Ask a Farmer at the Smithsonian

final-134Last week Dad and I got to take advantage of quite the opportunity.  We were asked by the US Farmer and Rancher’s Alliance if we would come speak on a panel at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.  The panel was called, Ask a Farmer: Family Farms, Family History.  We were joined by two other farm families.  Evergreen Diary from St. John’s Michigan, represented by Carla Wardin and her mom Cherie Anderson.  And Cooley Farms, a chicken and beef farm from Roberta, Georgia.  Who had three generations there representing, Larry, Leighton and Lawson Cooley.

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The event was featured within an exhibit called “Enterprise” which looks at history through the eyes of business.  Including the business of agriculture, which as we all know has shaped many ways that our country operates still today.  The panel’s moderator started off by asking some great questions, hitting on topics including the struggles and joys of working with family in business.  Also touching on how the younger generation decided that they even wanted to come back to the farm.  For one, Leighton Cooley, it took only 6 months off the farm to realize it’s where he wanted to be.  For Carla Wardin it took starting a whole career in marketing and living completely away from the dairy for years with her husband to decide to make the call home to ask her parents, “Please don’t sell the cows!” They wanted to give it a go.  And then for me, a college degree from Loyola Marymount University, a lot of concrete life in LA, and I was ready to be back in the dirt.

We were also asked questions from the audience, which included an awesome group of school kids.  Asking everything from, “How do worms make holes in the ground?” to “Do farms have names?”  All in all it was truly a great event.  The panel itself was recorded and will be available in a few weeks, stay tuned and I’ll share that once it’s up and running.

I think the best part for me was getting a chance to meet other farmers from across the nation who also have a passion for agriculture and doing what they love  with the people that they love everyday.  We had no problem all becoming fast friends.

While I was heading off across the country things at the farm didn’t slow down.  The crew was at home finishing up our swiss chard harvest, getting things all switched over for wheat and also keeping all our fresh crops irrigated.  So it obviously wasn’t ideal to take off, but since it was only 36 hours away from the farm, since it was the Smithsonian, and since I got to go talk about what I love the most, family and farming, it was an opportunity that I knew I couldn’t pass up!

I want to thank the USFRA and the Smithsonian for this wonderful chance to spread my family’s farm story!final-136

To learn more about Carla Wardin you can follow her on her blog, Truth or Dairy.
And Cooley farms has quite a large role in the movie Farmland.  For another look at their family operation check out this commercial from Farm Credit.

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For photo Friday here are a few photos from a very quick…I’m talking 36 hours here…trip to Washington DC to tell our farm family story!



Such an amazing opportunity with the USFRA and Smithsonian! More on Monday…

How Does a Farmer know it’s Time to Irrigate?

When to water and how much to water is always a question on the farm.  Especially when you have a large mix of fresh crops like squash, green beans, peas, etc.  These crops take anywhere from one to six irrigations (waterings) depending on the weather, time of year they were planted and when they will be harvested.  Irrigation is no exact science on our farm, but I want to say we are getting closer.

Irrigation timing has always been something that heavily relies on “rules of thumbs”.  For instance if the squash is wilting by 3pm, they need water.  Or on the beans, “Just go every 10 days with about an 3/4-1″ and you should be fine.”  And there is always the tried and true, stick a shovel in the ground and just plain play in the dirt and squeeze some soil to see what is there for moisture.

final-130A field of squash that we are getting ready to irrigate.

This year however, with the help of the Natural Resource Conservation Service we were able to get some funding to help us pay to install sensors in the ground that allow us to monitor how much moisture is in the soil.  This type of technology can get pretty fancy, ours however are very basic.  The electrodes are installed into the ground in the row of the crop, you can see this in the photo below.  Ours are installed at 8″ and 18″ deep.  final-132

Next you hook up the reader using two alligator clips and it reads the moisture saturation in the soil at each level.  The higher the number the lower the saturation of moisture in the soil.

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Here is a video of me checking the electrodes.

As you can see it doesn’t take much time to get the information that we use.  This information is then put into a graph on my computer so I can monitor where the fields are on a day to day basis.

It’s been a learning curve mashing together our old rules of thumb with these new readings to give us the best timing for irrigation.  I would say that the best thing it’s done is given us a number to fall back on when we’re triaging which irrigation to start up and when.  It’s a quick way to see which crops need to be irrigated first, and which can probably wait a day while the others get a drink.  Farming has always been a mix of old traditions and new technology, this is just another way that our farm is moving forward with both the past and present ideologies working together.