The Day in the Life of a Chardonnay Vine

I'm driving through my vineyard this morning doing my usual scouting for whatever may present itself and it occurs to me that some folks have never seen this before. The life of a grapevine. For a brief moment, I thought a "Grape-Cam" was a good idea.... but it quickly passed on as who really, would want to watch a grape camera...

But since we are so early in the season, I thought I would start maybe a monthly " life of a chardonnay vine" so you can see how the vine grows, matures, produces, and ripens fruit in a single season.

I picked chardonnay because its probably the most familiar grapevine we grow that folks would recognize the name. Our vineyard which is 22 acres has 8 different commercial varieties and 24 research varieties for the University of Maryland.

So here it is April 23, 2013 and this is a Chardonnay grapevine. You can see a couple things.

1.  We had bud break last week. Chardonnay is an early variety and is typically in bud first. Budbreak is determined by soil temperature and variety. Our soils have not been warming up all that quickly so we are a bit late from usual budbreak timeframe.

2. We have "apical dominance" which is the tendency for the buds further out from the trunk to be longer and more developed than those closer to the trunk. One premise is that the energy of carbohydrates is pushed through the plant's vascular system toward the outer buds. You can see here that although the last bud on the far right did not "push", the second to the last bud is the most developed as compared to the buds to the left of the frame. The 3rd from the last bud also did not "push" but I can't say I paid attention to that when I was taking pictures so I will have to go back and investigate.

3. We cane pruned which means we laid down a new cordon arm, also known as the "fruiting arm". This is where all the fruit will hang this coming season. Cane pruning allows us to get rid of last years' cordon arm which may have residual spores or bacteria, and lay down fresh wood. We cane prune all our red varieties and all our vinifera varieties. We spur prune all our white hybrid varieties.

4. We have no neighbors... Yup pretty much. In a 4+ mile stretch of our road, there are 7 homes, 3 of which are inhabited by our family :)

What I don't see yet is frost damage. We had a frost yesterday morning. The kind where you have to scrape the windshield. So while I don't see any frost damage yet, I am watching closely as these young buds are so tender and so susceptible. We lost nearly 40% of our crop last year due to frost. I really don't want a repeat.

So I will try to remember which plant this was (don't worry, I marked it) and you can follow this Chardonnay plant from April through September when we will be harvesting the fruit and delivering it to the winery!

Investing in Sustainability

As a result of the NY Times article and my response in my last blog Stay Calm and Farm On, I received several comments via facebook, email, or twitter about issues of sustainability on our farm. One thread of many comments was the definition of sustainability and how can a modern, conventional farm, call ourselves sustainable.  Here was one of the comments:

"If the farming focus is not on the health of the soil as foundation (ie. biodynamic or organic farming) then it's about destructive attempts at manipulating nature for profit ("intellectual property"). This at the expense of our environment as a whole. "

For 3 generations now, we have invested in sustainability. Our main focus has always been our soils. We have been planting cover crops, green manures, and no-till farming since the 1960's. We have always practiced Integrated Pest Management (IPM) because it's simply more cost-effective and good stewardship. The perception is that these are practices used only in organic agriculture. To us, they are simply the way we operate our farm. Always have, always will.

My father-in-law on an over the row, no-till Hiboy, 1964. High tech for its day.

Today, we continue to invest heavily in equipment and technology to help us not only be more efficient but also to continue to improve our soils, use less resources, lower our CO2 emissions, and improve our water quality. Sustainability does not meet a cookie-cutter, one-size fits all model, or apply to only one type of farming system or practice.  Soil types, climate, topography, equipment, resources, access to capital and amount of debt carried by a family farm are all factors that contribute to its sustainability.

So today, we were top-dressing winter wheat using our GreenSeeker technology and it ties in nicely with my comments about sustainability on our farm.

My husband, Hans driving the sprayer outfitted with GreenSeeker technology. He is applying  fertilizer which is called "top-dressing" the winter wheat crop.

How do we know it requires fertilizer?

This amazing piece of technology called the "GreenSeeker" tells us!

On the spray booms are optical sensors that detect the level of chlorophyll in the plants. Chlorophyll is the molecule that absorbs sunlight and synthesizes carbohydrates for energy for plant growth. We know this as photosynthesis, a process all plants are dependent upon for health.

This monitor inside the cab shows the driver the Normalized Difference Vegetative Index "NDVI". 

The color variation of chlorophyll is detected by the optical sensors and reflected on the monitor by a color range from brown to green. Green means there is more chlorophyll, yellow is in the middle, and brown is the least amount. The GreenSeeker applies a variable rate of fertilizer specific to the area that the optical sensor detected.

So you can see here, the spray boom with the optical sensors and the variation in the rate of the nozzles applying fertilizer heavier in some areas and less in others. Not all  nozzles run at the same rate and will turn off all together if no fertilizer is needed.

By practicing precision agriculture, we have both an environmental and an economic impact. The variable rate fertilizer application allows us to apply only what the plant needs based on its chlorophyll content. In some areas, that meant a savings of over 15 pounds of nitrogen per acre. The plant utilizes this application more efficiently resulting in less fertilizer remaining in the soil which ultimately can  improve water quality. 

GreenSeeker is just one piece of equipment that our family farm invested in to add more tools to our toolbox of sustainable farming practices. We have heavily invested in conservation equipment and practices on our farm as our philosophy is to treat our soil for what it is, our livelihood and the future for our children. We have taken the best of all farming system practices and combined them with some of the latest modern technology to create a sustainable family farm that we are proud to call home.

As we go through the growing season this year, I hope to highlight some of the other approaches we use to be environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable on our modern family farm. 

Stay Calm & Farm On!

Today started with an interesting twist. My son has had a difficult week with issues at school. This morning I told him my best advice was to "stay calm and study on." Little did I know that in a short time, this saying would come back and help me deal with attention from an article in a national newspaper. . As I drank my morning coffee, I opened my email to find an article that included me in the New York Times. It was shared on a listserv by a member of the Hunger & Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group to which I belong (remember I was an RD before I was a farmer). WHAT? Why on earth would the New York Times care about me and why would I be included in an article?  So here is the link to the article:

Food Politics Creates Rift in Panel on Labeling

The crux of the problem with this article and the way it came about was that NO ONE contacted me to inquire about my business relationships or to verify what was being written about me. This was an absolute broadside. I've never heard of Stephanie Strom, nor did she contact me to confirm the information she received from whatever source she thought was valid. Sadly, this illustrates what is wrong with today's journalists, the lack of integrity. A story is a story for the headlines and screw the accuracy because accuracy would make it a non-story.

THEN, I got my first tweet about the article! It said: 

"@FarmGirlJen Why are you in bed with #Monsanto #GMO?" 

(Oh no! What if my husband finds out?.....) 

This tweet came from a woman who calls herself a "Spiritual Teacher & Healer." Not sure she remembered her spiritualness when she tweeted me. I didn't find it very healing nor did she try to find out the facts first before she sent out that tweet. Only in her 2nd tweet did she ask what the facts were.... REALLY?

I have been speaking about agriculture, biotechnology, and farming systems for many years now.I  show yield data from our farm comparing our conventional, organic (formerly), and biotech yields and methods, talk about our farming practices and why we do what we do and how its changed over the generations. Its all about how we make decisions on our family farm and why.  When I give presentations, I  list the companies that my family farm does business with and any background about me that folks who are narrow-minded will assume makes me biased or otherwise unable to be objective, as was noted in the NY Times article. So what I did do was fully disclose all of our family farm's business associations with seed companies, chemical companies, commodity groups, and national and regional agri-businesses on the disclosure form for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. I don't personally have direct dealings with all of them but I knew that if I did not list them all, that something like this would happen. Lo and behold..... it did. Did anyone else feel obligated to disclose where they purchase supplies for their business? ( By the way, I buy my paper from Staples, and this computer came from CompUSA. I buy groceries at Food Lion and shop at Tractor Supply for my clothes... I'm a farm girl not a fashionista). I also listed the prize money I won for being chosen as one of America's Farm Mom of the Year.  I did not disclose that the funds went into my kids college funds and to local non-profits including my church food pantry. Shame on me! 

For the record, I do not know if Monsanto has a "test farmer" program but if they do, I and my family farm am not part of it. We do LOTS of on-farm research which I blogged about last year: Growing Answers: On-Farm Research

So after my initial shock, I adopted my own advice that I had given my son but adapted it to suit my situation.  Today my mantra was: 

  "Stay calm and farm on." 

No More Food Fights! Can Farmers & Foodies Get Along?

It may be coincidence that both National Ag Day and National Nutrition Month occur both over the month of March but its not a coincidence that the issues of food and farming are so intertwined. The book "No More Food Fights!' is all about the conversation over food and farming, which is very polarized these days. Consumers don't feel farmers are paying attention to their needs or are suspicious of farming practices they are not familiar with. Farmers feel consumers don't understand agriculture and succumb too easily to media stories that don't paint an accurate picture.. Dietitians want to have science-based answers for consumers on how their food is produced. People in general are connecting back to the land now more than ever, or are connecting for the first time if their family lineage was always urban dwelling.

"No More Food Fights!" was published  by Michele Payn-Knoper, CSP and Principal of Cause Matters. After I read the book, I knew I wanted to share it with my dietetic peers (the RD part of who I am) who could benefit from the variety of perspectives offered in this book.  I did an interview with Michele and wrote a guest blog for Stone Soup of Food and Nutrition Magazine. 

Here is the link to my interview with Michele and book review at Food and Nutrition Magazine: 

No More Food Fights!

I think for me as a farmer, one of my favorite quotes from the book is by Chef Renee Kelly, 

"People are fascinated by farms but far removed with where their food comes from. They can't identify with farmers because food is so readily available that customers just assume it's easy to farm." Can I get an Amen from the farm side? I find this to be so true both in person and in social media. A lot of folks talking about farming as "experts" without ever having driven a tractor, milked a cow, weaned a pig, or spread manure (at least not literally anyways). 

We all like to think we are experts with very little else to go on. When I was a grad student, I had college freshmen consider themselves "experts" after taking Nutrition 101. I've heard dietary cooks call themselves dietitians because they have been preparing food for so long. Likewise, I've been told "I have a large garden so I am familiar with farming." The one that always makes me laugh is "I know all about farming because as a kid, I spent summers on my Grandparents farm." REALLY? And four decades later, that makes them an expert on how to successfully sustain a family farm in today's environment?

The quote from To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind - "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

Or this somewhat well-known and similar saying : Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his boots, Don't criticize another person's work until you've tried to do it yourself; don't judge another person's life until you've been forced to live it. (Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996) I would add, "don't assume farming is easy because food is abundant."

So for me, this book echoes my heart both as an RD and as a farmer. I hope you will pick it up and read it, and apply it throughout your conversations about food and farming.

"Oh Be Careful Little Eyes What You See.."

Anyone else remember the lyrics to the title I gave this blog? It is a song I learned in Sunday School a long time ago, but is apropos to today's blog- deceptive or misleading images of food and agriculture found on social media.  I have been totally amused looking at internet images these days, some on Facebook but mostly on Twitter. It amazing the kind of response people give to images without considering if they are truthful or accurate. And there are 3 camps - folks who just think this is amusing,  folks who honestly believe the fake images they see, and skeptics posting fake images to push an agenda. Here are some of my recent favorites:

 "Organic" Water?

So what's wrong with this picture? See the USDA Organic seal in the lower right corner? Water cannot legally be labeled organic. The USDA National Organic Program (NOP) does not allow water to be certified as organic so the use of the label in this picture is a fraud. If you think about it, things that are literally defined as "organic" must contain carbon. Water has 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen molecule, ... no carbon! If you see water labeled as organic in a store, it is false advertising. If you see it on the internet, its probably a fake.

Red Onion?

What could possibly be wrong with this picture? It's not the picture, its the content of the article that goes with it...It advises that placing cut onions in bowls around the house will result in the onion absorbing viruses and no one will get the flu.The claim is that onions are a magnet for viruses. Then the article accuses onions as being a huge culprit toward food poisoning.  It continues on to say that day old cut onions are poisonous and should not be consumed. Assuming you practice good, general food safety in your kitchen, there is nothing unsafe about using day-old or previously cut onions.

Pesticides?

So what's wrong with this picture, I mean if he has to wear a mask, it can't be good right? The problem with this picture is that we have NO idea what it is he is spraying. He could be spraying copper sulfate which is an approved organic fungicide used to treat downy mildew and leaf spot in strawberries AND which requires the use of the respirator.  The copper sulfate label does instruct the applicator on what personal protective equipment (PPE) they must wear regardless of whether the pesticide is organic or synthetic. This label requires the applicator to wear a respirator. Labels are the law. The applicator does not want to breathe this stuff in, even if it is OMRI approved. The risk to the consumer eating the strawberries is negligible as growers follow strict harvest rules. If this is copper sulfate, then harvest can take place after 24 hours. Let's be clear, organic is not pesticide free. There are over 2,500 pesticides approved for use in organic agriculture. Organic pesticides are also toxic, which is why they are pesticides to begin with! Its the dose that makes the poison, not whether something is organic or synthetic.  Regardless of what type of pesticide he is using, he is protecting himself as he should. Bottom line is, we have NO idea what it is he is spraying but we assume the worst of course. When I first saw this image on twitter, it had "#pesticides #gmo" with it. That would lead you to believe that the strawberries are GMO right? Wrong! There are no genetically modified strawberries on the market so again, we're lead to believe something that is entirely unfounded.

KFC Genetically Engineered Chickens?

This is a good one! Why did Kentucky Fried Chicken change their name to KFC? Here is the internet answer! "KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet." Seriously? Wow, someone has too much time on their hands to come up with that explanation! For the record, there are no genetically engineered chickens in our food supply.

On a different website, I found this claim: "“Chicken are GENETICALLY MODIFIED with hormones, carcinogens, GMOs, corn pills, arsenic and drugs so they become LARGER FASTER and as a result they often CRIPPLE under their own weights." Chickens do not become "genetically modified" by eating anything. Genetic modification is a scientific process requiring transfer of specific genes from DNA. It does not happen by eating.  Furthermore, it is illegal to use hormones in poultry production. I'm not even sure what a "corn pill' is. Arsenic has been used in chicken feed as it is an effective treatment for coccidiosis, an intestinal parasitic disease the infects the gut of chickens.  According to the FDA, organic arsenic, the type used in chicken feed is not a carcinogen. The bottomline is, none of this statement is entirely accurate and is very misleading and yet it is shared on social media as "truth" to promote an agenda.

McDonald's Baby Food?

This image would make you think that A) McDonald's is now serving baby food, or B) Gerber is now producing McDonald's flavored baby food. Can anyone say photoshop?

Often times, these images are shared on social media as a joke, a way to get a good laugh out of something ridiculous or silly. But often, I see the messenger promoting these images as "truth", with people or groups tagging and sharing these images who have an agenda to promote.  So when you are looking and sharing pictures on the internet, pause a few minutes and think about what the image is portraying and what, if any, FACTS you know about the image. Apply some common sense. Do a bit of research. See if you can find the original source of the image or story and what kind of validity they may or may not have.

Perpetuating falsehoods does nobody any favors. Making assumptions about stories or images is nothing more than gossip. Harmless fun is one thing. A misleading campaign is another. So be careful little eyes what you see and then share on social media.

Healthy Soils, Healthy Foods!

I was asked to write an article for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetic's Food and Nutrition Magazine on soil health and its relationship to food. For me as a dietitian turned farmer, its interesting how much cross over there is between human nutrition and soil and plant nutrition. Looking a soil and plant tissue analyses is very much like reviewing  a patient's bloodwork. Its a snapshot of health and nutritional status. So while I am no longer prescribing diets for people, I do practice nutrition by prescribing diets for the crops we grow.

Click the link below to go to the online article:

Healthy Soils, Healthy Foods

There are also 2 really good videos from USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service that I've linked below.  One covers all the basics about soil and its health. The other is a good video on farmers adopting cover crops. They are both about 30 minutes long but worth the watching if you want to learn more!

Soil Stories - The Whole Story

Under Cover Farmers

Eating Local Foods Exclusively Year Round?

I recently read a Facebook post that advocated for the closing of all grocery stores so that people would simply have to buy all their food from local farmers.... A response posted said "What a great idea!", so I started to really think about this in a literal sense, NO grocery stores!  What do I as a farmer have to provide the millions of urban neighbors in the Baltimore/DC/Philadelphia metro region who need to be fed all year round?

The nearest grocery store to my house is 5 miles away. I get the majority of my food there because since I work on our family farm, I have little need to drive any further. All other grocery stores are 20 miles away. I tend not to go there unless I am needing to do other errands in that town.  I highly value my time and my fuel, so the closest grocery store gets 99% of my grocery business. I don't traipse all over looking for "deals" or special items. I shop in one place and get what I need and get out. (By the way, I hate shopping, period).  I would never drive 6 or 8 places to get "all" of what I would need to feed my family. I wouldn't go to the dairy farm, then the beef farm, then the pork farm, then the grain farm, then the fruit farm, then the chicken (broiler) farm, then the chicken (layers) farm, then the vegetable farm.  I don't have the time, nor do most of these farms have direct to consumer sales in January or February.

Eliminating grocery stores throughout our country would leave a lot of hungry people in the winter.  Below are pictures from my farm in Maryland in February along with 2 of my neighbor's farms. None of us have products to sell this time of year. While there are some farms who have year round greenhouses, there is not enough supply to replace grocery stores entirely. It would also mean a huge shift in infrastructure needed on local farms to support the damage that cars and customer traffic create. I personally prefer my farm without parking lots thank you very much, but if we need to feed everyone because there are no grocery stores, then paving over farm fields for parking lots would be necessary. After all, our lanes are not paved and people shopping for food after work in dress shoes don't like to step in mud or manure.

So what do we have growing in the winter? Below are some pictures of our current crops... or lack thereof:

 Rotting tillage (daikon) radishes.... yum?? We do have folks come pick them, 

obviously before they begin to decompose. 

We grow these for cover crop, not for food.

Winter wheat crop, ripe for harvest in July, not now.

No grape harvest till September. 

Our neighbor's peach trees... no fruit till July.

Our neighbor's blueberry bushes, no fruit till summer. 

Which also means the Maryland Food Bank gets no food until harvest.

My neighbor's CSA has cabbage, kale, and leek seedlings... 

but no harvest!

Our farm still has some corn, soybeans, and wheat in grain tanks. Theoretically, we could sell these to folks to make their own meal, flour, and tofu. My guess is, less than 0.05% of the US population has any idea of how to go about this. I also think that 99.5% of the US population would not want to make their own meal, flour, and tofu. Who frankly has that kind of time? 

For 2 years after college, I lived in the Southern African nation of Botswana. We had no running water or electricity. We spent a lot of time on a daily basis hauling water from the community hydrant, collecting wood to start fires which we used to heat water and cook food, and pounding sorghum or corn into meal to use for cooking. This grinding process used a hollowed out tree trunk and solid, thick tree branch to pound the grain into meal. Sort of like a mortar and pestle. Incredibly time consuming and backbreaking and was a DAILY chore. Pounding grain, every day, day after day. 

I would also miss the items that we have grown accustomed to in our diet such as orange or pineapple juice and bananas. None of these grow here in Maryland.  While I "get" the local food movement, I don't believe the average American has any concept of what it would take to source all their dietary needs directly from farmers.Nor the time required to do so. Nor the resources required to do so. Not every one has a farmer's market nearby. Many farmer's markets couldn't support the mass of people who would need to be fed without grocery stores. And believe it or not, not all farmers want to be retail operations. How would I find enough people to buy the 8.5 million pounds of Roma tomatoes that we grew last summer? We'd never be able to sell 20 tractor trailer loads of tomatoes a day on the fresh. local market, which is why we grow them for a cannery, so that consumers eat them in tomato products year round!

Local food is great and benefits the local economy in season, but a number of our US growing regions do not support year round food production to the extent that it would replace grocery stores.

Support local farmers, in season! Remember that farmers also grew the items you buy at the grocery store so that we have a wonderful selection year round!