Released: February 28, 2005

Market Gardeners to Get to Bottom of It All: Soil

OLATHE, Kan. – No market garden or other intensive farm operation is any better than its soil. That fact is a challenge for fruit and vegetable producers in the central Plains, where soils range from shifting sand to near pottery-grade clay.

But, as part of the Kansas City area’s Growing Growers training program, farmers and would-be farmers can come to grips with that challenge during a day-long workshop March 12 in Leavenworth, Kan. The program’s straightforward title: Soil Building for Vegetable and Fruit Crops.

Some of the workshop presenters are scientists. To keep the program as practical as possible, however, almost all of them are practicing farmers, said Ted Carey, Growing Growers program coordinator and a Kansas State University horticulturist.

The soils workshop will begin at Leavenworth County’s K-State Research and Extension office (500 Eisenhower Road). It will conclude at a nearby organic farm, which has a well-developed cover-cropping and soil-building system, Carey added.

The training schedule will start at 9 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m. It includes:

* Soils 101 - the basics from soil structure to water infiltration - Rhonda Janke, K-State soils scientist and herb specialist who also farms in Wamego, Kan.

* Soil Food Web - the bacteria, fungi, nematodes and other tiny creatures that make soil healthy - Erica Dermitzel, science teacher, biologist and farmer.

* Soil-Building Practices for the Market Gardener - everything from cultivation to crop rotations - Paul Conway of Conway’s Produce.

* Composting and Compost Tea - using small-scale composting and its “tea” for disease control - Carey, who does field and high tunnel research with vegetables at K-State’s Olathe Experiment Field.

* Farm Tour of Conway’s Produce.

Cost to attend the workshop is $30 if paid before March 7 and $33 thereafter. Participants can earn a 20 percent discount by (1) enrolling for three or more workshops in this year’s Growing Growers training series, or (2) bringing three or more people from the same farm to a single workshop.

Thus far, the schedule for the 2005 series includes: April 4 - Plant Production for the Vegetable Grower - Kansas City, Kan.; May 2 - Equipment for Vegetable Growers - Olathe, Kan.; June 6 - Post-Harvest Handling - St Joseph, Mo.; July 11 - Taste Your Vegetables! - Raytown and Kansas City, Mo; Aug. 1 - Tree Fruit Production and Eco-Tourism - Overbrook, Kan.; Aug. 21 - Pests, Diseases and Weeds - Location to be announced; Sept. 27 - Integrating Meat and Dairy into Vegetables - Higginsville, Mo.;

Oct. 22 - Farm Business Management - Location to be announced.

Registration information about any part of the series is available by telephone (913-488-1270), via e-mail (growers@ksu.edu), and on the Web (http://www.growinggrowers.org).

The Growing Growers program is a cooperative effort of Kansas State University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, the Kansas Rural Center and the Kansas City Food Circle (a community organization). Started in 2003 with U.S. Department of Agriculture grant funds, its goal is to improve the quantity and quality of produce grown in the Kansas City area, Carey said.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Kathleen Ward
kward@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News