Written by Mary Hathaway, OFRF’s Analysis & Schooling Program Supervisor
Up on a ridge in rural Maine is Kennebec Valley Farm, a 22-acre historic farm. Proprietor Jennifer Barrientos was in a position to buy the farm three years in the past to grow to be steward of the property, which is a mixture of woodland and pastureland. Jennifer grows on nearly one acre, together with greenhouses. She is licensed natural and makes use of no-till and biodynamic strategies to develop her produce. You’ll additionally discover chickens and alpacas on her pastureland, and she or he makes good use of their manure in her soil fertility routine.
Jennifer had a protracted journey to get to her present farm. She grew up in Hawaii, the place she helped develop meals and look after chickens, goats, and rabbits on her household’s farm. A few years later, after transferring again to the mainland and dealing as a instructor for greater than 25 years, Jennifer started engaged on natural and biodynamic farms on each the West and East Coasts. Now, settled in at Kennebec Valley Farm, Jennifer grows meals for her group, providing seasonal produce at their farm retailer, by way of a CSA and native farmers markets.
Rebecca Champagne, OFRF’s Conservation Scientist, visited Kennebec Valley Farm in October to see Jennifer’s operation and chat about her involvement within the FLT program. They chatted about why Jennifer determined to use for this system, why she selected the precise analysis query, and mentioned how the trial was going. Jennifer is at first phases of being in no-till manufacturing, and after visiting some long-term no-till farms in Maine, she knew she needed to analyze what would create the healthiest soil at her farm. She is all for discovering the proper stability in practices financially, labor-wise, and what is going to construct soil well being and microbial exercise.
Evaluating farm-made compost and industrial fertilizer
In her transition to a no-till system, Jennifer has begun to include Dutch white clover as a canopy crop so as to add fertility to her beds and suppress different weeds. As she’s creating and stabilizing her everlasting mattress system, Jennifer needed to utilize extra cowl crops and farm-generated inputs to feed her soil. Nonetheless, as a market farmer, Jennifer didn’t need her change in amendments to lower her yields. Jennifer determined it was a good suggestion to check her farm-made compost with the commercially obtainable fertilizer that she had utilized in earlier seasons.
