimson clover. Organic nutrient management is a plan that involves use of organic fertilizers. We are using organic compost tea instead of conventional fertilizer on a few hundred acres. Organic pest management is similar to the nutrient management that just means we will use organic pesticide where needed instead of conventional. And finally crops residue incorporation means we will plow less and incorporate the wheat and grass stubble into the soil instead of taking off straw. It helps the soil recover faster. The NRCS is paying us a significant amount of money to adopt these practices on about 10 percent of our acreage. We qualified for close to the maximum amount, which is why the payout is only for a small amount of acres. It's great that the government is doing things like this to help growers like us transition to organic. The funding program is called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

Reworking, Cultivating, Replanting...

2010-04-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of a setback. All of the hard red wheat we no-till planted is not doing well at all. Michael reckons that the seed was planted too deep, its been too cold, and the rows were full of water. What this means is that we have to replant about 40-50 acres of hard red wheat. In addition to the extra wheat seed required that is a LOT of time. I have been working up the main field in question for the last 3 days. I started by discing up the field. Discing is basically chopping the ground up with bowl-shaped discs turned on their side. We did that twice, let it dry, then cultivated it twice. Cultivation means dragging an implement with C-shaped tines on it that cut the soil deeper than the disc. At about 4-5 miles per hour it takes around 3 hours to go over the field once. After that we let it dry again then go over the field with the roterra. The roterra is a nifty machine that chops the dirt up with vertical rotating forks and a cylinder with slanted horizontal bars that flatten the soil out. Wheat doesn't need extremely fine and flat soil like grass seed does so we don't work the ground as much for it, but its still a lot of time. After looking at the one field that we did work up and plant weeks back during the warm spell it was clear that the hard red would do better in cultivated soil. The one field we worked up before planting is doing very well.

Planting transitional hard red wheat

2010-04-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago we planted about 70 acres of hard red wheat. Hard red wheat has a higher protein content than soft white wheat, making it better for bread-baking. Soft white is good for pastries, tortillas, and all-purpose flour. Organic and transitional hard red wheat is also worth quite a bit more than soft white wheat. We purchased about 15,000 pounds of organic hard red wheat from a nearby farm that grows hundreds of acres of it each year. Before they acquired some hard red from North Dakota, hard red had not been grown in the valley in significant amounts in decades. The farm is called Stalford Seed Farms. They grew out the smallish amount they acquired and began to acclimatize the variety to Oregon's climate, which is important to maximize yield. Now even though we planted organic seed the crop we harvest will not be certified organic. The reason for this is the fields we are planting the wheat in are classified as "transitional." I should explain the difference between organic and transitional before I go any farther. To be certified organic a field must have had no conventional chemicals of any kind applied to it for a period of 3 years. 3 years from the date of the last chemical application that field is then eligible for organic certification. We only have 30 acres of certified organic ground this year. Most of the rest of the ground will be in first-year transition. Transitional crops are essentially farmed organically but they cannot be sold as "certified organic." This means you can't charge the kind of prices than organic crops fetch, but if you market the transitional crop right you can get a better price than you would for conventional crops.
We plant hard red wheat at a rate of about 105 pounds per acre. Since we planted 70 acres that means we already went through about 7350 pounds of seed. That's roughly a truckload. Once the weather clears up and the fields dry out a bit we plan to plant another 50-55 acres of hard red. We are hoping to harvest at least 1 ton of wheat per acre. That is a very conservative estimate when you realize that conventionally farmed white wheat can sometimes yield up to 4 tons per acre. Too bad the price of conventional soft white wheat is so low. At the current market price of $4.50 a bushel (bushel=60 pounds) soft white wheat can bring in about 450 dollars per acre. That's assuming a yield of 3 tons per acre. At the current market price hard red wheat grown transitionally can bring in about 1200-1700 dollars per acre. That's a no-brainer, right? Well, its not that simple. We are very limited on what we can put on the hard red to help it grow. Obviously all chemical fertilizers are out. So we are planning to use something called compost tea. Compost tea is exactly what it sounds like. A liquid brewed from solid compost. It is very good for the soil and the crops, and it is relatively inexpensive. We also plan to hit the hard red with either organic fish fertilizer or organic chicken manure. We'll see how that goes. Most of our hard red will be purchased by local bakeries. When I say local I mean anywhere in the valley from Portland to Eugene. Stay tuned...

Too much rain

2010-03-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. We had planned to plant another 80-90 acres of hard red wheat but it started raining a ton this week. The forecast doesn't look good either, another week of rain at least. At this rate we won't be able to get back on the fields for a few weeks at least. That could make it too late to get the hard red planted early enough. Typically, you want to plant spring wheat as soon as weather allows after the freeze/wet months. We're lucky we got the 70 acres planted when we did. Hard red wheat is going to be our most valuable crop so we are somewhat anxious right now. We have several other crops that we are now considering for the remaining hard red acres if we can't get on the ground for a while. They are triticale, hull-less oats, and rye. We'll see...

The backstory...

2010-03-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

This first post is to familiarize you with our farm and what has led up to this decision to transition from conventional farming to organic farming. My father, Mike Robinson, moved to Philomath from Pincher Creek Alberta at a young age. His family ran cheviot sheep for years before deciding to cultivate their small fields. After growing wheat and grass seed for years he moved to Washington and began working in the timber industry. He knew that he wanted to get back into farming, so he took his family back to Oregon to work for one of the largest farms in the valley, Vennell Farms. Vennell Farms is directly adjacent to the south side of what was then Allen & Allen farms, close family friends of my father and his father for many years. My dad used to work for Fred Allen as a teenager. Fred was still running his farm with his son Steve and daughter Linda, but they needed some extra help. They offered my dad a job managing their farm, so he moved onto the farm in the mid-90s. Mike helped make the operation more efficient and the farm became more profitable during his tenure as manager. At that time the farm encompassed around 770 acres at the home place, with about another 600-700 acres of leased ground located nearby in various chunks. The bulk of the acreage was in grass seed, the most widely grown crop in the Willamette Valley. They also grew wheat and oats as rotational crops, but never in large acreages at any one time. Those unfamiliar with the farming industry may wonder why grow mostly grass seed? Well, the Willamette Valley has the perfect climate for growing all types of grass seed. Willamette Valley grass seed is used all over the world for lawns, golf courses, and pastures. The price of grass seed, while never astronomical, was high enough to afford most growers a decent living. After managing the farm for almost a decade, Mike knew that some big changes had to happen to make the farm truly efficient and profitable. One major addition that was badly needed was a seed cleaning facility. For decades Fred and his family had been driving full seed trucks directly from the fields to a seed cleaning warehouse in Tangent. Tangent is about 15 miles as the crow flies from Corvallis. The amount of time and money required to truck all the seed to Tangent was enormous, not to mention the cost of the cleaning itself. As Fred was getting older, (he's now 90), and Steve and Linda were getting close to retirement age, my dad knew that if the farm was to keep going, he should purchase it from the Allens. Mike bought the farm in 2005 with my stepmom Kathie. They renamed it A2R Farms. Allen 2 Robinson. Clever, eh? (farm humor...) Mike got a loan from OSU Federal Credit Union for the property, as well as a loan for putting in the new seed cleaning facility. The seed cleaning warehouse became operational in the fall of 2005. We now clean around 2-3 million pounds of seed per year. That includes several other nearby farms' crop that we handle. When Mike purchased the farm the price of grass seed was strong, so the plan was to keep going as usual. Grass, grass, and more grass. Its not that difficult to farm conventional grass seed, especially with modern fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. The farm was spending almost 200,000 dollars a year on chemicals at that time. Unfortunately, that first year was a total disaster in the valley. There was a massive plague of voles, the largest in over 70 years. The voles destroyed over half the grass crop. With an already tight margin imposed by the terms of the loan, the farm started off its new ownership era in a major hole. The next few years were record good years. So the farm looked like it might be able to dig out of the hole, but then grass seed prices began to take a nosedive. This is right around the beginning of the US economic recession. Far fewer homes were being built, so grass seed was not moving. Warehouses were stuffed to the rafters with 1 and sometimes 2 or 3 year old crop. One thing I should mention here is that because grass seed is not traded as a commodity the grower is essentially at the mercy of the seed brokers to get rid of their seed. Conversely wheat, a commodity, can be sold very quickly. Meaning farmers get paid faster for wheat and oats than they do for grass. We need to wait until the seed company calls up and says they want to take a few lots of grass seed, then wait up to 30-60 days AFTER it ships to actually get a check. With conventional wheat we just truck it up to Portland and get paid within 3 days. As a result of the poor grass seed prices and the few missed payments to the bank, OSU Federal decided to initiate foreclosure. They gave us one choice, sign a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, essentially turn over the farm to them, lock, stock, and barrel, or face immediate foreclosure. As a carrot they said they would wipe the slate completely clean, basically we would have zero-debt if we signed. We agonized over the decision for months, finally deciding NOT to sign, but to hire an attorney and file for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection. All of this was happening during harvest, which we managed to pay for with a generous loan from a family member, as the bank had cancelled our operating line of credit. As part of the chapter 12 case, we had to come up with a new way of farming that would be more profitable. Well, what could be more profitable? What could we possibly grow that would make us enough money to both pay back our creditors AND cover all of our operating costs? During our research into this we met several like-minded farmers, one of whom was the owner of a very large farm 10 miles east of us. She told us that there was a huge demand for locally grown organic beans, grains, and seeds. Furthermore, she said that her farm was transitioning hundreds of their 9000 acres over to organic, and that they already had over 150 certified organic acres. She also told us about a group called the Southern Willamette Valley Bean & Grain Project. A group of growers and buyers interested in developing the local food market. This was definitely the right person to meet. Through the people we met at the Bean & Grain Project we were able to come up with a list of crops that we could easily grow on our land, using the machinery we already had, that was in high demand for a premium price. Perfect! Just what we needed. We had always dreamed of growing food, I think most farmers do, but the grass seed way of thinking was just too dominant. Farmers are an inherently conservative group when it comes to their crops. Now, our hand had been forced, but it couldn't have been a better time. As a result of our dire financial situation, we had adopted a whole new way of thinking. The final decision in the months-long chapter 12 case finally came down on March 8th, 2010. After many hours of testimony by both sides over several different hearings, the judge ruled in our favor! We were given a period of 8 years to pay back the loans. The new crops we are growing are hard red wheat, brown flax, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, and sunflowers. Well that's the story so far. In subsequent posts I'll get into more detail about what we are planting and when, and who is buying them and for what price.