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- Growing On Compacted Soils Equals Embezzlement
- Waverly Farm Leads the Industry for Sustainable Production
Waverly Farm Leads the Industry for Sustainable Production
December 2009
Five years ago, Waverly Farm set out on a mission to become one of the “greenest” field production nurseries in the nation.
The mission was simply stated but getting it done proved a bit more complicated. It took five years to understand if we had made progress. The mission was to:
- replace soil lost to harvest and improve the soil profile—sustainable production,
- eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizer—do our part to protect the Chesapeake Bay, and
- reduce the need for irrigation—save energy and an the increasingly scarce water resource.
What we have learned after five years is remarkable:
- irrigation needs have been reduced up to 50% on amended soils,
- organic content increases 1% with each planting cycle or about a 25–30% of the base line organic content, and
- we are bringing plants to market sizes 10–25% faster than the traditional growing system.
Waverly Farm Goes Green
In June of 2003, we hosted the MNLA summer field day. At that event, we saw an Imants rotary spading machine demonstrated. I refer to it as a spade plow. It was my first exposure to this type of European tillage tool.
After significant research related to why the Europeans developed this technology and understanding their centuries long production methods in the absence of synthetic fertilizer, we decided to engage a research project to determine if we could become a more sustainable operation given all the concerns surrounding energy, water conservation and reduced use of synthetic fertilizer.
The mission was simply stated but getting it done proved a bit more complicated and took five years to understand if we had made progress. The mission was to:
- replace soil lost to harvest and improve the soil profile—sustainable production
- eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizer—do our part to protect the Chesapeake Bay, and
- reduce the need for irrigation—save energy and an the increasingly scarce water resource.
We have now been using a spade plow for five years and I feel comfortable that I can report observations. We have also been applying 100 tons (approximately 200 cu. yds.) of compost per acre for the same period as the baseline rate and up to 200 tons per acre on some soils. Compost has been the amendment of choice since a Roman by the name of Marcus Cato first saw improved yields over 2000 years ago. It wasn’t until the mid-1900's that synthetic fertilizer became the standard source of modern agriculture nutrition.
Production of Compost at Waverly Farm
The production of healthy plants relies on several key factors that all converge to become a system of production.
It starts with healthy, well managed soil.
Deep tillage without damaging the structure of the soil (friability) is clearly the starting point. Organic matter is equally important to healthy, vigorous plant production. Organic matter can be added to the soil in the form of compost when not present in sufficient quantities naturally.
Robust liners
We have all planted defective liners from time-to-time and watched the plants linger for years. Sometimes they arrive appearing to be perfect but then suffer; it must have to do with harvest and after care for bare root liners and soil borne diseases in containers that are not obvious. Over time, healthy, liners reward us handsomely. Our first choice is to always field grow our liners in field beds. It is not always possible to do so and we continue to plant from containers and bare root plants.
Water
Water is mandatory and I believe the best method of distributing this expensive and valuable commodity is through drip irrigation, which is analogous to intravenous injection. Nothing is wasted and we wet the soil only where the roots are growing which provides for significant conservation, uniform in the row plants, reduced stress related disease or general decline, compact root systems, and reduced summer weed populations. Field production in this era without irrigation is an invitation to financial loss.
The positive outcome
The positive change for our production system has been basically beyond expectation. I’ll talk about just Viburnum plicatum tomentosum ‘Shasta’ and Viburnum x ‘Alleghany’ to demonstrate. Traditionally we have field planted viburnum from either 3 gallon containers or bare root of a size comparable to a 3 gallon plant and our own liner bed production as seen above. Our saleable plants are quite heavy and are sold in grade ranges from 4 feet to 8 feet tall.
Since we started growing on this site, we could reliably ready these plants for sale in the 4–5 foot range in 4 years depending on the general weather conditions. However, since we began to use the rotary spader and amending the soil with compost we are selling plants up to 5 feet tall after only 3–4 years.
After the spring flush of 2007, three years into the research, we started to see significant, positive differences from the old production system. The question was, is this just an anomaly due to weather or was there really a significant gain?
After five years, we know this is not an anomaly. Plants are growing faster, they appear healthier and we are incurring some operating savings. The cost associated with this new growing system is greatest for the compost. The material and labor to apply the compost is about $600 per acre when using farm produced compost. It replaces about five year’s worth of synthetic fertilizer but must be paid for in the first year of the growing cycle. In 2009, our energy cost to operate the irrigation program fell about 27% from 2007 and 2008. We had not realized the reduced need for water in the prior years and therefore irrigated more than necessary on compost amended soils. We now have just over half of the total acreage engaged with the new growing system and will realize 100% conversion within the next 4 to 5 years.
I believe strongly that the spade plowed and compost amended soils are causing the increased growth rates of our plants. The soil drains better than ever, holds more water to a greater depth, and provides excellent gaseous exchange to a greater depth than ever before.
Therefore we have accomplished or goals to:
- replace soil lost to harvest and improve the soil profile—sustainable production,
- eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizer—do our part to protect the Chesapeake Bay, and
- reduce the need for irrigation—save energy and an the increasingly scarce water resource.