Research supports organic farming on urban edge

Bary	Cogger	Collins

 

 

Five score and more organic acres By Ashley Scourey, CAHNRS intern To be a leader in organic agricultural research and education, it’s necessary to have appropriate facilities. WSU is leading the way with more than 100 acres of organic land at six facilities throughout the state.   Various tracts of WSU’s organic land are labeled as certified, in transition to certification, or organically managed, depending on practices used and length of time in the program. WSU’s organic facilities are primarily used for research, but also are used for teaching.   “It’s important to not only have organic land that’s in transition, but also to have land that has been organic for many years. The biological shift that occurs in the soil, and perhaps in some other parts of the agro-ecosystem, may lead to very different results on recent versus long-term organically managed land,” said David Granatstein, WSU area extension educator.   Two Pullman sites In 2006, WSU began offering a major in organic agriculture, the first of its kind in the U.S. To complement and support the organic agriculture major, a four-acre organic farm has been created on the eastern edge of the Pullman campus.   The WSU Organic Farm was certified organic in 2004 and continues to be certified annually. It is used as a learning tool for students majoring in organic agriculture as it offers experiential learning in practical organic agriculture skills and concepts. The WSU Organic Farm plans to increase to 10 acres certified organic land in the near future.   WSU leases 14 certified organic acres from Boyd Farm, located near Pullman. On those acres wheat, barley, triticale, winter peas and alfalfa are grown.   Mt. Vernon At the Mt. Vernon research facility, 18 acres of organic land include five acres certified, three in their second year of transition, three in their first year of transition and seven that are managed organically but will never be certified, in order to allow researchers to experiment with new or comparison treatments that may not be allowed under certification rules.   On the five certified acres, a wide range of crops are grown such as tomatoes, watermelons, eggplant, garlic and small grains. Three of the acres in transition, which will be eligible for certification in 2011, are used to grow wine grapes. The remaining seven acres in transition are used to grow vegetables and small grains. Puyallup At the WSU Puyallup Research & Extension Center, there are 15 organic acres: six that are certified by the state, six that will soon begin the certification process, and three that have been organically managed for three years but will not be certified for research purposes.   Prosser and Wenatchee At the Irrigated Agriculture Research & Extension Center in Prosser, there is a three-acre organic hop yard. In Wenatchee, there are more than 60 acres of certified organic apple production at the new WSU Sunrise Research Orchard, the largest organic research orchard in the nation.    “By establishing organic land at our research centers, we will over time develop a base of stable organic land that will produce more meaningful results for organic growers,” Granatstein said.

The fertile Puyallup Valley in the shadow of Mount Rainier historically has been a highly productive agricultural area, yielding a wide variety of crops. As urbanization has encroached on the valley and the region, its agricultural base has shifted to smaller farms, many of them applying organic techniques.

 

The WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center was established in 1894 to help support and sustain the mostly agrarian valley. Now, more than 60 percent of the state’s population is located within 50 miles of the facility. As the region has changed, so has the mission of the Puyallup REC: today, programs at the REC focus primarily on issues related to urbanization, including sustaining the growers still farming on the urban edge.

 

Small-scale, sustainable In 2002 the REC’s organic agriculture research team began a program researching sustainable and organic production systems for small-scale, direct market vegetable crop production. Through this program, researchers, educators and staff work with farmers to develop management systems using local inputs to produce high-quality, high-value crops efficiently, profitably and in an environmentally sustainable manner.

 

With six acres of organically certified land at the REC, the team has undertaken a variety of experiments on organic farming systems, sharing their findings with growers through annual field days, research papers and educational events. For growers who attend the events, the faces of the REC’s organic research program are soil scientists Andy Bary and Craig Cogger and small farms program educator Doug Collins.

 

Four areas of research
As a team, their research looks primarily at four areas for improving organic cropping systems:

 

1. The use of local organic materials produced in urban areas – yard waste, compost, biosolids and animal manure from area farms – as a source of nutrients and organic material for crop production and soil renovation. In response to the need for better information on crop nutrient availability, the team completed a three-year research project in 2004 studying nitrogen availability from a range of those local organic amendments.

 

2. Research trials to help determine the most effective ways to use cover crops to supply organic matter, improve soil structure, fix nitrogen, cycle nutrients and help manage weeds and other pests. Through trial planting plots, the researchers evaluate the effectiveness of different fall-planted cover crop blends, planting dates, incorporation dates, winter weed competition and nitrogen availability for the subsequent crop.

 

3. An organic vegetable production systems experiment on the REC’s certified organic land. This research compares 12 organic management systems, including three cover cropping systems, two tillage treatments and two types of soil amendments. Researchers measure for such outcomes as crop yield and quality, soil quality, insect and weed control and production costs and value.

 

4. Soil quality. Team researchers measure and assess selected soil properties, including bulk density, soil compaction, the amount of soil organic matter and its aggregate stability.

 

Altogether, their ongoing research and outreach is helping local growers carry on the agricultural heritage of the Puyallup Valley and the Puget Sound region.