Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Just a quick update today, to share the poster I presented at the Organic Farming Conference last month. It was a wonderful and inspiring conference, and I was very glad to catch up with several of the farmers who participate in on-farm variety trials. The poster is here: OFC Poster 2014. It includes observations and yield figures for heirloom and specialty varieties included in the 2013 trials, including many from Seed Savers Exchange.

I’d also like to share a poster I presented in January at the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association meeting. This focuses on weed management in organic potato crops using straw mulch as an alternative to mechanical weeding. If you’re interested in trying straw mulch in your potatoes this year, let me know – I am looking for a few farmers to try this out on their farms. We’ve used in successfully for two years now, and see very good weed control. In 2014 we will be looking more closely at the effects of straw mulch on plant nutrition, soil moisture and temperature, and beneficial insects.

 

This article was posted in Blog Posts, Opportunities, Research News and tagged heirloom, potato variety trials, Seed Savers Exchange, straw mulch, variety trials.