Learning a lot by bouncing around.

The conference next week can feel so strange. There are some things which we are eager to hear about and others which are outside of our type of farming. Take the Tuesday morning session on Pickling Cucumber (yes two full hours on growing pickles!)

-Using Technology to Track and Avoid Losses from Downy Mildew
-Tank Mixes, Higher Rates, and Crop Rotation to Improve Weed Control in Continuous Pickle Production
-Enhancing Pollination Through Use of Wild, Feral, and Domesticated Bumblebees, Honey Bees, and Other Insects
-Efficiency and Economic Returns with Current Pickle Harvesters You can probably guess which of these four we may slip into... - Hint: it doesn't involve expensive single crop technology or mix rates for chemical applications.

Most of the conference is like this, with us bouncing from session to session between the two of us we may sit in on 4 different session in any given time slot. Or we may pop in and then leave and come back. Take the Grape session for instance:

-YES - Development of a Sustainable Protocol for Grape Growers in Southwest Ontario

-no - Mechanization Strategies for Profitable Production of Concord Grapes

- maybe - Grape Decline Diseases in Michigan

- no - Controlling Grape Berry Moth Using a Phenology Model and New Insecticides

-YES - Evaluation of Strategies to Achieve Sustainable Production of Concord grapes in Michigan

Great Lakes Expo...

This time next week I will be at the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo. We went to this show and learnt a lot, first among them being that once there we were not in Kansas anymore. Welcome to the big bad world of commercial vegetables where we are not even small fish in a small pond, more like a goldfish in a bowl where we can see the small pond out the window!

There are half day sessions on lots of different things. A half day on carrots, a half day on onions, a full day on blueberries, a full day on apples, and on and on. Most of the focus is on conventional, but the sessions are broken into a series of half hour long pieces and we can float in and out and hear those sessions which we can use.

And Organics? Not so much. It is actually pretty funny, the expo hall closes at 12:00 on Thrusday at 1:00-3:00 that day they have the organic sessions. That being siad the organic sessions last year were very good. This year they look excellent: The Cornell Soil Health Assessment Protocol and the Connection Between Soil Health and Root Health, Biofumigation and Soil Health with Mustard Cover Crops, Soil Management in Organic Tomato and Pumpkin Production, Sweet Potatoes: The Next Big Crop for up North?, & Organic Weed and Soil Management: Insights from a NY Vegetable and Grain Farmer.

I can honestly say I learnt a ton more at this conventional confrence then at any of the

Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo

We got back today from the Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo in Grand Rapids. We spent three very informative days learning lots of stuff.

We got into the city around 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon and went right to the expo. As we were walking from our car in the parking garage to go register we over heard the conversation of a couple in front of us. They were talking about a couple they had met who were talking about grass fed beef. They were doubtful of the economics of the system and the women said "I think they were ORGANIC PEOPLE." The husband nodded and the conversation was over, that explained all the strange ideas.

That about sums up our experience. We were "organic people." When you sign up they asked you to identify the type of farming you do and one of the checks was for organic. So our name tags said "ORG," and we were out of the closet as we walked around. Salesmen did not want to talk to us, people sitting near us at workshops ignored us, and we had a pretty strange experience all around.

We attended a lot of educational sessions and were able to glean a lot of information amongst the workshops geared at conventional farmers. The exhibit hall closed at 1:00 Thursday and all the organic sessions were held from 1:00 to 3:00 the last day when most of the people were gone. And that session was interesting! I will post more about that later. Right now we have hundreds of ideas swirling in our heads and it will take a couple weeks to process it all and integrate into our plans for next year!