Mulching Strawberries With A Round Bale Shredder & Overhead Frost Protection: EP 71 | Snow Notes
This is the “Ag Engineering Podcast” that rolls right into the details on tools, tips, and techniques that improve you, your farm, and our world. I’m your host, Andy Chamberlin, from the University of Vermont Extension, and this podcast is sponsored by Northeast SARE. Thanks for listening. Today’s episode comes to you from Monkton, Vermont, where we visit with Stephen Park of Full Belly Farm. He and his wife, Sarah, established their farm in 2017 and have about 110 acres. They grow strawberries, blueberries and vegetables, and gross about 400,000 in sales, both in on-farm retail and wholesale markets. They’re farming in the Climate Zone 5A. Mulching strawberries is a key component to the production system. In this episode, Stephen goes into the details on how he mulches the strawberries on his farm in order to be as sustainable as possible, reduce labor, all that good stuff. Let’s jump right into it.
And so kinda back on the topic of mulch, it can kinda go through that process, and some of the things we’ve learned and some of the challenges and stuff with straw mulch. So like I say, it’s really important for the protection of the plant in the winter. And so, but you wanna wait, so we wait until the plants go dormant. You definitely don’t wanna get the straw in too early when the plants are still growing. It’s really damaging to the plants if you block all that light out while they’re still trying to grow. So you have to wait till the temperatures are getting cold enough, which, I don’t know exactly what to tell you. I basically wait until we’ve had a number of nights getting down into the 20s, and then I try to get out in the mornings, trying to prevent ruts and stuff in the field. If it’s wet at all, I like to kinda get out on really cold mornings-
Do it when it’s frozen.
When it’s frozen. And sometimes it takes me a lot more days, because as soon as the sun’s comin’ out and it’s softening up that ground, it’s like, well, I’ll wait till tomorrow morning to keep goin’, ’cause I don’t wanna tear the field up. So yeah, it tends to be the end of November or early December. So when we first started here, we were using large square bales of wheat straw that was comin’ out of Canada, and we had a mulch chopper, a Teagle bale shredder, a 4040, with an extension on it for the large square bales, and that’s what the previous farmer here had been using. We had a lot of problems with that. That bale shredder was not really designed for holding a 1,000-pound bale that way, and we had a lot of breakdowns in the first year. The next year, we decided to try to find round bales that actually, that thing was really designed for. That bale shredder is really designed for round bales. So we did find local round bales the next year. The next year, we had tractor problems mid-spreading, and my wife and I ended up finishing two acres of mulching with round bales by hand, in the snow, which was not a lot of fun. But and then our third season, we kinda started getting things figured out. So we’ve replaced that Teagle bale shredder with another, the same brand, just a size up. So it’s the 5050 model, and it holds a five-foot round bale rather just the four-foot. And we were buying what we could find locally. So one of the challenges with straw, you really don’t want any seed in that straw at all, because you spend the whole season tryin’ to prevent weeds and do good weed management, and cultivating and everything. And then, like we found our first year, we had this nice weed-free field at the end of the season, and then we spread straw all over it. And the next spring, we had wheat, you know, mats of wheat growing up all through our whole field. ‘Cause there was, even with a good combine, there’s going to be some seed left in that straw. And if you’re not using herbicides, a lot of people will just do like a pre-emergent herbicide before they sprout, but we weren’t doin’ that. So then we were hand-weeding in the spring.
Hand-weeding wheat.
Yeah, exactly. So we did find somebody locally who had some, what we call precut straw, is a rye straw that’s grown and cut at, just before a milk stage, like when the seed is not viable, but you still get nice, nice amount of biomass, a lot of straw from it. So it’s actually cut before going to seed and not combined for seed. And that worked great. That was a lot better, we had a lot better results with that. But for a few years, there was a lot of like trying to figure out where to get it every year. The prices would vary from one place to another, and quality, and trying to source it every year was always a stress, because it’s such an important input, one of the most important inputs on the farm for us. It’s very expensive. We do, say, last year, we spread about 120 round bales at 70 bucks a bale, you know? That’s an expensive input. So we actually planted rye last year on some of the extra acreage we have that isn’t our better vegetable acreage. It’s more like our heavier clay fields. And I planted about 35 acres of rye last year for that. And then I bought a haybine and did the cutting myself, and then had a local farmer do the baling, raking and baling, for me. And so now this year, we are gonna be using our own mulch that we grew on the farm, which is real exciting. And we know the quality; we have plenty of it. And I wouldn’t say it saved us a whole lot of money, ultimately. Maybe it’s a little cheaper. But after all of the tillage and everything, and the hiring out the baling, and I think we can make improvements on that in the future. But even if it doesn’t save us a dime, which it does save us some money, but even if it didn’t, we have the quality and the quantity when we need it, and that’s done; that’s done in June. We have it here; we don’t have to think about that for the rest of the summer, you know.
When, normally, would you be trying to source that?
I mean, kinda all summer, you know? I’d be callin’ around, and one year, this person might have some, but then they don’t the next year. And this person’s might be $80 a bale, and this might be 60 over here, but you don’t know the quality, you know. It was really challenging to find precut straw consistently. Typically, we were still buying stuff that had been combined and we’re still dealing with that up until now, so-
Which means it was also shipped hundreds of miles, I mean-
Well, some of that was local.
Did you?
Yeah, yeah. Local rye straw that people had combined. But yeah, all the stuff from Canada was very expensive, and I know the price has only gone up on that. When we, in 2017, we bought in a truckload of about 45 of the large square bales, and they were $100 a piece, I’d seen ’em. Now, they’re twice that price now in just a few years. They’re $200 a piece now. So, you know, that’s $9,000 of straw to go spread on the field, you know? Yeah, it really adds up. So getting control of that process and that system, and quality control and all of that’s been really important. And we’re kinda, we’re gettin’ there now. There’s still a lot of challenges with growing the straw ourselves, because now we have 35 acres that we’re planting in rye and cutting off in June, and you don’t replant that until September. And so now you have a few months there of ground that, what do you do with? You know, you’re tryin’ to keep
the weeds from getting outta control, and we’re runnin’ over with harrows and tryin’ to keep it clean, and there’s a lot of tillage. So I’m trying to find a system. And also, you’re just taking from it every year, you know, and not really putting anything back. So we’re gonna start working towards developing a no-till system where we can always have something growing. What I have in mind, this is unproven at this point, but what I have in mind is like a frost-seeding Red Clover before cutting the rye, and then we’ll have a quick stand there, and then maybe no tilling, and like a Sorghum Sudan to really aggressively block out the weeds all summer. And then flail mow that really low, early September, and no-till rye into that. It’s kind of a thought that I have right now that I’m working towards, but I haven’t done it yet, so.
Yeah, there’s a lot to happen to see if that actually works or not.
Yeah, yeah.
What challenges that may face, too, ’cause then you might be, you mentioned Sudan grass. If that grows a ton, trying to incorporate that biomass and then still no-till drill-in planting might be a challenge. I don’t know.
Yeah.
I think with the flail mowing, we have a large flail mower that we can get over the field pretty quickly with. And that, I think, would chop it up enough that we could plant into it with a no-till.
Those planters seem to be pretty impressive.
Um-hum.
I’m learning more and more about them myself. So what’s it take to shred these round bales and get ’em onto the field? You said it can take several days, ’cause you’re trying to do it early in the morning, and you don’t necessarily wanna be out there with floodlights at three in the morning, so-
Yeah.
How long of a process does that take? Is it a one-man-band show? Or do you have a crew to help you do that?
Most years, so far, when I’ve actually done all the spreading with the tractor, it’s been by myself or we had a skid steer for loading bales. My wife would sometimes be running the skid steer to be loading bales while I’m shredding. And so but now we’re using a tractor loader instead of the skid steer. But so I’m running the bale shredder using 100 horse New Holland. And I like that bale shredder, ’cause that can run 1,000 RPM PTO for that bale shredder, which is great; it speeds it up a lot. And then somebody else is loading those bales, or sometimes I’m doin’ it myself, gettin’ on and off two different tractors, but loading those bales in the field. So they’re driving, pickin’ up a bale while I’m spreading one, and then, hopefully, the timing works out well with two people and they’re constantly feeding the shredder while I’m spreading. Yeah, and so that’s being done, you know, it’s usually pretty cold temperatures, and I
don’t have any tractors with cabs at this point. So it is, you know, it’s cold out there, you know, and a lot of straw dust and everything; usually wearin’ a mask. And so it’s not real fun work, but luckily, it’s just once a year to get it done as quick as we can.
And so that’s spreading mulch on about three acres?
Um-hum, yeah, about three acres.
And it takes you about a week?
Yeah, you know, those are not full days; it varies. If it’s nice and cold all day long and the ground feels firm enough, especially if we’re on a field that has better drainage and the soil is firmer, then I can go all day long. But sometimes, if it’s a little wet, I don’t like ruttin’ the field up, so I like to wait for the ground to be frozen. But there’s always this trade-off, ’cause you also don’t want to start getting real cold temperatures before you’ve spread. So I’m always watching the weather closely on that, ’cause I don’t wanna see it gettin’ down into the single digits without straw on. So the coldest in the high teens, I think, is still fine, but you wanna be gettin’ it on at that point.
If conditions are good, how many hours do you think it would take? I mean, is it a couple long days?
With two people and conditions are good, and somebody’s feeding bales to me, then I’d say three days.
Yeah.
Yeah. ‘Cause I put a lot of straw on. I do a pretty heavy mulching, especially, so that’s another thing, especially now that we’re doing a lot on plastic, because that system, the, what we call bare root on plastic, the plants tend to grow a little higher out of the soil, a little higher outta the ground. And we do everything on raised beds also, which also kinda requires more mulching because, to fill the pads, but also, that soil gets colder. That surface soil gets cold. You really wanna pile that mulch up pretty high. But with the bare root on plastic strawberries, the plants tend to grow up a little higher out of the soil. The crowns are a little more exposed than with the matted row, and with the plugs, also. Even if you plant ’em, we plant ’em at the right depth, initially, like good and deep, but they just kinda push up out of the ground more, and they grow higher outta the ground. So you really want a lot of, a lot of mulch on top of ’em. So I’m aiming for like, I like to see at least five inches of chopped straw on top of those plants; six is great, you know? I want a lot, I really want a lot. And it really also, it makes the pads cleaner, and the next year, customers really like, because we’re doin’ a lot of pick-your-own. So just less mud; it just keeps the field a lot cleaner, too, when you put a lot of mulch on.
It’s about six inches on top of the plants, so are your aisleways deeper because it blows in?
Yeah, yeah, I try to aim to build up as much as possible on top of the rows, but yeah, you’re kinda fillin’ those pads up, too. And you keep an eye on it through the winter. If you get high wind before you get any snow or ice, or anything, to kinda pack down that straw, it can blow some of the straw off of those raised beds. But as long as you get a good snow pretty soon after, even if the snow melts or whatever,
it’s wet, it’s packed down, and it doesn’t blow off later in the winter. But I really like to see thick straw and then a heavy snow on top of that, ’cause that-
Ideally, yeah.
Yeah, the snow really makes a big difference, too. And then other things that can happen, too, that we’ve been dealing with are deer like to come in and dig those plants up in the winter. They’ll push the straw off of the plant, and eat the leaves, which does damage the plants. But even at that, just by eating the leaves, but also the bigger problem is that they just left ’em uncovered, you know? And so then you get freeze damage.
Completely kill the crowns, too.
Yeah, you get winter damage once those deer uncover ’em, so it’s a challenge, somethin’ that we’re tryin’ to figure out, ’cause it’s kinda hard to fence each individual field, you know, every year.
And still allow access-
Exactly.
In and out for yourself. And deer are pretty tricky to fence, too, I mean-
Yeah.
They’re nimble and can jump, so.
Yeah, it’s interesting, this last year was the first year we really had a lot of problems with ’em. And we had two different strawberry fields, and one field got just hammered by ’em, just all winter long, they were in there diggin’ up those plants. And then on into the spring, they were eatin’ plants. It just caused a lot of damage on one field. And then the other field, they hardly touched; hardly touched at all. So who knows?
Yeah, I wonder if that field was like sheltered by trees, so it was more nice to be in or maybe they liked those varieties.
Yeah, maybe.
What varieties are deer-resistant.
Yeah, so then-
Let’s talk about removing the straw.
Um-hum.
How do you manage that? ‘Cause that was always a headache on our family farm in the spring, is trying to get as many people as we could to come rake it off by hand. How are you managing that?
Yeah, so we kinda go at it a couple of ways. So we have an implement, a Reigi weeder, that has tines on it that you can pull straw up with. I don’t love it. Seems like every year, I get started with it and I think I’m gonna get it just right this year, and then I don’t. Mostly because it’s really challenging to get an even straw removal. We really don’t wanna take too much straw. We just take just enough to let the plants grow up through, ’cause you wanna leave as much there as possible to block weeds and protect the fruit. And so I find that with that Reigi weeder, it’s like a constant, like you’re either takin’ too much or not enough. If there’s any variability where it’s tracking with wheels, and if there’s any variability in the pads or anything, that it’s just up and down, and it’s really, it’s very difficult to get it just right with that. There are other tools out there that I’d be interested in trying that I think might work better. Some brushes, some spinning brushes and stuff that I think might be more effective and more consistent. But what we do, I tend to, oh, like this spring, I ran over as well as I could with the Reigi weeder, got the bulk of it off. So we hire a couple of Jamaican guys to come up and work on H-2A Visas, and it’s basically the first thing they do pretty much when they get here is we go out with pitchforks and take it up. And you know, it’s really not that bad. Those guys are pretty fast. And even in years that I’ve had ’em do the entire field, ’cause another issue that we can get into is getting on a field that time of the year, it can be so wet, especially under that straw, because it doesn’t dry out very quickly under that straw. So I don’t wanna rut the field up. And if it’s real wet out there, then I don’t really wanna get the tractor out on the field. So those guys can usually get the straw off on three acres in a couple of days, so it’s not too bad. And even when I use the Reigi weeder, they go behind, they go after me and do some touch-up, you know. We wanna make sure things are just right, that the right amount of straw is off so the plants can grow through. Because if you leave the straw on too late in the spring, and that’s another thing, the timing of removing the straw is really important. You remove it too early, and if you get some real cold temperatures after that, then they can cause damage if they start growing. And then you get cold temperatures, it also causes ’em to flower earlier, which is both could be beneficial or not, depending on your frost protection. But then if you leave the straw on too late and the ground is warming up, and they start wanting to grow, it’s coming outta dormancy and they don’t have light, well, you can really damage your plants. So the timing’s really important. We tend to be pulling it off in early April. I kinda watch the temperatures in the first week, two weeks of April. And if I look at the 10-day forecast and there’s no extreme cold, you know, frost in 30s and whatever is not a big deal. But if there’s no real cold temperatures comin’ up in the 10-day forecast, I like to go ahead and get it off. Especially if we’ve had a earlier, warmer spring, you just wanna get it out there so they can start growin’.
If you’re growing on plastic, is leaving some of the straw behind as big of a deal? ‘Cause the plastic is there to protect the berries from dirt and stuff, too.
Right, so that’s another thing that you can do with the straw is kind of, and we definitely haven’t perfected this, but you can adjust the timing of the plants based on how much straw you leave on when you have that black plastic. So if you leave a lot of straw on, and you’re keepin’ that black plastic all covered, well, then you’re not really getting any, your plants aren’t gonna be any earlier than just a normal matted row system because, ’cause you’re not getting the benefit of the heated soil, which is
what we do a lot. We leave the straw on, because we don’t really wanna always, we don’t always wanna push ’em a whole lot earlier. We want some amount real early, but we don’t want our whole field coming on real early, ’cause that’s just a lot more frost protection to have to deal with. And our pick-your-own season, it’s real important that we have the bulk of our picking happening right after schools get out.
Yep, yep.
You know?
Yeah, if they’re ripe the week before, well, the kids are still busy, so.
Yeah, it’s hard to get the customers out.
Yeah.
It’s harder. So but you can affect how early those plants come on, and flower and fruit based on leaving more straw on or removing the straw. And so if you remove the straw from the plastic, there’s a lot of benefits to leave the straw also because you’re still, you’re not getting the splashing. You’re not getting the berries sitting on the plastic, which that can be problematic. Especially if it’s hot or if there’s water, a lot of rain, the moisture on the plastic, it can damage the berries when they’re sittin’ on the plastic. So it’s still nice to have that straw layer, even over top of the plastic. And then if you have a real hot year, like a couple years, 2019, those type of years when you’re havin’ a lot of high temperatures in the 90s in June, like you’re in fruiting season, you’re happy to have that straw coverin’ that black plastic, ’cause otherwise, you’d have even worse problems then.
You’d be pickin’ dehydrated berries.
Yeah, yeah, and the plants, like the roots get too hot, they just kinda give up.
Yeah, yeah, the season’s real quick on a hot summer. Did you have anything else you wanted to add about the topic of mulching?
People doin’ smaller scale, there are other shredders out there that can shred like square bales, small square bales, that are nice. We use the Teagle bale shredder, ’cause we need to put a lot out quick. But there are other shredders out there for smaller scale that people could look into if, you know, still speeds things up a lot. But using the larger bales just is also a lot more cost-effective, so.
Yeah, yeah, I’m sure. Especially if you’ve got a tractor to handle ’em.
Exactly.
You can’t handle a five-foot round bale-
Right.
By yourself. I mean, I guess you did.
Oh, yeah, we still drove ’em out in the field.
And just like plucked off ’em?
Unrolled ’em.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, you can kinda unroll ’em, and then spread pitchforks.
Sounds not fun.
No.
Like you said, after end of November, early December in Vermont.
Yeah, yeah.
You’re questioning your life at that point.
Right. Yeah, I am real excited about using more of the row covers, though. I mean the straw mulch is nice, though, ’cause you’re adding a lot of organic matter. So you are at least getting another benefit. ‘Cause it’s expensive and it’s important, but then you get that extra benefit, too, of you’re adding a lot of organic matter to that field.
That’s true.
Yeah, I mean, it’s a serious amount, you know? And so that is another benefit. But then, just for ease of things, using the row covers is pretty interesting to me, the TYPAR, and we have had good results with it on our plugs. I am certainly not ready to, I won’t be switching over completely any time soon-
Yeah, yeah.
But I do like it.
Like you said, it’s good to have a little diversity in your systems as well-
Um-hum.
In case weather affects one system differently than another, now your whole crop isn’t in one style.
Yeah.
Let’s talk a little bit about your overhead irrigation, frost protection, and that topic, while we’re still talkin’ about strawberries.
Yeah, so and it’s typically in May when we have a lot of, especially late May, when there’s a lot of flowers on the strawberry plants, you have to protect ’em from frost. And even pretty light frost can cause a lot of damage, and you really can lose a lot quickly. And it’s only when they’re flowering. Although depending on the temperatures, the buds as they’re first coming out of the ground or coming outta the crown can be damaged at certain temperatures. And then they get more and more sensitive and susceptible as they develop and open up. So you have to be prepared every year, even if, a lot of years, we don’t end up getting frost at that time. But if you’re not prepared, you’re gonna lose a lot at some point. So we do almost all overhead frost protection with the overhead irrigation. So every spring, we set up, we have solid set aluminum pipe, we set up our main lines, ’cause we don’t have permanent main lines out ’cause that’s really the only thing we’re usin’ it for, and the fields move year to year. So we have to set out all the solid set pipe, all the main line, and the two-inch laterals in the fields, and have everything set up and tested. I have a PTO-driven pump. You have to have, to cover three acres, we need to be prepared to turn on overhead irrigation on three acres at one time, you know, so-
That’s a lot of water.
It is, it is; it’s a lot of water. And so you need a big enough pump. Our pump we are using now is, it’s just big enough. It’s an older Hale pump. We actually had a even much bigger one before. But it can put out about 500 gallons a minute, I think, somethin’ like that. So it’s PTO-driven. You don’t wanna run that any more than you have to, because you wanna keep your field as dry as possible that time of the year. You don’t wanna contribute to molds and all of that, and root disease. And so you really don’t wanna run it any more than you have to, but you have to have it set up. So we set it up every year in April. We test it all out. I have, I always keep, try to keep spare seals and parts, and primer. Well, this year, the plunger in my primer on my pump tore, and so having extras of that stuff available, being extra-prepared, because in one night, I mean, for us, strawberries are such an important part of our business. I mean, at this point, they’re close to, I don’t know, about a third of our sales, our total gross sales in a year. And one night, you can lose, I mean, depending on how far along they’re flowering, but there’s the potential of losing three-quarters of that, you know, in a night. So it’s really important to have a system that you know is functioning. It’s set up well ahead of time; it’s tested. And then when it comes down to it, the nights that, if I see a possible frost, and I’ve learned to kinda read the forecast a little more, ’cause you don’t just rely on, like if it, I’ve noticed that, with the forecast, they can not be predicting a frost at all. I’ve seen forecasts where they’re calling for a low of 40, and we still have gotten a frost, so-
Whoops.
Yeah. So the things I look for, if I have flowers on plants, then I’m watching very closely. I’m looking for those nights that are clear skies and no wind. And if I have a clear sky night with no wind and they’re calling for any temperatures 40 or below, I’m not really sleeping that night. I-
You’re ready.
Yeah, I basically try to stay up all night pretty much, typically. I mean, I might get a couple hours of sleep, and I’ll set multiple alarms and all. And I have a sensor, like I use a remote sensor out in the field, so I can be looking at it at the house, but I don’t wait for that to alarm me, you know, because I, you know-
There’s too much on the line.
Too much the line, yeah. So I pretty much just don’t sleep those nights. I stay up all night. I go out, once I feel like there’s a risk of frost, I go out every half hour or hour or whatever. I go to the field where the berries are. Because we have a slope on the farm, and I’ve found that I can go out in my front yard, and then walk down to the field, and I’ve seen, I remember seeing one time a seven-degree difference from my front yard down the field. So it’s not good enough just to go step out front. I go down to the field, and what I tend to watch for, I don’t wanna run that frost protection any more than I have to, ’cause I don’t wanna put any more water on the field than I have to, but as soon as I see a real light, the very beginning of a light frost on the straw, then I’ll turn it on. And so then I fire up the tractor, prime the pump, and I get the overhead going, and I run that until the risk of frost is over the next morning. So until the temperatures come back up above freezing. And sometimes that results in a field covered in ice, you know? It’s like glass on the plants, you know? But it’s the best protection. Row covers work. You can get, I don’t know if I can remember the exact temperatures off the top of my head here, but you can get a few degrees protection from row covers. But I’ve lost flowers under row covers, especially with early-flowering strawberries, early season ones. You get a lot more protection from the irrigation. And so the way that works, for people who don’t really know about it, is that water, so you have to have the right amount of water going on a field at a time, a certain number of inches per hour. Because what’s happening is, as that water freezes, it’s actually releases a little bit of heat as water freezes. And it’s that heat that it releases that’s actually protecting the flower. And so it has to be continuous. You don’t wanna shut that water off while it’s still below freezing, because you can actually ultimately do more damage if you don’t do it right. So it has to stay on. That pump has to be reliable. That tractor has to be full of diesel, you know.
Ready to go.
Yeah, and some-
At three in the morning.
Yeah, and sometimes, like I said, some years, I haven’t ran it at all. And then, I believe it was last year, I think it was 2020, I think, I can’t remember, I had a week that was almost every night. I didn’t sleep, you know, for a week in May. ‘Cause if it’s even close, like I say, I don’t risk it. Yeah, you just have to be prepared.
Have you used the system to water them in June as well? Or have you not really needed to?
No, we use all drip tape.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, it’s actually, we have a lot of irrigation pipe and PTO pump, and everything, and that’s really all we use it for. We use drip irrigation for basically everything else. And even where we use a little bit of overhead, like on to get things to germinate, salad greens and stuff, we’re using MegaNet sprinklers, just ’cause the aluminum pipe, it’s just not worth setting up in different fields and going different, you know, we’re kinda spread out on the farm, and it’s just not worth resetting every time. So yeah, it’s really, it’s a single-use system. A lot of aluminum pipe, and a pump and everything. And some years, it doesn’t even-
Yeah.
Other than running it to test it, it doesn’t even get used. But it’s kind of a, it’s a lot of expense kinda sittin’ there not being used much. But you really have to have it. So one thing I’d say, and this is sort of a different topic, but one of the reasons you really don’t wanna be overwatering with that overhead is for mold protection. And that’s because actually most of the mold infection, like the gray mold, the Botrytis and stuff, happens when they’re flowering. A lot of people don’t realize that until they started growing strawberries that the infection starts in the flower, not later in the fruit, really. I mean it can, but most of the infection starts at flowering time. So any of the spraying and stuff that you are doing, you’re doing while they’re flowering. If you do it right, you’re doing it then and not when there’s fruit on the plant. So, like I said, we’re using this OxiDate as our only fungicide at this point. And it does require a lot more spraying, getting on the field more often than with the conventional sprays, but we’ve had really good results with it. As much as you can keep those flowers dry, you hope for kind of a dryer spring anyway when they’re flowering, and then running that irrigation as little as you can so that you’re not causing more mold, ’cause that’s the most critical time for the Botrytis is when they’re flowering.
Well, if others want to find and follow you, and see what you’re up to, how can they do that?
Yeah, let’s see, we have a website, fullbellyfarmvt. The vt’s important ’cause there’s another Full Belly Farm. And then, we are also on social media. I don’t really know how to tell you to find it, ’cause I don’t really deal with social media. I know we’re on Instagram and Facebook; my wife mostly deals with that, but you can find us there as well.
Look for the Vermont version-
Yeah.
Of Full Belly Farm. All right, well, thanks for being on the show.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If I can ask you or direct you to do one thing, that is to go to the website for this podcast, agengpodcast.com, that’s a-g-e-n-g-p-o-d-c-a-s-t dot-
com. There you’ll find the show notes. You’ll find links to the farmer who we chatted with today, as well as photos or videos from the call when I visited the farm. If you’ve got some feedback to share, my contact information’s on there, or you can leave me a voicemail. And you can do that right from the link in the description, in the mobile app you’re listening to this to, so go ahead and do that. Thanks again for listening, and I hope you have a great day.